A lecture by Eliyahu Rips

From a tape recording made approximately 1985
(Translated from Russian)

A verbatim transcript of the original Russian is available as a Microsoft Word file or a Postscript file.
[Eliyahu Rips] There is a question that is central to the entire seminar: what does the Torah text represent? I refer to the Jewish text in Hebrew. It is well-known how the outside culture views the Torah... in this form as a sort of historical testimonial, a collection of ancient literary documents.

From the standpoint of Judaism, the picture is completely different. To a religious Jew, this text is sacred, not because it was sanctified by time or tradition, but because he believes, assumes that this text was bestowed by the Almighty. Though it is difficult to imagine the exact mechanism involved, the Talmud states that when the text was passed down, the role of Moses was that of a man writing it down, the way you would dictate sentences and write them down word for word. This is the way the Talmud views this. In other words, Moses, according to this view, was not the author of the Pentateuch at all, since he cannot claim the authorship of a single passage, a single word, a single letter. All he did was to write it down.

As you can see, this is a rather radical concept. Essentially, Judaism takes it even further, and makes the even more radical assertion that in a sense the text of the Torah existed in heaven before it was passed down, the claim being that the Torah in some concealed fashion contains a blueprint of the entire world. Just as when you want to put up a building, first comes the architect, draws up a design, a blueprint - here is the ground floor, here the stairway, the lobby - and only then is the building erected. In a way, the Jewish tradition attributes just such a role to the Torah. The blueprint of the world, made by the Creator before the creation of the world, is in some fashion contained within the book of Torah, after which the world was created, and after that the Torah was passed down.

Yet if you look at the Torah, it contains descriptions of phenomena that exist in the world. It begins with the story of the Creation, then the story of Joseph, his brothers, Egyptian captivity - this is something that... among other things, it is also a story that follows a literary outline. At the same time there is an implication, clearly meant for man, that this is the outside shell as it were; in other words, the literary outline by which we know the Torah is a veil concealing its deeper layers of meaning.

When we refer to deeper layers, we can talk about it in two different senses. One sense - that is the more or less obvious level - is that of spiritual depth. This level, to one degree or another, is also present in literature. A writer may describe or narrate certain events, but he also has the inner story to tell, the one he tries to depict through this narrative. This moral charge or message - that is the heart of his work concealed within it. A person may read through it, reading 500 pages a day, and never notice it; but a perceptive reader, by going back, observing, communicating with the author, will uncover the hidden charge contained in the work's innermost layers.

In this sense, to be sure, the depth of the Torah requires no proof. Anyone who has read it has definitely noticed, recognized the spiritual depth of the text - that is indisputable. In human culture, no dispute has ever arisen concerning this. What we are about to discuss are deeper layers in another sense, namely the purely formal - that is to say, our first lecture has already taken us in this direction. When we view a text as a sequence of letters, we as it were abstract ourselves from the meaning, from breaking it up into words, from breaking it up into sentences: we look at the sequence of the letters. We try to understand what constitutes the formal features of this sequence of letters. In other words, we try to treat it as a coded message, to identify the code, to see whether there are sufficient grounds to believe that there is a definite code, to look for the messages it contains. What I am discussing now is a brief introduction of sorts, intended to lay the groundwork for the things we will try to do later. That is one element. As I have already pointed out, what we are looking at here is one definite code. What are its components? We unfold the text into one long unbroken line, a sequence of letters, then we do the following: starting from some place, we assign parameter d, which may be a positive or a negative integer. Now, after we have read the letter m, we will read the letter m+d, then the letter m+2d, and so on. Let us see what emerges from this reading.

[Question] Could you give us an example, so I could understand this better?

[E.R.] For example [inaudible passage in Hebrew] - this is part of a verse. If I take d=2, I have to take the next letter .....We get the word ha'adam (man). What have we done? We have established our starting point...

[Question] Is this point chosen at random?

[E.R.] Yes. We have two free parameters - the starting point, and the next skip - and in a sense a third parameter: the length of the word you are reading. That is the first element. Of course, d may be either positive or negative. The same as we had last time. Now, for the next idea introduced by Doron. We take a cylinder. We determine a certain number h, and write the text down on the cylinder along a spiral, where each loop consists of h letters. That means: the first letter goes here, the second here, etc. Under the first letter will come letter h+1, under the second letter h+2, etc. Then we get the letter 2h+1, in the next line 2h+2, etc., 3h+1, 3h+2, etc., from the beginning to the end of the text. Since what we have here is the still undetermined parameter h, the cylinder's radius, and naturally its height, may vary. Multiplying the cylinder parameter by the height will give us the length of the text.

[Question] I still don't understand how we determine the parameters. If this is a random selection, why can't we start with the first letter?

[E.R.] We could. We allow for the freedom to chose two values: the starting point, which could be any letter - the first or the last, or any other - and the direction to go, the constant dimension of the skip. In other words, we have two free parameters. Now we will arrange the text along a spiral on the cylinder. The reason for this will become clear shortly.

[Question] Could you tell us once again what h stands for?

[E.R.] H is the length of the loop. If I take this cylinder and cut it open (for convenience's sake), it will unfold into a rectangular table. In this table, the length of the line will always constitute h (each line will have a constant number of letters). This letter will be followed [demonstrates] by the first letter of the next line; etc. It's just that the cylinder is a more symmetrical illustration, while the square table allows a more convenient arrangement upon the plane.

[Comment] I think that to make this absolutely clear, we could illustrate the same using a sheet of paper. We should take a text, start writing it down anywhere, reach the end, then continue here [demonstrates], get to here, continue here, and so on. The sheet could be as wide as we like [commotion, discussion].

[E.R.] ... Random cut along the vertical. If this is letter number one, this will be letter h+1, underneath it. This is our rule of thumb: anywhere there is a letter m, the letter underneath it will m+h.

[Question] Do you mean that the letters' size and number are one and the same?

[E.R.] That's right. It's like a ribbon broken up into squares of identical length.

[Question] The letter's number and length are represented by the same sign?

[E.R.] The same sign. That is, underneath it there will be letter m+2h ,etc. Here is an example of a text written down in this fashion. I hope you are able to... [Reads out an inaudible Hebrew passage]. Here, for instance, the line is nine-letters long. Thus [inaudible] is carried over to the following line, and so on, without breaks with the same number of letters in each line. Now the question is: when I get a reading with a constant skip, what does it mean? For instance, if I have a d, and let us say it equals 2h+1, that means that if the first letter was in a certain spot, I will get the next letter by moving two lines down: this will give me 2h+1, in other words a knight's move down the table. Then I move to letter 2h+1. Once again, with a knight's move I will get 2h+1, etc. For in essence, movement with a constant skip across this table is interpreted as movement in a straight line with identical intervals. What's more, the slope of the straight line depends on the coefficient. Generally, d=ah+b, meaning that I reach a certain point, after which I go down a number of lines, and then I move b number of letters across the given line. If b was negative, I move backwards.

