The name of all these “games” Kabbalists play with letters and numbers is Gematria. Ancient Kabbalists perfected Gematria to a point that they could (and did) describe the whole of creation and the Creator-creation relationship using Gematria, as the following sections demonstrate.
Gematria is an expression of the state of a Kli that discovers the Creator. The Kli discovers Him within its own structure. The Kli is made of 10 Sefirot. These 10 Sefirot are divided into the tip of the letter Yod, and then the letters Yod, Hey, Vav, and Hey again. This four-letter structure is known as the tetragrammaton (in Greek), HaVaYaH (in Hebrew), and Yaweh or JHVH or Jehovah (in English).
The first Sefira, Keter, belongs to the tip of the Yod; the second Sefira, Hochma, to the Yod; and the third Sefira, Bina, to Hey. The next Sefira, ZA, contains six internal Sefirot: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod. All those Sefirot are contained in the letter Vav. And the last Hey is Malchut, which is also the last Sefira.
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Tidbits
We already said that there is no bad in Kabbalah; it’s all a question of how we relate to the situations we’re in. Pharaoh is considered an evil force. But Kabbalists inverted the Hebrew letters of the name Pharaoh, and found that it really meant Oref H (the posterior side of the Creator). In other words Pharaoh is really the Creator, harshly goading you to progress to spirituality because you are not pushing yourself hard enough. If you push harder, you will find that Pharaoh is really your friend.
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As a matter of fact, HaVaYaH isn’t just the structure of one Kli; it is the structure of every Kli—and of everything there is, was, or will be. It is the building-blocks of existence. Like a hologram, however small you cut it, you’ll always get a structure of 10 complete Sefirot, contained in HaVaYaH. This is also why these four letters comprise the word havayah (a generic term that in Hebrew means existence, being).
Abraham Took It Personally (and so can you)
It’s important to understand that there is a relationship between the letters, Sefirot, and the Kli because, in Kabbalah, a person’s name stands for a person’s spiritual Kli. Abraham, for instance, stands for a very specific kind of relationship between the Creator and creation. Abraham stands for a soul that made a certain kind of correction. When he was born, his name was Abram. But after he made the correction of turning his desires from egoistic to altruistic, he changed his name to Abraham. The added h stands for adding the Hey of Bina to his name, the Creator’s quality of altruism. This indicates that he has risen to that spiritual level.