The Alphabet - Letters of the Torah

Beginning overview of the Hebrew letters

Notes: The five letters with 'sofit' (end-of-word) forms are a later development of the alphabet; their numeric values are used infrequently.

Letter	Name	Num. value	Other Info
א	alef	1	-
ב	beit/veit	2	-
ג	gimel	3	-
ד	dalet	4	-
ה	hei	5	Written 'kei'in the Divine Name
ו	vav	6	-
ז	zayin	7	-
ח	chet	8	-
ט	tet	9	-
י	yud	10	A 'dot' indicating self-nullification
כ	caf/chaf	20	-
ך	caf-sofit	500	-
ל	lamed	30	-
מ	mem	40	-
ם	mem-sofit	600	-
נ	nun	50	-
ן	nun-sofit	700	-
ס	samech	60	-
ע	ayin	70	Nothingness before Creation
פ	pei/fei	80	-
ף	pei-sofit	800	-
צ	tzadi	90	-
ץ	tzadi-sofit	900	-
ק	kuf	100	-
ר	reish	200	-
ש	shin	300	-
ת	tav/sav	400	.

By Yerachmiel Tilles

Yerachmiel Tilles is the co-founder of Ascent-of-Safed, and was its educational director for 18 years. He is the creator of www.ascentofsafed.com and www.kabbalaonline.org, and currently the director of both sites. He is also a well-known storyteller, a columnist for numerous chassidic publications, and a staff rabbi on AskMoses.com.

The Zohar is a basic work of Kabbalah authored by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his students (2nd century CE). English translation of annotated selections by Rabbi Moshe Miller (Morristown, N.J.: Fiftieth Gate Publications, 2000) includes a detailed introduction covering the history and basic concepts of Kabbalah. Volume 1 (36 pp.) covers the first half of the first of the original’s three volumes. It is available online from our store, KabbalaOnline Shop.

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March 22, 2011

Numerical Values

What does the numerical values mean?

Anonymous