This, therefore, is the general outline of such a table of movement across identical intervals between letters. The simplest case is when d=h. This means that I have to go down to the next line. This will be a vertical reading. With d=h, this will be an upward vertical reading. Before long we will return to the question: why do we need such an approach to the text? Before this, however, I must introduce an additional element I have already mentioned. Let us say I have a certain word, let's make it *1, *2... *k. Now I am looking at the text to see whether this word recurs with identical skips in other places. This could be established with the help of a computer. In other words, I take all the possible m, and all the possible d. I will try, starting from any place, to read by applying these skips. I look to see whether or not I obtain this word. That is to say, if my first letter is *1, I make the skip d, see that I get the second letter *2 - good - now we move m+2d and see once again whether we get the letter *3. If we do, we go on with the reading. If we don't, we modify our parameters.

[Comment] Here you can plainly see that is moves along the vertical...

[E.R.] That's right, along the vertical, yes... with two parameters, where h has been pre-determined, this is what we generally find. We might ask the following question: supposing that I have a word, now I would like to have a list of all the possible instances where this word occurs in the text, with all the possible m and d. In other words, at this point nothing could be done without the computer, since it is impossible to review all the possibilities. With the computer this takes time, but it becomes feasible. Then I can compile a list of all the possible occurrences. For instance, m=1, d=1; m=2, d=2, etc., m=c, d=c. This means that in the text, if I begin with the number m=1, I go through the skips to d=2, etc. Obviously everything depends on the word's parameters. Naturally, the longer the word, the smaller the chances of its occurring in a natural fashion. Thus a word of 6, 7, 8 letters... in such a text as the Book of Genesis, a seven-letter word will be found in one or two places at the most. Of course, three-letter words occur with great frequency on any page of any text, regardless of any kind of pattern. Four-letter words are less frequent, especially if they contain rarely used letters; five- letter words are more infrequent still; etc. As for seven- and eight-letter words, it takes luck to find them at all. This is simply a natural fact determined by the laws of probability. Now then. When we obtain a list, it turns out that we are interested in the smallest values of d. This is an empirical principle, according to which for all possible values of the parameter, we are primarily interested in the smallest one, as well as the several smallest values that follow. The smallest values of d - I mean the skip absolute value. In other words, we are primarily interested in obtaining a given word by means of a skip with the minimal absolute value - be it positive or negative - with the smallest absolute value. Also of possible interest are several adjacent values. In a way, we are building an hierarchical order, by arranging d1<d2<d3, etc. by means of the absolute value, and we are especially interested in the beginning of the table. To put another way, for each word we are primarily interested in obtaining this word through a minimum of skips. The word may occur frequently or infrequently, depending on its length and the frequency of the letters it contains. Apart from this, we are interested in obtaining it by using a minimum of skips for the entire text, or a minimum of skips for a large excerpt.

[Comment] With the greatest frequency.

[E.R.] That is to say, the more often a word recurs in the text, the better. Here I have introduced two elements: the unfolding into a table, and the principle of the significance of words obtained with a minimum of skips.

Let us now consider a combination of these two principles. I will select a word. In this case it will be a random word. For example, let us take the word ha'mikdash (the Temple). This entire procedure will focus on this word; meaning that we will go through the text and look for places where the letter H occurs; then we look for the letter M , and after that for the letter Q if it is located at an equal distance; if not, we keep looking until we find this list. For the word ha'mikdash, d1 equals 94. That is, the smallest skip at which it occurs in the Book of Genesis is 94, and we cannot obtain it by a smaller skip. Now I would like to assign h=94...

[Question] [inaudible] positive or negative...

[E.R.] Simply in the opposite direction....

[Question]. I understand. This ha'mikdash occurs on 20 occasions plus. Do you add or subtract from it?

[E.R.] I arrange it based on the skip absolute value.

[Comment] -94 and +94 taken together... both of them...

[E.R.] Now I take the text, write it down on the cylinder with 94 letters in a loop. Clearly, I can now read the word ha'mikdash along the vertical. The table is arranged in such a way that the word ha'mikdash appears vertically. That is how we have defined the table. Here you can see that the word ha'mikdash - 94 [inaudible] - actually forms a part of the Book of Genesis [inaudible Hebrew passage]. You see the word ha'mikdash, within the red frame... [commotion]... along the vertical... That is how we defined the table, knowing that the word ha'mikdash is obtained through such skips that it is arranged vertically. What happens now... Now we have a table, and we start reading this table. What diagonal reading means is reading with skip 95, with 93 letters along the second diagonal. If I were to take each line, this would give me 2x94=188. Horizontal reading means the words written in the text. For example [inaudible Hebrew]. This talks about the financial agrarian reforms introduced by Joseph in Egypt. First of all, we have an interesting situation here. The word ha'mikdash (with a minimum of skips, it has been unequivocally determined by the choice of the word itself) is located in a place where the text itself contains the word ha'cohanim (the priests). This word is semantically related to ha'mikdash. mi she'oved avodat beyt ha'mikdash (those who officiated at Beit Ha'mikdash).

The next element is as follows. Here, vertically or diagonally, is the word ha'navei. The word ha'navei is a poetic term for the word mikdash. In a certain sense, the two are antonyms: ha'navei - nevei zedek, nevei sha'anan. This is the same word, its poetic antonym...

[Comment] You mean synonym?

[E.R.] A synonym, you're right, I am sorry.

[Comment] Navei also means an oasis. How do you say oasis in Hebrew?

[Commotion]

[E.R.] The fact of the matter is, the word navei has several meanings.

[Comment] But its one meaning - an oasis...

[E.R.] Navei zedek, navei sha'anan - the prophets and poetic texts used these expressions to refer to the Temple. Now, in the same area, marked in green next to the word ha'mikdash we read mikdash shel elokim (Temple of God). With the same parallel skip.

[Question] Where?..

[E.R.] Marked in black, diagonally.

[Question] Which skip is that?

