Lesson 7: How to Read a Person's Name

Ever wonder how it is that the big Rebbe's are able to look at your name on a paper and read it?

Well there are many arts which enable them to do so. One is to have such purity that you simply see what it is you should about people. Hashem does not give a gift like this to those who judge others unfavorably. Through purity and looking at others with a good eye, only seeing peoples good, you can attain this.

The other methods used are by looking at the shine on a person's forehead and face. This tells a lot about a person and can even reveal there true nature.

The Zohar explains how to look at the shape of the head, the color of eyes/hair, looking at the nose, beard and ears.

There are a few methods through looking at a person's Hebrew name. If you notice, the gabayim of Rebbes always writes your name on a white sheet of paper with no lines before they give it to the Rebbe. I was told ,from the gaby of a rebbe that they don't use lined paper because it interfeers with the seeing of the name. For a great Tzaddik, when he sees the name, he sees the gematria of the letters, he sees the 4 elements and without thinking, if he is on a high level, he sees the root of the soul.

I will be explaining to you how to see the 4 elements in a person's name. Through testing, I have found this way to be 98% accurate. There were those few who totally were totally opposite and for it, we found no answer.

This is a basic chart showing which letters match a corresponding element.

Now that you know the basic classifications of the letters, let us now explain how much power each letter has of its corresponding element. Sefer Medresh Talfeos tells us that the power of the letters aleph, Gimel, Daled, Bais each have 28 strengths. The lowest 1 out of 28 of these letters is higher then the highest power of the next letter and so on. So, baring this in mind we did a guess and gave each letter a certain number of strength so that we can weigh all the letters in a name. See Chart.

FIRE	א7 ה6 ט5 מ4 פ3 ש2 ן1
AIR	ג7 ז6 ס5 כ4 ק3 ך2 ף1
WATER	ד6 ח5 ל4 ע3 ר2 ם1
EARTH	ב7 ו6 י5 נ4 צ3 ת2 ץ1

So let us take the name Rivka רבקה

WATER	ר	2	2 Total
EARTH	ב	7	7 Total
AIR	ק	3	3 Total
FIRE	ה	6	6 Total

Rikva is a very balanced name as you can see baring all the elements. Its strongest are Earth and fire. It is a bit weak in the element of water. Usually a person doesn't have too much air in their name and that is normal to be a lower number.

So let us now take the name Moshe Simcha משה שמחה. As you can see, this name is very off balanced. It has a tremendous amount of fire but very little earth. It is good that it has earth as it helps to stabilize the strong fire but it is not nearly enough to balance it. Lacking in both the other elements will give this person certain challenges to face with the world and their personality. Having never met Moshe Simcha, I would assume the following about him. He is a very spiritual person and has a lot of trouble grounding himself with worldly affairs. Things he starts, he has trouble finishing but he has many dreams, not knowing how to make them a reality. His personal life is an interesting one since he prefers to keep more to himself. He doesn't really pursue a materialistic life.

WATER			0 Total
EARTH	ח	5	5 Total
AIR			0 Total
FIRE	משהשמה	4,2,6,2,4,6	24 Total

So how do we help Moshe Simcha? Well, if Moshe asked me where to live, I would recommend that he didn't live in Jerusalem because it is the city which bares the element of fire.

WATER	Tiberios
EARTH	Chevron
AIR	Tzfat
FIRE	Jerusalem

I would also recommend that Moshe pays special attention to caring for his materialistic needs. He should push himself to attend social events and try to finish the projects he begins. Id also try to encourage him to do many acts of chesed. Baring in mind that he has lots of fire, he should try to direct this in a good way and use it to learn much Torah and to inspire others with it.

Other factors that play a role are the astrological planets and times he was born. His upbringing, the merit of his ancestors, how much he has worked on himself, his age and his marriage partner.

Another secret of the letters is that the first letter of each name has a very powerful effect on the person. So, even though the name Rivka (which we used above), doesn't have so much water, since it starts with the letter Raish, water has a strong hold on Rivka.

	The Baal HaTanya SAYS		Rebbe Nachman says
WATER-	MAKES GROW ALL KINDS OF ENJOYMENT	APPETITE FOR PLEASURES	VEGATABLE LIFE FORM	EVIL PASSIONS
EARTH		SLOTH & MELANCHOLY	MINERAL LIFE FORM, DRY, COLD, INANIMATE	SADNESS
AIR		FRIVOLITY & SCOFFING, BOASTING & IDLE TALK
FIRE-	NATURE TO RISE UPWARDS	ANGER, PRIDE,

Above, in their root, the elements correspond the four letters of Hashem's name, YKVK. But, below, (in our world), They are a mixture of both good and bad. Rebbe Nachman explains the posuk, "Mashpil Resha'im Ah'dey Eretz," He casts the wicked down to the ground. (Psalms 147:6) The initial letters correspond to the initial letters of the four elements: Esh, Ruach, Mayim, Ah'far (fire, air, water, earth). [They] encompass all qualities and traits. A person has to completely purity these [traits] so that none of the bad found in any trait of the four elements has any hold on him. (Likutey Maharan 8)

TO BE CONTINUED...