Calculate a Hebrew word’s gematria
Gematria assigns each Hebrew letter a fixed numerical value, and a word’s gematria is the sum of its letters. This calculator computes the standard gematria (Mispar Hechrachi) of any Hebrew word or phrase and shows you the breakdown letter by letter.
How it works
Each of the 22 Hebrew letters has a fixed value:
- Alef–Tet are 1–9.
- Yud–Tsadi are 10–90 in tens.
- Kuf, Resh, Shin, Tav are 100, 200, 300, 400.
The tool walks through your input character by character, looks up each Hebrew
letter’s value, and adds them up. Final (sofit) forms — ך ם ן ף ץ — share the
value of their base letters, so final Mem ם counts as 40. Anything that is not
a Hebrew letter, such as spaces or Latin text, is skipped.
The full value table
| Letters | Values |
|---|---|
| א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 |
| י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ | 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 |
| ק ר ש ת | 100 200 300 400 |
| Final forms ך ם ן ף ץ | 20 40 50 80 90 (same as base) |
Worked examples
חַי (chai, “living”): Het (ח) = 8, Yud (י) = 10. Total = 18. This value is deeply significant in Jewish tradition — the number 18 is associated with life, and charitable gifts are often given in multiples of 18 for this reason.
חַיִּים (chayyim, “life”): Het = 8, Yud = 10, Yud = 10, Final Mem (ם) = 40. Total = 68.
אֱמֶת (emet, “truth”): Alef (א) = 1, Mem (מ) = 40, Tav (ת) = 400. Total = 441. Notably, this word spans the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a symmetry that is pointed out in rabbinic commentary.
שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”): Shin (ש) = 300, Lamed (ל) = 30, Vav (ו) = 6, Mem (ם) = 40. Total = 376.
How gematria is used
Gematria appears in several distinct contexts:
Torah study and commentary. Rabbinic commentators (in Midrash, Talmud, and later works) use gematria to draw connections between words or phrases that share the same numerical value, suggesting a deeper interpretive link. Two words with equal gematria values can be used to illuminate each other’s meaning.
Kabbalistic tradition. In Kabbalah, gematria is a systematic interpretive tool alongside other textual analysis methods. The numerical structure of letters and words is understood to carry additional layers of meaning beyond the surface reading.
Practical and folk use. The use of 18 (chai) in charitable giving is a mainstream example. Numbers derived from names or words appear in amulets, dedications of synagogues, and lifecycle event customs.
Contemporary use. Gematria is widely used today in both religious study and popular culture. Online communities analyse names, phrases, and current events through this lens, and writers of Jewish-themed fiction use it for authentic world-building detail.
Choosing a gematria method
This tool calculates Mispar Hechrachi (standard gematria), the default and most widely cited method. Other methods exist — Mispar Gadol (which assigns final letters higher values: final Kaf=500 through final Tsadi=900), Atbash (which reverses the alphabet), and many others — but Mispar Hechrachi is the baseline that most references and discussions use unless otherwise specified.
All computation runs locally — nothing you type leaves your browser.