[E.R.] Skip 95. Because if it is skip 94 in the table, the diagonal skip will be 95, plus one. On the second diagonal, it will be minus one. Next. Here we have the expression levi yilave (a Levi will accompany). I will explain. There were two categories of people working in the Temple. They were, as we have already mentioned, ha'cohanim (the Priests) and the Levites. The Levites performed two functions, both to do with the word 'to accompany'. For example, they functioned as shomrim (guards), the guardians of the Temple, and they performed songs, the songs of the Levites. During sacrifices, the Levites stood in an appointed place and sang... And here we actually have the word ha'renana - the Levites' song. That is to say, here we have, side by side, two things associated with the Levites: levi yilave - to accompany, from which the word levi is derived, and ha'renana - song of the Levites. Higher up, we also have haze la'zevah - breast for the altar): in sacrifice, certain parts of the sacrificial animal were given to the cohen - haze va'shok (breast and leg). As it turns out, when we took this table, its design dictated the presence of the word ha'mikdash. In other words, the table was designed in such a way that the word ha'mikdash appeared along the vertical. But as we can see, there is much more to this. In this table, next to word ha'mikdash, we discover a whole outcropping of words whose meaning, to one degree or another, is closely related to this term. Once again, we have two alternatives.

[Comment] You said that the word ha'mikdash was picked at random...

[E.R.] I chose the word ha'mikdash by way of an example.

[Comment] You mean it wasn't selected at random from the text?

[E.R.] No. Once I have picked the word ha'mikdash, the procedure determined this table.

[Question] Why did you pick the word ha'mikdash from the text? [commotion]

[E.R.] Excuse me, please, I would like to reiterate so that the point gets across. I did not take it from this text. I picked the word ha'mikdash beforehand, to use as an example.

[Question] You could have also taken the word adam (man), or...

[E.R.] You are absolutely right. This procedure could be equally applied to any other word.

[Question] I would like to explain why I am asking. You have said that this passage talks about Joseph's agrarian reforms, and then the word cohanim appears. Is there a connection?

[E.R.] The point is this. When I took the word ha'mikdash, we had sifted through the entire Book of Genesis. We had located all the possible places where this word occurred with a minimum number of skips, and from those we had picked the occurrences with the smallest skip absolute value. Thus we were led by the procedure itself... This is no longer a free selection parameter. We were led to this. And then, the remarkable thing is that here we find the word cohanim together with all the other words that were here before. Here I must point out that we have two alternatives. Either we are looking at some sort of accumulation of coincidences, like a random series. For instance, you may be staring at the floor, and sometimes you begin to see a face emerge, with a nose and a pair of eyes, whereas in fact whoever made this floor had not intended this at all. What we see are certain spots which our mind, through a kind of organizing facility, arranges into a pattern of sorts. That is one alternative.

The other alternative is to say that the text was indeed designed in such a way that, by picking a certain word, you attract an outcropping of words with a related meaning. Our objective, therefore, is to try and settle this issue in favor of one of the alternatives.

When I have a free parameter for selecting a certain word, someone with strong objections would argue thus: Look, my friend, you have picked 500,000 words, and analyzed them in such a way that 499,999 words were a failure, and only one was a success, and what you are showing me now is the one accidental result. Here I am offering a counter-argument to... Therefore we have to find a way to put this to a conclusive test.

[Question] Excuse me. Have you conducted any controlled experiments, for instance with a text by Bialik?

[E.R.] Of course, of course. This is undoubtedly a crucial factor, and I hope to get to it in due time.

[Question] Did you discover anything there?

[E.R.] Yes, yes, yours is a very valid question. In order to determine what is not a random occurrence, we must rule out the random behavior, in other words, to find out whether there are deviations from the expected random occurrences. That is the second factor. However, for now I would rather not use this example to prove anything. This example is intended for another purpose: to illustrate [inaudible]. We have taken two principles, and tried to see what comes from an interaction between these two principles. Now I would like to proceed to the next example.

[Question] This drawing here, this in itself is rather fascinating. Here you seem to have found some relevant words, in this place, in this spot. Now, if you go across the entire table, will you find any words of this kind? Maybe they simply haven't been marked?

[E.R.] That is an interesting question. It would warrant a thorough study, if we had the wherewithal to carry it out. So far I have not set up an effective formal process of locating semantically related words. For that reason, the search for such related words (this was discovered by Doron Witztum) was done manually. In other words, you have to manually go through the entire table in every possible direction; moreover, you have to be equally motivated to find what you are looking for in other nooks, and not just in the expected places. As a matter of fact, we would like to look into this aspect as well; but until this is more formalized, we are unable to this.

Still, I can provide an answer based on a kind of intuition. The shorter the words, the higher the likelihood of finding them in other places in the table. Take the word levi: without actually looking, I am virtually certain that we will find it in many other places in this table. The word ha'ranana - a five-letter word - may or may not be found, the latter being more likely. That depends on the word's length, the letters it contains, etc. The next example I would like to give...

[Question] I still don't quite understand. Assuming that here you have found the word mikdash with a minimal skip. What made you look for these specific words? After all, we could find a huge accumulation of words around the word mikdash. So why these specific words?

[E.R.] Here the procedure was reversed: after selecting the word mikdash the table was designed, and then we began to read this table.

[Question] In other words, it's like some kind of a game...

[E.R.] In a manner of speaking. As I have already pointed out, this requires further verification. I hope to take this up further on. Before introducing a formal process, I would like to use a real- life example, and then look for ways to analyze it. The next example, one that will bring us closer... The next skip... As I have said, at this point we could theoretically pick any word at all, even a meaningless jumble of letters. All we do is take a sequence of letters and see whether this sequence occurs at equal intervals throughout the text. If it does, we see where it occurs with a minimum of skips: in the entire text or in a large portion of it.

The next example I would like to present is a word that carries no meaning in Hebrew: P, R, N, C (pei, reish, nun, tzadik - P, R, N, C). This is not a word in Hebrew. Let's see. What do we do now? But now we have a formal procedure, right? Once we have a formal procedure, there is no need to be fixated on the text. We scour the entire text to see where this word occurs with minimal skips; in this case we get d2... In the present case I will focus on d2. The second skip gives us 36. That is the minimum for 70,000 letters. What happens, in other words, is that somewhere in the beginning it occurs... with the minimal skip, and then with d2. I would like to take the table with h=36, 18, and other numbers. This time I skip over to the table with h=9. That means that in this table the word will appear in every fourth line. Right? Pei, then four lines down reish, four lines down nun, etc. Commotion...

[E.R.] 36 divided by 9 equals 4. I have taken a free parameter... Which divisor should I take? I take h (here I have some freedom of choice) being equal to 9. That is, in this table you will see the word PRNZ occurring in every fourth line.

