The name Josselin in Hebrew letters is ז׳וסלן. 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.
ז׳וסלן
In short
Your name in Hebrew letters is ז׳וסלן. Adding up the numbers of its letters gives 153 — the same as the Torah word פגע, “to meet, entreat”. That number points to Torah page 153 of 354 — in the portion Ki Tisa. What that portion is about: The half-shekel for the census; the golden calf and the broken tablets; the thirteen attributes of mercy; the second tablets. The verse that begins with the first letter of your name and ends with the last is Genesis 49:13. Each of these steps is laid out below with its sources. Every figure can be checked by hand.
You wrote “Josselin” — this exact spelling is what was calculated: ז׳וסלן. 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 ז׳וסלן gives 153.
153
The number 153 is the Torah word פגע — «to meet, entreat» (Genesis 23:8).
But when Moses went in before HaShem that He might speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out; and spoke unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.
This is from the portion Ki Tisa. What it is about: The half-shekel for the census; the golden calf and the broken tablets; the thirteen attributes of mercy; the second tablets.
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) — 803. A Torah word with the same number is באתת — “with the banners” (Numbers 2:2).
Reduced, each letter to one digit (mispar katan) — 27. A Torah word with the same number is בכה — “to weep” (Genesis 21:16).
Ordinal: alef 1, bet 2 … tav 22 (mispar siduri) — 54. A Torah word with the same number is מטה — “staff, tribe” (Genesis 38:18).
Cumulative: a letter plus all letters before it (mispar kidmi) — 604. A Torah word with the same number is צדקתי — “my righteousness” (Genesis 30:33).
Squares of the letter values (mispar perati) — 7085.
Building: the sum grows with each letter (mispar bone’eh) — 349. A Torah word with the same number is שטם — “to bear a grudge” (Genesis 27:41).
The letters that come out are עפחכט — not a word that stands in the Pentateuch. Atbash: letters mirrored, alef for tav, bet for shin, and the number of the resulting word — 187. A Torah word with the same number is מספוא — “fodder” (Genesis 24:25).
Filling: the names of the letters are counted — alef, bet, gimel… (milui) — 379. A Torah word with the same number is בשמאלו — “in his left hand” (Genesis 48:13).
The number 153 appears in the classical books 3 times across 1 work. The earliest mention is מגלה עמוקות (~1637).
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 — 153. 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. ז׳וסלן has 5 letters: ז Zayin, ו Vav, ס Samekh, ל Lamed, ן final Nun. The first letter is Zayin, the last is final Nun.
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 ז׳וסלן 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 ז׳וסלן these are ז and נ. The Pentateuch has 4 such verses. The first of them is Genesis 49:13:
זבולן לחוף ימים ישכן והוא לחוף אניות וירכתו על צידן
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.
Any name written in Hebrew letters is a number: ז׳וסלן = 153. And every date has a number of its own. There is a day in the year when the two coincide.
«But when Moses went in before HaShem that He might speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out; and spoke unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.»
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.
