The name Amichai in Hebrew letters is עמיחי. Below: how its number adds up, which page of the Torah it falls on and what verse stands there. Everything is computed, nothing is guessed.
עמיחי
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is עמיחי. A Hebrew name made of am, “people”, and chai, “alive”: “my people lives”. It is a modern name used in Israel. The poet Yehuda Amichai chose it as his family name. This is its Hebrew spelling. Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 138 — the same as the Torah word לקח, “to take”. That number points to Torah page 138 of 354 — in the portion Terumah. What that portion is about: The offering for the Sanctuary; the Ark, the table and the lampstand; the Tabernacle and its curtains; the altar. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Genesis 26:5. Each of these steps is laid out below with its sources. Every figure can be checked by hand.
You wrote “Amichai” — this exact spelling is what was calculated: עמיחי. A name from the Tanakh — its Tanakh spelling is used. If your name is spelled differently, correct the Hebrew spelling and the report is recomputed.
Adding up the letters of the name עמיחי gives 138.
138
The number 138 is the Torah word לקח — «to take» (Genesis 2:15).
And for the gate of the court shall be a screen of twenty cubits, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, the work of the weaver in colours: their pillars four, and their sockets four.
This is from the portion Terumah. What it is about: The offering for the Sanctuary; the Ark, the table and the lampstand; the Tabernacle and its curtains; the altar.
Other 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) — 138. A Torah word with the same number is לקח — “to take” (Genesis 2:15).
Reduced, each letter to one digit (mispar katan) — 21. A Torah word with the same number is אך — “only, surely” (Genesis 7:23).
Ordinal: alef 1, bet 2 … tav 22 (mispar siduri) — 57. A Torah word with the same number is מזבח — “altar” (Genesis 8:20).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 616. A Torah word with the same number is יתרו — “Jethro, father-in-law of Moses” (Exodus 3:1).
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 6764.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 566. A Torah word with the same number is ישרון — “Jeshurun, name of Israel” (Deuteronomy 32:15).
The letters that come out are זימסמ — not a word that stands in the Pentateuch. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 157. A Torah word with the same number is זקן — “old, elder” (Genesis 18:11).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 668. A Torah word with the same number is מרכבתו — “his chariot” (Genesis 46:29).
The number 138 appears in the classical books 17 times across 12 works. The earliest mention is כל בו (~1300).
Every letter of the name explained, the words and namesakes with references, the Hebrew date, the letter and tribe of the month, day 861 of your life (±1), the psalm by age, the attestations from the classical books — a PDF sent to your email.
The number of the day, every morning
Every date has a number too. Once a year it will match the number of your name — 138. The channel posts one number a day, one verse and the Torah page it lands on. Nothing after it, no mailing list.
Hebrew is written from right to left. עמיחי has 5 letters: ע Ayin, מ Mem, י Yod, ח Chet, י Yod. The first letter is Ayin, the last is Yod.
For an engraving, a sign or a tattoo, show the spelling to someone who reads Hebrew: transliterating a name is a choice, not the only option.
The name עמיחי does not stand as a word in the Pentateuch — as with most names, including many Tanakh names from the later books.
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 עמיחי these are ע and י. The Pentateuch has 3 such verses. The first of them is Genesis 26:5:
עקב אשר שמע אברהם בקלי וישמר משמרתי מצותי חקותי ותורתי
This is from the portion Toldot. What it is about: The birth of Esau and Jacob; the birthright sold for lentil stew; Isaac's wells; Jacob receives the blessing.
«And for the gate of the court shall be a screen of twenty cubits, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, the work of the weaver in colours: their pillars four, and their sockets four.»
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.