[Question] Is this a random text?

[E.R.] The text is from Genesis. It is not a random text. It was determined by the choice of the word, calculated within the freedom of choice, first, second... [inaudible], etc. based on the modulus of one, two possibilities... [Inaudible Hebrew sentence] Here we see a curious thing taking place. The word PRNZ in every fourth line... gave us the sentence [inaudible]. This sentence contains something that resembles the name of Franz Joseph in German. Yes, this is a great personality, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. If we try to read the resulting words... Look, here we have Vienna ending in an aleph, the way it appears in the original Hebrew spelling. Vienna is the capital ...[commotion]. Now our question becomes much more critical. What is this: a random series, or did the Torah really refer to Franz Joseph who lived in the capital city of Vienna... I return once again to the issue raised at the beginning of the lecture.

[Question] This green color... What is this supposed to mean? [commotion, discussion].

[E.R.] Yes... Let us go on. When we take the diagonal, since we have 9 letters in this line

[end of side A of the first tape] [Commotion, laughter]...

[E.R.] All right, Vienna is neither here nor there, with four common letters... Now I would like to focus on one place. melech ostri (Austrian emperor) - this is a phrase made up of nine letters, containing two rare letters - samech and tet.

[Inaudible question]

[E.R.] You see, as I have said, I move in a diagonal, because I have nine letters in a line, I go down nine letters [inaudible]... ten. I mean, when I move in a diagonal, I read every tenth letter.

[Question] What letter did you start with?

[E.R.] A random one.

[Question] This is like a game. There is a set of letters of some kind [inaudible]... to select the letters. And here you have also taken all the directions...

[Comment] One famous mathematician who heard this lecture told me: it is better not to think about this [commotion, laughter].

[E.R.] Maybe so. I, for my part, cannot afford this luxury, since I think about this 24 hours a day.

[Question] What about the other diagonal? [commotion]

[E.R.] malkhuto shalom (His kingdom is peace) [commotion].

[Comment] Now, that's interesting...

[E.R.] We were introduced to this world by Doron [commotion]... This is a critical point, later... The question is: where does this come in the text? It comes where the Pharaoh invites Joseph and his father to settle in his country, in other words where the Pharaoh throws the gate of his kingdom wide open before the Jews. This is another remarkable development, because it suggests a historical parallel. As we know, Franz Joseph granted the Jews full civil rights and freedoms, encouraging them and appearing as a good emperor, a kind emperor - but all that on the condition... [inaudible].

[Question] In which text?

[E.R.] I will repeat: this appears in the Book of Genesis, where the Pharaoh invites the people of Israel to settle in his country. First of all, we used this to conduct a small controlled experiment.

[Question] Assuming that this is not...

[E.R.] Assuming that this is not a random series, not a coincidence.

[Question] Tell me, were there other texts unrelated to the name of God, to religion... The name of Joseph - did it appear next to other figures?

[E.R.] Yes. We will come back to this later. The point is this: the more radical the premise, the more thorough the verification process required. I hope you all agree on this. We have taken the first preliminary test. The preliminary test consisted of the following. I would like to take this here... All we have read here just came to us. I mean, we did not expect beforehand to obtain such a combination of sentences.

Now, reversing our process, we will ask whether a related sentence or word appears here. This is a fundamentally new skip. That is, we pose the question a priori; if this is not a series [inaudible]... here we get... We took this word... Franz Joseph, as you know, is a member of the Hapsburg dynasty. Now here... [writes on the board].

[Comment] Highly improbable...

[E.R.] Yes. This word contains a samech, a gimel... a seven-letter word.

[Comment] Inconceivable... impossible...

[E.R.] With minimal skips, the word Hapsburg appears at skip 582. That is its d1, or the minimal large skip. It runs through [inaudible]... samech... through this samech.... Where you see Franz Joseph, that is the place where the word Hapsburg appears...

[Comment] It's still impossible...

[E.R.] What can we do? Naturally, given the circumstances... First of all, it was in the previous century that ... when Doron discovered these results. To begin with, some ideas that it occurred to us to check. Here we started with a man who was kind to Jews. Then we moved to the opposite end of the spectrum. At the opposite end we naturally find Hitler [commotion]. Now, a query is a query: if a procedure exists, we can apply it... And here we get the following: d1=31 [din of voices]. Before I present the entire picture, let us ask ourselves: if this is right, what kind of words do we expect to find? Take a guess.

[Comment] ha'shoa (the Holocaust)... Villain...

[E.R.] The Hebrew for villain is rasha?

[Comment] Germany, of course. poshea (criminal). Murderer...

[E.R.] Very well. Let's see. First of all, as you can see, every 31st letter backwards reads Hitler. Minus 31. Next to him is the word rasha. You've just told me, didn't you? And next to it, the word ashem (guilty). It is marked in green, and in red... every second line - that means 62 letters, right? - ha'shoa, the Holocaust. We have just conducted a test, we have specified the words beforehand. Just as we expected.

[Question] Where is this place?

[E.R.] After the flood... Here there is a key phrase that reads: yetzer lev ha'adam rah me'neurav. The instinct of the heart of man is evil from his youth... Where it talks about the depths of evil to which man can succumb... There is a number of other things not marked here [inaudible exchange]. harvu pnei ha'adama - the face of the earth was demolished... There are several other words [inaudible]... Go back, with skip minus one, yes? Look, here it says iro (his city), that is every fourth letter. Berlin - that is also the minimum for 70,000 words. The word Berlin was located in this spot... every fourth letter... going back with skip four...

[Question] All this in one skip?

[E.R.] In one skip, four back.

[Question] Is this one word?

[E.R.] No, no... this is one word: Berlin...

[Question] Does it occur with different skips in different places?

[E.R.] Yes.

[Question] But in the same line?

[E.R.] No. Along the diagonal we read iro, and next to it four letters right here, the word Berlin ends, from every fourth letter. Here we also have ha'srefa (the fire), every third letter, as well as a number of other words. ha'matbeah - that's murder. Here we also find rezah (murder). Here we have a whole series of things associated with... [commotion]. Here we also find Himmler, in the same spot.

[Question] The yellow color - what is it? Is it mar'ah (mirror)?

