How do you calculate gematria

Gematria is an ancient Hebrew system for assigning numeric values to words. It is used in many religions and philosophies as a way of identifying connections between words, or between different aspects of religious writings. The most common application of gematria is the interpretation of the biblical stories and texts through the use of numerical symbolism. This can be done in various ways, such as counting or paying attention to the numerical order that letters have in a word.

To calculate gematria, you start by assigning a number for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet; Aleph=1, Bet=2, and so on to Tav (which is 400). Once you have assigned numbers to each letter, you can determine the numerical value of any word by adding up the numbers assigned to each letter. For example, if you wanted to calculate the gematria value of the word "chai" (which means "alive"), you would assign 4 to each letter (Chet=8, Heh=5, Yud=10) for a total value of 19 (8+5+10).

In some cases, particularly with longer words or phrases, it may be necessary to use multiple calculations in order to get an accurate numerical representation. For example, if we are calculating the gematria value for Binyamin Benyaminit (a Biblical figure), we would need to add up four separate calculations: Binya = 68; Mi = 80; Ni = 103; Tin = 400 resulting in 651.

In addition to calculating gematria values for words and phrases, this system can also be used to numerically analyze two or more related words or verses. In these cases, it is important to note that some calculations may produce negative results and should not be considered when interpreting the numbers' meaning. For example if one were calculating gematria for 'Baruch Adonai' vs that for 'Shema Israel' then it could give us a negative result (-1007). This does not mean that this comparison has no significance – rather it is indicative that there may be some complication in interpreting their relationship from a numerical point of view alone.

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