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Gematria
abOut the authOr
Rabbi Avraham Arieh Trugman has been involved in Jew-
ish education for over forty years. As a founding member of
Moshav Mevo Modiim in 1976, he went on to be director at the
moshav’s Center of Jewish Education, which successfully ran
programs for over five thousand participants from over twenty-
five countries a year. In 1988 he took the position of regional
director of NCSY in Denver, Colorado, where he and his wife
created a new region. He returned to Israel in 1995 and cur-
rently serves as the director of Ohr Chadash: New Horizons in
Jewish Experience, which he founded with his wife.
Rabbi Trugman is the author of Seeds and Sparks: Inspira-
tion and Self-Expression through the Cycles of Jewish Life, The
Mystical Power of Music, The Mystical Meaning of Dreams,
Secrets of the Magen David, The Mystical Nature of Light, Re-
turn Again: The Dynamics of Reincarnation, Sefirat HaOmer,
Becoming a Master of Time: A Spiritual Guide to Time Man-
agement, Reflections at Sunset: Collected Poems of Rabbi Avra-
ham Arieh Trugman, Prophecy & Divine Inspiration, The Lights
of Chanukah: One Hundred Meditations, Hamaayan Hamit-
gaber and Shivim Panim (both in Hebrew); and has published
articles and poems in a wide variety of publications. He has
also produced five CDs of original music: Strings of the Soul,
Modeh Ani, From World to World, Symphony of the Spirit and
Merkavah.
Rabbi Trugman appears at Shabbat programs and lectures
extensively worldwide.
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Appendix I
gematria
One of the most important of the thirteen rules (recited every
morning during the first part of the Morning Prayer Service) adopted
by the Sages to interpret the Torah is the gezerah shavah, a method
which compares similar words used in different biblical contexts to
clarify their meaning. This device is used literally hundreds of times
in the Talmud to shed light on issues ranging from Jewish law, to the
alluded, allegorical, and mystical meanings of the text. Quite simply,
it is the rabbinic way of “connecting the dots” of Torah and of life
itself.
Gematria, Jewish numerology, works according to the same
principle. In Hebrew, each letter has a numerical equivalent.
According to Kabbalah, if two words or phrases share the same
numerical value, they possess some deep underlying connection.
Gematria reveals a deeper set of correspondences that the external
layer of the text alludes to and points to an entire mathematical
structure underlying the Torah. Just as physics and chemistry rest
on a mathematical foundation, so too the deeper dimensions of Torah
are revealed though gematria.
Indeed, the Sages relate to the Hebrew letters the same way
scientists do to atoms, particles, molecules, and elements – as the
building blocks of creation. We can explain that just as an incredible
amount of energy is packed into an infinitesimally small atom,
Divine light and energy are intensely contracted into the Hebrew
letters, which function as conduits, serving as the channels of Divine
speech. Although the languages of science and Torah are different
they both describe the same reality.
Yet, it is not Kabbalah alone that employs gematria. The Talmud,
the Midrash, and Rashi also use this technique to illustrate a cogent
idea when necessary, and it has been used as well by a wide variety of
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