[E.R.] The yellow is me'ara (a curse). In the same line, we have Berlin, then Germany. This pair, with a different skip length - this is the minimum of the word Germany... A meaningful combination of country and capital...[Inaudible questions]

[E.R.] As a matter of fact, many have looked... Doron conducted a comprehensive study on the Holocaust. He took the book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - I forgot the author's name, a famous writer, but never mind. Well, he simply took the main characters, the main themes - there are thousands of related examples. I will show you one of those examples. I would like to go on. I have shown you the minimum of the second word - Berlin - with skip four; here the minimum of the word Berlin is three in the entire text. But this here seems to be built on another word: the word Auschwitz. What happens is that next to it there is a word - mahane Auschwitz - mahane is camp - next to the word Auschwitz is says yisater (shall be hidden) - shall hide his face. In other words, what the Torah predicted in general terms, that there will come a day of tribulations when God will hide His face. Somewhere there is a specific reference, not a vague mention - mahane Auschwitz, for example...

[Question] Have you tried to apply the text to modern times?

[E.R.] No, we don't want that. Maybe I will show you... No, we do not want to reduce it to such trivialities. However, we have not yet resolved our issue, and that is the task at hand. What we would like to do is establish a more formal connection between words. Actually, to an extent, on an intuitive level we do have a rather clear picture; yet due to the radical nature of our claim, we wanted to be as meticulous as possible to the end. Now I will be drawing closer to this subject matter. But first I will take yet another example. For example, we took the word ha'gaon (genius), and looked to see where it appears with the minimal skip.

[Question] Is that a name?

[E.R.] No, it means genius. We also took the word me'vilna (from Vilna). Two words. For each of these words, we looked for the place where it occurs with the minimal skip. We take the Book of Genesis and apply the same procedure. It turned out that the minimal skip for the word ha'gaon was 11, and for the word me'vilna it was 8. What is remarkable about this is that both words were located in the same place. We have a long text: 78,065 letters. One word was located somewhere, the other word was located in the same place.

[Question] Both skips are minimal?

[E.R.] Both skips are minimal. That is to say, they are inevitably determined by the procedure. Ha'gaon - here there is a table of nine lines, because... [inaudible]... in a knight's move, and eight along the diagonal. After we have chosen the length of the skip... in the table... so as to be able to read these words together. Basically, we could see the same thing in one line.

I will take another table, where everything is written in smaller letters but in a single line. Here is what happens: in every line, the green color... the red color... ha'gaon is the minimum of one word across the entire... me'vilna in green color... See, these words were chosen at will, but their minimum was obtained in one place. The relation to the text is unclear. The contents of the text... we are totally unsure how this relates to the Vilna Gaon... bnei ish ehad anahnu, kenim anahnu - we are the sons of the same father, we are sincere, we were not spies... This is ambiguous, perhaps there is a connection, perhaps... Let's face it, we simply don't know what to make of it.

[Comment] And yet he was wrong. The one who perpetrated all this.... Why did he go after the children, what was their fault?

[E.R.] This is a very important question. But the crux of the matter is... [Interrupted by a woman weeping and crying out: 'He could have killed me - but why the children!?'] You see, the Jewish people have experienced great suffering. But in fact, our world is not all there is... Our world contains both spirit and matter. In the heavenly realm, man lives on. A man who suffered in this life, especially if he suffered solely by virtue of being a Jew. What is a Jew? A Jew is one who gives expression to the divine essence on earth. Since this is an imperfect world, the Jew is doomed to suffer precisely because he expresses the divine essence. The Jew who lived this life and was killed solely for being a Jew - therein lies his punishment, or his reward. Talmud talks about this: our age is not the only age when Jews are murdered at whim. In the ancient times, and during the period of the destruction of the Second Temple, there were the ten great Jewish figures, the great Torah sages, brutally butchered by the Romans. The Torah says: harugei malchut, meaning those killed by the power-holders, mi yachol la'amod be'mehizatam (who can stand in their presence?). In the world of truth, where truth is brought to light, that is in the world of spirit to which the soul returns after it has completed its journey - who can stand in their presence in that spiritual realm they attained after being murdered for no other reason than being Jews.

[Comment] So being Jewish is a bad thing?

[E.R.] On the contrary: the mission entrusted to Jews ultimately brings them to the world of spiritual truth; and when the spiritual truth is revealed, we realize that the accursed fiends have perished for ever, while the Jews who appear to have died live for all eternity; that the world was created by a just God who rewarded them for all the suffering and the spilled blood, and that this...

[Comment] But the goyim also broke the commandments of their...

[E.R.] And where are they now? What will be with them? What will happen to them in eternity?

[Reply:] What will happen to them? They live for as long as we do.

[E.R.] And then?

[Reply:] They live as long as the Jewish people.

[E.R.] This is an important subject. The world was created and given order, but what for? For meaningless suffering? No. It was promised that in the fullness of time this spiritual truth will become manifest to all. Today it may be hidden, but it is still possible to know it. The Jews, who express the divine idea in this world, and who suffer because of it... that is the reason they sacrificed their lives, and were slaughtered by their enemies.

[Comment] For accepting the Torah. Had they not accepted the Torah, they would have lived like the goyim do. [Commotion]

[E.R.] On the contrary, these people who are triumphant now in this world, have nothing to be envied for.

[Comment] And meanwhile we are the ones to suffer.

[E.R.] Exactly. For as long as evil is triumphant, we suffer, and for as long as evil remains triumphant, we will continue to suffer, and this is unavoidable, this is part of our predestined mission. When truth emerges victorious, things will get better. All right. Now I would still like to return to our subject. We want to verify all this in a conclusive fashion. The assertion we have made is rather formidable. How can we verify it? We must do the following two things... For accurate verification, we must take a pre-established, sufficiently long series of a single example.

[Comment] Even with these two examples, it would be a good idea to calculate the odds...

[E.R.] Precisely. And the second thing: we need some kind of a procedure for accurate calculation of the odds for every given case. To ensure strict accuracy, we require two things. First, we need a long series of uniform examples. And second, for each example we need an exact means of calculating or at least of estimating the odds.

[Comment] In this instance, introducing any changes in the text once the facts have been established is out of the question.

[E.R.] Absolutely... We had to select the things that would make the connection definite and unquestionable. With that in mind, we did the following. We took a list of gdolei Israel, great Talmudic sages. The selection criteria? We took the four-volume encyclopedia published by Mordechai Margaliot. But the list exceeded out technical capabilities. So we narrowed the list down in the following manner: we looked through the entire encyclopedia, and if an article took up three or more pages, we chose it. Essentially, we ended up with great figures. We can't guarantee that we picked every great figure; there may have been a great man whose description was slightly shorter, or a less great man whose description was slightly longer; but all in all we did come up with truly great personalities. We had an objective list which turned out to contain some 19-20 names. Next, for the second word...

