Count position in the alphabet and ignore the decimal values: aleph 1 … yod 10, kaf 11, lamed 12 … tav 22. אמת = 1 (aleph) + 13 (mem) + 22 (tav) = 36.
The ordinal value separates words whose standard values are too obviously composite, and it is the only cipher in which the alphabet's order is itself the measure — so a word's ordinal value is also a statement about where its letters sit in the sequence. It is used heavily in the Kabbalistic literature on names, and it is what makes 'the 22 letters' and 'the 22 paths' one system rather than two.
Nothing in the library points at this entry yet.