Your name in the Torah: in Hebrew letters, as a number, with the verse it lands on and the sources. Computed, not divined. Free.
Your name
You did not choose your name. It was given — almost always after someone who came before you.
Leah (לאה) stands in the Torah as a word of its own — 28 times. First in Genesis 29:16.
Leah (לאה) — The meaning is debated: “weary” or “wild cow.” Laban’s elder daughter, Jacob’s wife, mother of six tribes including Levi and Judah (Genesis 29–30).
And the same number belongs to the Torah word אלה — “these or those”.
36 and 36.
The verse of your name
There is a sentence with which, by custom, a person answers when asked who they are.
Yours is this one.
לישועתך קויתי ה׳
Genesis 49:18
The verse is chosen by the custom: it begins with the first letter of your name, ל, and ends with the last, ה.
The custom is written down in the Kitzur Shelah and in Sefer Ben Zion: “say it regularly and never forget it as long as you live.” The Rokeach gives the reason in Chochmat ha-Nefesh: a person is asked their name, and whoever does not remember cannot answer. The verse holds the name for them. Siddur ha-Rashban puts it more plainly: children were made to learn their verse by heart — so that if they were taken and forgot everything else, they would still know who they were.
The week you were born
Add your date of birth and we will show which portion the world was reading the week you appeared, and whether it holds a word of your number.
How rare this number is
A word with the number 36 appears in 42 of the 54 weekly portions. That is a common number — it is in most portions.
What is left
We counted your name in one system. There are nine, and they give nine different numbers. When several systems lead to the same portion, the tradition reads that theme as strong. So far you have one.
Below — how this was counted, letter by letter.
Leah — A name of biblical origin — its biblical spelling is used. If your name is spelled differently, correct the Hebrew spelling and the report is recomputed.
לאה
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is לאה. The meaning is debated: “weary” or “wild cow.” Laban’s elder daughter, Jacob’s wife, mother of six tribes including Levi and Judah (Genesis 29–30). Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 36 — the same as the Torah word אלה, “these or those”. That number points to Torah page 36 of 354 — in the portion Chayei Sarah. What that portion is about: Sarah's death and the purchase of the cave of Machpelah; the servant seeks a wife for Isaac; Rebecca at the well; Abraham's death. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Genesis 49:18. Each of these steps is laid out below with its sources. There are no predictions or judgments here — only the text of the Torah and arithmetic you can check.
Adding up the letters of the name לאה gives 36.
36
The number 36 is the Torah word אלה — «these or those» (Genesis 2:4).
Thirty-six Hanukkah lights over eight days; the “lamed-vav”, thirty-six righteous (Talmud, Sukkah 45b).
The number 36, as the remainder modulo 354, points to Torah page 36 in the book of Bereshit (Genesis). These are its opening words:
חסד עם אדני ויהי הוא טרם כלה לדבר …
The verse this place falls on is Bereshit (Genesis) 24:14:
וְהָיָה הַנַּעֲרָ אֲשֶׁר אֹמַר אֵלֶיהָ הַטִּי־נָא כַדֵּךְ וְאֶשְׁתֶּה וְאָמְרָה שְׁתֵה וְגַם־גְּמַלֶּיךָ אַשְׁקֶה אֹתָהּ הֹכַחְתָּ לְעַבְדְּךָ לְיִצְחָק וּבָהּ אֵדַע כִּי־עָשִׂיתָ חֶסֶד עִם־אֲדֹנִי
So let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say: Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say: Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also; let the same be she that Thou hast appointed for Thy servant, even for Isaac; and thereby shall I know that Thou hast shown kindness unto my master.'
This is from the portion Chayei Sarah. What it is about: Sarah's death and the purchase of the cave of Machpelah; the servant seeks a wife for Isaac; Rebecca at the well; Abraham's death.
The same number, 36, is given by these biblical names:
לאה · אלה · אחיטוב · הודויה
Nine ways of counting
The tradition counts the same name in several ways. The main one is above: each letter is its number. The other eight are old and checkable too; each gives its own number, and many of them have a Torah word with the same number.
Final letters as 500–900 (mispar gadol) — 36. A Torah word with the same number is אלה — “these or those” (Genesis 2:4).
Reduced, each letter to one digit (mispar katan) — 9. A Torah word with the same number is בוא — “to go or come” (Genesis 2:19).
Ordinal: alef 1, bet 2 … tav 22 (mispar siduri) — 18. A Torah word with the same number is חי — “alive” (Genesis 1:20).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 121. A Torah word with the same number is אצל — “a side” (Genesis 39:10).
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 926.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 97. A Torah word with the same number is נזם — “a nose-ring” (Genesis 24:22).
The word that comes out is כתצ. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 510. A Torah word with the same number is ירש — “to occupy” (Genesis 15:3).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 191.
The number 36 appears in the classical books 19 times across 16 works. The earliest mention is ילקוט שמעוני (~1260).
The name לאה appears in the Torah as a word 28 times. The first time is Genesis 29:16. Another 5 times it stands with prefixes — “and”, “in”, “the”.
The verse of your name
There is a custom: at the end of the prayer one says a Torah verse that begins with the first letter of one's name and ends with its last. For לאה these are ל and ה. The Pentateuch has 27 such verses. The first of them is Genesis 49:18:
לישועתך קויתי ה׳
This is from the portion Vayechi. What it is about: Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh and all his sons; Jacob's death and burial in Hebron; Joseph's death.
Each Hebrew letter has a number; a word's number is their sum (alef 1 … tav 400). The page is the remainder modulo 354: the Torah divided into 354 pages of 861 letters, as the lunar year has 354 days. Everything can be checked by hand.
Биньямин Пичхадзе, «Хумаш 354» (חומש 354), Бней-Брак, 2002 / התשס״ג · A calculation, not a prediction.