give and take

Today is the hillulah of Rabbi Menachem Azarya of Pano

He shared this truly awesome Torah: (quoted from nehora.com)

The word "Tzedakah" -- Tzadi, Dalet, Kuf, Hey -- when transposed into its At-Bash equivalent (whereby each letter, according to its order in the alphabet, is interchanged with the letter in the corresponding place starting from the other side of the alphabet. Thus the first letter (Aleph) becomes the last (Tav), Bet becomes Shin, etc.) comes out to be the exact same word spelled backwards -- Hey, Kuf, Dalet, Tzadi! This may be meant to demonstrate that whatever charity a person gives is bound to return to him in the opposite direction, as "charity" from God! Give charity, and God will safeguard your wealth.

This is just amazing. If you want to see it in action, you can use my simple gematria engine (it gives you the atbash אתב"ש of the word as well as all the words in chumash that share the gematrias in question) You can also find a brief explanation of Atbash and a table of the permutation here. (it's the about page from the gematria engine)

questions that heal the world

Uncertainty, ספק, shares the same gematria with עמלק - Amalek. (gematria 240) So when we are in a place of halachic uncertainty, and we go to a Rav, and ask a sh'ela and receive a psak, we are fulfilling the mitzwah of wiping out the memory of Amalek, by removing halachic uncertainty from our lives. (by transforming a ספק into a פסק)

the golden rule

The word with the largest gematria in the whole Chumash is used in this week's parashah, when Datan and Aviram ask Mosheh why should he rule them. (תשתרר - gematria 1500)

From this I learn the tremendous potential of our speech. The 'heaviest' word (in the gematria sense) in all of the Five Books of Mosheh could have been used to say something about HaShem's Kingship in the world, and instead it was used to challenge the word of HaShem.