[Comment] Since there are only 20 names, I wouldn't mind hearing them.

[E.R.] I will tell you in a moment. Rashi, Rambam, Rabat...

[Question] Over three pages of text?

[E.R.] More than three...the entry in the encyclopedia took more than three pages of text. [noise] It's a four-volume encyclopedia by Mordecai Margaliot. It is called Encyclopedia of the Sages of Israel. Shach, Eybeschuetz, Rambam, Maharam Me'Rothenburg, Ha'Besht, Ha'Taz, Ha'Ramchal, Ohr Ha'Chaim Ha'Kadosh, Ha'Maharshal, Rashi, Yosef Caro, Ha'Gaon Me'Vilna, Rabbi Eliyahu Bahur, and Rabbi Avraham Ibn-Ezra. For the second word, we want to take some clearly established biographical details. We took the dates of birth and death, if they were known. For instance, Ramban was born on yud dalet nissan and died [inaudible]. Rashi died on khaf tet tamuz. After that we ran into some technical difficulties; I will tell you how we tried to deal with them.. The Vilna Gaon was born on tet vav nissan - to simplify the matters, we did not take the years, it was simply easier - and died on yud tet tishri. In some cases, we only knew one of the two dates; usually the date of death, because when the man was dying he was already known for a sage, but when he was born, he was not always known as a great man.

[Comment] When can we tell beforehand that a great sage has been born?

[E.R.] Since great men appeared from generation to generation, the chances were that the next one would also be a great man. What's more, we had the advantage of knowing the dates. In controversial cases... we simply did not take them; when the date is unknown, there is nothing to be done. Next. There may be various ways of writing a name. We took every possible variation we could think of. For instance, Ha'gaon... or Eliyahu... or, say, Rabbi Eliyahu. If any additional variation comes to mind, we must include it. We simply took every possible variant that we considered reasonable. For example, Ha'ramhal, Rabbi Moshe Haim Luzatto - Ha'ramhal, Ramhal, Luzatto. Now "Luzatto" can be written with alef or without alef; we took both versions so as not to have to decide beforehand which is the correct one. We could also take ...

[Question] Moshe Haim?

[E.R.] Moshe Haim. ... for example, Ha'maharam. This could be Maharam, or Rabbi Meir, or Meir. And so the list is compiled. For every name, we took a number of possible spellings.

Now, for the dates. A date may also be set down in various ways: yud tet tishri, or be'yud tet tishri, or yud tet be'tishri. Tet vav nissan can be written tet vav nissan, tet vav be'nissan,be'tet vav nissan. We included all the possible variations. Therefore, now we have a problem: We have various pairs, and for every pair the question is: is there anything ... Tet vav can be written as yud hei, 15 in Hebrew numbering - that's 10 for yud and 5 for hey. But usually it is written tet vav - 9 for tet and 6 for vav. In order to avoid writing yud and hei - letters that are part of God's name - they are usually omitted, with tet vav written instead. Of course, there is no reason in the Torah to think that... So then, our word has three variations: yud hei nissan, be'yud hei nissan, and yud hei be'nissan. For example, for Gaon we will have nine variations of the name, therefore nine variations of the date, and about six variations ... 36 queries. For Maharam we will have yud tet iyar, yud tet be'iyar, and be'yud tet iyar. Or 12 queries accordingly. Thus we have a list of queries prepared in advance. For the present, I will limit myself to words of five or more letters...

[Question] But there you have more variations, 36?

[E.R.] Four variations of the name, three of the date - a total of 12 variations. I am taking only the month and the date, not the year for now. Thus we have obtained a list containing some 150 queries. Now for every given case we must take... I mean, how do we measure the odds of what we come up with? I will demonstrate with a few examples, then I will explain the way we measure the odds. Take Maharam, for example. We are interested in the conjunction of name and date. Ha'maharam: yud, tet, iyar... and here in the opposite direction... For example, Meir - the name of Rabbi Meir from Rottenberg. All of this comes from the Book of Genesis. Here we have another table, you can see the word Ha'maharam, and here is be'yud tet iyar. For the third variation - yud tet be'iyar.

Now the next query. For this version of the name Ha'maharam, three variations have yielded positive results. Now we have to understand how to calculate the odds for each of these occurrences. We proceed as follows. In essence, the non-trivial event that interested us here was the concurrence of these two selected words from the given list. What do we mean by a concurrence? The term concurrence requires further clarification. Why? Because if I take a large table which contains, for example, the entire Book of Genesis, then somewhere we will find Ha'maharam, and somewhere else be'yud tet iyar... Until I explain what I mean by concurrence, the task remains undefined. Thus we proceeded as follows. We took a certain numerical criterion for table density. In other words, the larger the table's density, the more distinct the occurrence we are interested in. The simplest way would have been to take the table's area. But we chose a somewhat different way. Let us say we have a table. For now we determine the h in some way... One way will give us one word, another way... We have already seen that words occur at identical intervals. Let us assume that this is interval f1 in the table, and this is interval f2. We simply take... the letters are situated in grids with whole numbers for coordinates. Let us take the distance between these two words, and define it as the distance between the nearest words. That is, in the given case we will take these nearest letters, and that will give us l. We have three numbers - f1, f2, and l - which define the parameters of this table. When these numbers are small, the table is dense; when at least one of these numbers is large, the table becomes more scattered. For that reason, we simply took the sum of squares - f12 +f22 + l2 - and took the inverse of this number, and that became our key index for table density. If all these numbers are small, then the sum of their squares is small, and thus the inverse number is great. If at least one of these numbers is large, the sum of their squares is large, and their inverse is small.

We have introduced as it were a yardstick for such a table. Now a more precise assertion would be that for the given words Ha'maharam and yud tet be'iyar... in this instance, our f1 equals two, every second letter, and f2 - one, two, three, four, five, six... For example, f1=2, f2=6, and l=1, because here we have adjoining letters. Therefore, the parameters of this table are 22 + 62 + 12 - that would be 1/41. To this table we assign 1/41. The denser it is, the greater the number; the more scattered it is, the smaller the number. In other words, the occurrence of a table with a small parameter is trivial, while a larger parameter makes it less trivial. How, then, can we measure this exactly?

