Genesis, Gematria Reveal Deep Hebrew Significance of Man

October 23, 2016

3 min read

What does the Hebrew alphabet have to do with the creation of Man? If one considers the words of the Torah, it becomes amazingly clear that the two are deeply entwined and, indeed, inseparable.

On the sixth day of creation, God made man.

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. (Genesis 1:27)

The first man is called Adom (אָדָם). Why did God choose to call man this?

“In Judaism, the sages teach that God first created the Hebrew alphabet and then used those letters to create the world,” explained Roni Segal, the academic adviser for eTeacher, an online language academy specializing in the Hebrew language, to Breaking Israel News. “Knowing the depths of each Hebrew letter gives insights into understanding a bit of God’s plan for the world as well as the purpose of man’s existence.”

For example, Adom is made up of the Hebrew letter aleph, which always represents God, and then “dom”. “Dom” דם in Hebrew means blood. The Bible states:

Then Hashem God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)

When God breathed life into man, He placed a bit of Himself, so to speak, into the blood of every human being to teach that man is meant to be God-like, sages teach.

“Hebrew numerology, called gematria, brings even deeper understanding to the purpose of man,” continued Segal. “The value of dom, blood, is 44. A person’s blood is formed through the blending of his mother and father. In Hebrew, mother is eem, which equals 41 in gematria and father is av, which equals 3 in gematria.

“The total value of mother and father is 44, the same as the value of the blood they create together.”

Segal went on to explain that human beings are meant to be both spiritual and physical as they live out their lives in this world. Should a person only want to connect to their spirituality through their aleph Godliness or only want to connect to their blood physicality, they are not fulfilling God’s desire for man. A person must live fully in the physical world while bringing spirituality into their lives through Godly acts in their day to day lives.

Segal then showed that through understanding Hebrew, it becomes even clearer that man was not created to live life like an animal. “The Hebrew word for animal is beh-hay-mah, בְּהֵמָה. Beh means ‘in it is’ and mah means ‘what it is’. We understand from this that an animal is just an animal. It is what it is.

“This is totally different than man who has a Godly soul and therefore infinite potential. Man is meant to take what ever gifts God granted him and become greater each day. That is certainly not the expectation for an animal.”

Another way to achieve deeper understanding of a Hebrew word is through rearranging the letters of the word. When the Hebrew letters for Adom אָדָם are rearranged, they spell mah-ohd מְאֹד, which means “more”. Man is meant to become more each day through refining his character and actions.

Returning to Genesis 2:7, God created man from the ground, which, in Hebrew, is ah-dah-mah, אֲדָמָה. Aleph represents God. The next three letters, דמה, makes up the word doh-may and means “resemble” or “similar”. By creating man from earth, with these Hebrew letters, God is teaching us that we can choose how we will live our lives. Human beings can resemble God through performing good deeds or be like the lowliest dirt that has no intrinsic value except for what people create out of it.

“Hebrew is a fascinating and fun language to study,” expressed Segal to Breaking Israel News. “If someone ever questioned what they were created for, the answer is revealed through Hebrew. Studying the Bible in the Holy language brings a depth of understanding which cannot be reached in any other language.”

To learn more about the Hebrew language, click here.

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