Here the method we have adapted is similar to the method of Monte Carlo. Instead of taking identical intervals, we have taken distances that are almost identical. Identical distances - that is d. Instead we establish three small numbers: x, y, z. Usually we established them between -2 and 2. This will give us five possibilities for each of them: -2, -1, 0, 1, 2 - i.e. the cube of five - 125 possibilities. 125 possibilities of establishing the small number. We have done this with skip d: d+x, d+y, d+z. We could take it further, but we confined ourselves to three dimensions. For the same pair of words - Ha'maharam and yud tet be'iyar - we examine their occurrences with this deviation. And we apply the entire procedure to such distorted skips. Then we see which is the best table... not exactly straight, but this x, y and z will give us a deviation from the straight line. However, since the deviation is as a rule much smaller than this d... and we have to see where the best density is for this table. Now we have the possibility of a double text. First of all, if this table really goes beyond a random coincidence, we will have 125 numbers, with each number the density index for a corresponding table with distorted skips. The assertion is that this assumes a regular pattern in the following way: if I take a random text and subject it to the same procedure, with the non-identical skips x=y, x=z, then the table density index will on the average be the same as for all the rest. That is what we have done. We have taken another text, and for the same series of queries we asked: how will table density be affected by identical skips as compared with non-identical ones? The resulting margin fell within one sigma, one average statistical deviation.

[end of first tape]

...rather extensive material... And when we took another text, we found that the deviation from the expected was less than one sigma.

[Question] Could we say that the closer x and y approach zero, the higher the density?

[E.R.] No... only for zero. Here we have drawn two types of comparisons. With identical skips for non-identical skips, to see whether the resulting table actually achieves a higher density than it would have done through chance. And here are the results. In quite a large number of cases, we actually find that these words are situated in close proximity within the text - many of them are stronger than 1/5. Here I have taken the weakest facet(?)... Many of them come first in 125, and there are some that come first in 343. Therefore, on the basis of all this, we have a significant... 7 sigma... or let us say 6 sigma... never mind... 6 sigma is quite sufficient to state with absolute confidence that what we have here is a real phenomenon... Allow me now...I will sum up. What have we done? We have taken a pre-assigned, objectively determined list of names and dates - because there was a chance of cooking the data...

[Comment] That's right.

[E.R.] When we took a word... We took a sort of not quite formalized concept of semantically related words. Then the related word has a rather vague form: we are unable to predict in advance the exact number of pre-assigned related words. We overcame this problem by pre-assigning pairs of words. We also pre-established the means of calculation, whereby we compare the effects of identical and non-identical skips; and we determined the specific effect to look for: the density of the table. And we did discover a systematic deviation that points at the presence of a design in the text, to account for this density. For example, here we have ha'basht nolad be'yud het elul - The Baal Shem Tov was born on yud tet Elul - here is the table that binds them together.

Once again I should remind you that here we confined ourselves to a single very narrow aspect. In fact we constantly encounter a great deal of additional information; for instance, in the same location we read Toldot Ya'akov Yosef - that is the title of the first book on Hasidism. I am about to return to this.

Until now I have talked about the purely formal aspect, since it was important to prove, as far as possible, that we are not dealing with self-deception, that the text objectively supports this structure. Not to forget that in fact the text contains much more, we have a steady undercurrent of additional information related to... a much less formal but in fact a very clear connection.

Then we took a text, for example, the table with the Vilna Gaon. Here we have seen be'yud tet tishri - that's the date of his death. Also present here is Aderet Eliyahu - the title of his book. There are a number of other things here, other details emerging simultaneously: cities, names, the person's deeds, etc. This takes us back to the beginning once again, and we can see that the Torah provides us with a sort of blueprint of the world. Not just a general outline, mind you, but specific details of the events taking place during a certain period, the person's native city, the books he wrote. For example, the place where we saw the name of Franz Joseph. We know that Franz Joseph visited Jerusalem in the last century, where he was greeted by Rabbi Orenbach... There is a series... here we find a meeting with Franz Joseph... Jerusalem is mentioned here; and so on. Detailed information about the world...

[Question] The date of birth - does it also refer to death from natural causes?

[E.R.] Yes.. Natural causes as well...

[Question] And what if the death was caused by a car accident?...

[E.R.] The same, no reason why not. The truth is... Here we face a serious question, I have heard about this question, the question of free will. This question warrants at least a brief discussion. Here we have two factors. First, in the words of the hahamim (the sages), hakol tzafui vehareshut netuna - that is to say, everything is foreseen but man is still free to exercise his will. How is that possible? Let me put is this way: supposing that today we are watching the repeat of a game that took place last week. Now, you know by now that the game ended with the score 3:2, that the first goal was scored fifteen minutes into the game, and so on. Now, the fact of our today's knowledge of how the game will proceed, did it hamper the players on the soccer field? Did out present knowledge hamper the players? No, of course not... Yet to the Almighty, who is outside of time, there is no gap between past and future, that is to say, He is as cognizant of the future as He is of the past. But his knowledge lies outside of our world, and it does not prevent us, those living in this world, from exercising our individual free will. That is a crucial point.

[Question] Do we have the power to change anything?

[E.R.] We certainly do. The Torah keeps stressing that the world depends on our acts. Everything that happens in the world is determined by our actions, in other words the control lever is in out hands.

[Question] Could the score become 4:2?

[E.R.] Yes [inaudible questions]... No, no, no, that is the point I've stressed. That depended on their effort, their will, their stamina, and the rival team... The point is, man does have free will...

[Question] This is a complex issue... if everything has been pre- determined. ???

[E.R.] Not pre-determined, foreseen. What is more, it is possible that the course of history... I am raising speculations now... had a number of alternative versions. For example, had our historical destiny unfolded in a more positive direction, the names of all these monsters I have mentioned would have appeared as meaningless combinations of letters. These people would not have existed, and fortunately we would not have to look at these tables. On the other hand, there may be some fiends who under different circumstances could have been... Fortunately for us, they are meaningless combinations of words indistinguishable from the random series.

[Comment] May I say a few words? I am deeply impressed by everything you have described. The only point I would like to make is that the research method, the systematic research you have conducted, is somewhat less convincing. In my opinion, you have not exhausted all the possibilities contained here... No, allow me to explain. You have taken certain mass phenomena - the 20 Jews for example - but they may be outside the emotional sphere of influence... You are trying to impress me by a scientific demonstration of an objective truth... Please, let me finish. I also want to be impressed. Not, however, by some sipurim (stories) but by what is actually there. To me it seems that you have not even begun to uncover what is there, and that could be done even by exploring those amazing initial examples... You have cited only two examples: the ones pertaining to Franz Joseph and to Hitler. I believe that those two examples alone, even though they are isolated, allow us to draw precise conclusions that are mind- boggling in their own right. I will try to explain. We may conduct a study of the odds involved in a lottery. A survey, let's say, of a group of population who win 100 dollars each. And we may discover that with a margin exceeding the standard square deviation of seven, they somehow manage to win a slightly larger sum. That is all very well. But somehow that does not impress me so much. Now, suppose that I were to find out that a certain person won a million dollars. A one-time event that happened to take place. We know that the odds of its happening are about 1:3,000,000. That fact is amazing in itself, even though it happened by accident. Now imagine that you suddenly find out that this man wins another million dollars. And then he turns out to have won a million dollars ten times in a row. Now, that is something beyond my belief. Still, imagine that it actually happened: this one sensational event where the person wins a million dollars ten times in a row. My mind baulks at this. Now imagine that this fact had been predicted somewhere: that such and such a man would win a million ten times in a row. The odds of this happening are easy to calculate: 1:1,000,000 to the tenth power. Incredible. Nevertheless, it took place as predicted. Well, it appears to me that all those facts pertaining to Hitler and Franz Joseph, were we simply to make calculations based on some principle of related words... were we to calculate the odds... it simply has to be written down... it may come to one divided by...to the tenth power... this has to be calculated...

[E.R.] I think you are absolutely right. If I may just explain the mental process by which we had arrived at this. You know, when Zeldovich wrote his book on mathematical analysis, a fascinating book, because among other things, he described [inaudible] in every detail... He gave detailed instructions for assembling an atomic bomb... his field of expertise... calculating the critical mass... never mind... But he starts off by writing that an analysis may be described in different ways. It may be aimed at the stubborn reader who refuses to follow you until you prove to him that you have plugged up all the logical holes. It may also be aimed at the cooperative reader who does his best to digest your analysis, who is flexible and willing to accept it on faith, to fill in all the missing stages on his own, and so on. What I mean is that you seem to aim at the kind of reader described by Zeldovich.

[Question] The first or the second?

[E.R.] In a way, due to the subject matter, we were waging battle with an idealized windmill, the absolute skeptic...

[Comment] Still, there is a totally implausible event whose odds must be calculated... You see, it's an incredible phenomenon, the one with Hitler, and the second incredible phenomenon is the one with Franz Joseph. You could probably find several more phenomena of this kind there. We should sit down for a couple of hours, to record the figure - it must be infinitely small.

[E.R.] I believe you are right.

[Question] So why haven't you done that?

[E.R.] Because we were baffled... Whenever we encountered the question of the magnitude of the related phenomena, we were baffled. There are related words... Whenever there were some small variations, we would include them as well. In fact these variations are few, but we are incapable of an exact evaluation, so we would be baffled. That is why we would let our intuition take over as it were... Melech Ostri (King of Austria) - obviously, an incredible phenomenon. When we discussed this with Dima Kazhdan, his reaction was...

[Question] Who is Dima Kazhdan?

[E.R.] One of the best-known mathematicians... he had... you know... well, I just don't want to get into this... Be it as it may, in any case... there is a number of similar things... If, for example, we take the phrase Melech Rusi (King of Russia)... here in the text... Tsar... a Russian word. Which reminds me: we took Stalin, first of all is says there in the text pgarim (corpses); second, we read bilyadeicha lo yarim ish et yado ve'et raglo be'eretz mitzraim - without you, no man shall lift his arm nor his leg in the land of Egypt. Where the Pharaoh appoints Joseph to be the ruler - there is says an absolute dictator over Egypt - there, in that very spot, we find the name of Stalin.

[Question] We can find the word 'Stalin'?

[E.R.] The name Dreyfus stands next to the meraglim (spies). ve'yiten otanu ke'meraglim - and gave us out as spies... I am sorry, but regarding Dreyfus there is a lot here...

[Question] You have said that some dates of birth are unknown. Is there any way to discover them?

[E.R.] This is a reverse task. In principle, we haven't tried it... Here, for example, is the Dreyfus table. What do we have here? ha'mishpat (the trial); ha'psak (the verdict); herpa (disgrace)... he was sentenced to the pillory. Then we read tav, reish, nun, hei - Tarna - the year of the trial; next to it mikhtav and sod - letter and secret. The entire trial revolved around a letter, which contained a secret. Here we have the name of Herzl... and the word yisrael (Israel) intersecting the word eretz (land); and next the word tzioni (Zionist)... A historical abstract all laid out for you. What did take place? Herzl, at the time a reporter for an Austrian paper, attended the Dreyfus trial. The anti-semitism of the French caused him to turn to the Zionist idea. And all of that is contained here. [Inaudible exchange]

Now for Mengele. Well... Maybe we shouldn't.... [din of voices]... All right, look... Mengele... next to him we read ha'menape - selector, then ha'make - one who strikes)... maglev (whip)... nisuyim (experiments)... menuval (scoundrel)... next boreah (flees)... lo yimtzeu (will not be found). There is a number of other places where Mengele appears, always containing references to flight, search, and the futility of searching... I can't be sure, there are some puzzling cases... They may have thought that their actions were hidden from sight, that they are finished with their role of exterminators... but they were wrong, everything has been recorded here. They cannot hide. They are branded. There is a wonderful expression there: ha'yatzarim be'yadam - their instincts are in their hands: they cannot find an excuse by claiming that were forced into it - they were in control of their desires. They cannot claim that their evil was caused by the environment. The Torah states that they had a choice - to be evil or not. Otherwise they would have nothing to answer or be punished for. They would be like a piece of stone, like a puppet. A puppet cannot be punished, nor can it be rewarded. That is the essence of being human: no one forces him to do what he does, it is a result of his understanding, his choice between good and evil. There is more. I am afraid of tiring you. For example, the word ha'shoa (the Holocaust) appears next to the word bdolah (crystal). Here, next to Hitler, we see a complicated word - ha'meitzarim (narrow straits). kol rodfeya hesegeya bein ha'meitzarim - in the narrow straits they were overtaken by the foe. And in the very place where this villain occurs for the second and third time in the table, we read ha'shoa, bdolah, and haman hesegam - they were overtaken by Haman.

[Question] Concerning something that is pre-determined. If it says here that Mengele will not be caught, and yet every effort is made to catch him, then, if it has been determined in advance, then we cannot change it, it has already been written...

[E.R. mutters something inaudible].

[Comment] He is probably dead.

[E.R.] Probably. [Spirited discussion]

[Comment] It doesn't matter. If he is alive, he should be hunted, then he will have to run and squirm...[Discussion ensues]