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Statement by Doron Witztum

A. People often ask why, over the last 12 years, I have spent so much
time in the field of hidden codes in the Torah, instead of my original
field of interest-modern physics and general relativity. The discovery
we have made concerning hidden patterns in the Torah is ultimately
much more far-reaching and significant. The repercussions of our
discovery touch on the very nature of human existence. It can be
looked at as the same feeling Robinson Crusoe had when he first
discovered the tracks in the sand, that he wasn't alone on the island.

We have called this press conference as the researchers who did the
original research on the topic of hidden codes. We will be focusing on
three issues:

1) How, using standard scientific and statistical tools, we found that
details of ancient and modern history are encoded in the original
Hebrew text of the Torah. 2) To discuss the many books and works that
have been published related to this field that have no scientific
basis, and are therefore meaningless 3) As the researchers, we will
explain why it is impossible to use codes to predict the future.

B. A brief overview of the development of codes research

1. According to mystical sources in Jewish tradition, the Torah can be
read and understood on many levels, including the level of a "hidden
text." It is composed of words spelled out by skipping equal numbers
of letters through the original Hebrew text. We call this phenomenon
ELS- Equidistant Letter Sequences. The problem with measuring the
significance of what we find is that ELSs will certainly appear in any
text, and any word may appear many times at many skip distances.

2. Twelve years ago, I developed a method to see if this hidden text
could be scientifically and objectively validated. The idea is as
follows: It is a natural property of any text that words that are
conceptually related are likely to appear in the same area of the
text. Therefore we decided to see if the ELSs of related words also
tend to appear in the same area of the text of the Torah. In order for
the convergence of two ELSs to be considered successful, we developed
two criteria. a) A close proximity of two ELSs b) That the ELSs that
appear are ELSs with a relatively short skip distances between the
letters, compared to other ELSs of that word.

*For example: hammer and anvil.  Figure 1

3. Professor Eliyahu Rips developed the mathematical system for
measuring the statistical significance of the results. Yoav Rosenberg
took Eliyahu's ideas and developed an appropriate computer program to
carry out these experiments.

4. In 1986, an extensive experiment was conducted which checked the
overall tendency of convergence of a large list of pairs of words:
names of famous personalities and their dates of birth and death. The
experiment succeeded. A paper describing the results was sent to a
scientific publication, and this became the beginning point of a
rigorous six year process of review and analysis until it was finally
published. Several referees checked the work and asked for further
testing. One of these involved re-running the experiment with a
completely fresh set of data, and also checking other control texts.
This was done and the research passed all tests with very highly
significant results. The article was finally published by Statistical
Science in 1994.

5. Harold Gans, formerly a senior cryptologic mathematician at the
U.S. Department of Defense, conducted an independent experiment to
test the phenomenon that we discovered, using a different set of data.
His experiment also succeeded with highly significant results. He sent
his paper for publication to a scientific journal. Their response was
"This phenomenon has already been scientifically established, so your
work is just another example of the phenomenon."

6. We have conducted seven other experiments that are available as
pre-prints.

7. At present, I am completing a book that gives a true view of this
fantastic phenomenon, and that will describe not only the ten
experiments I mentioned, but also many other successfull experiments
which reveal a vast spectrum of subjects, ancient and modern.

C. Our comments on the book of Michael Drosnin, and other similar
books that have been published 1. On the one hand, we are happy to see
publicity for the phenomenon of Torah codes 2. On the other hand,
there is a danger that the entire credibility of codes research will
be destroyed. Mr. Drosnin's work employs no scientific methodology. No
distinction is made between statistically valid codes, and accidental
appearances, which can be found in any book. For example, Drosnin's
"code" of the comet Shoemaker Levy crashing into Jupiter is
statistically meaningless. Such a code can be found by accident in 1
out of any 3 books checked!

2. What is the danger of research done with no scientific parameters?
For example, we know that the field of health involves systematic
rigorous testing of new medicines. If someone freely distributes a
medicine that has undergone no scientific testing, there are two areas
of damage: 1) The credibility of useful and helpful medicines will be
severely compromised. 2) People may end up using useless medicines in
place of helpful ones.

In codes research, we are dealing with a similar situation: 1) The
credibility of serious codes research will be compromised by amateurs
whose "discoveries" are scientifically meaningless 2) People will
exploit the Torah to present all kinds of counterfeit proofs, by
finding "hidden messages", that bolster their ideology.

We have a very important and valuable phenomenon that has been
discovered. It's a scientific discovery that can really help us get a
better understanding of the nature of our existence. Rather than have
it watered down with people's personal exploitation or
misunderstanding, we should be investing more in serious research and
understanding of the phenomenon.

In summary, one who wishes to show legitimate examples of Torah codes
should at least follow two basic rules: A. Use mathematical tools that
can provide a level of statistical measurement between the minimal
occurrences of ELSs. B. Use an objectively chosen list of words to
look for:

I will now show an example of what I mean by an objective list. This
example has never been shown before publicly:

Figure 2

The process is to take one central word, find it's minimal occurrence
in the text, and then construct a tableau based on it. In this case,
our topic is the death camp Auschwitz. We take an objectively chosen
list of related words. In this case, we are looking for the names of
the subcamps that comprised the Auschwitz complex. We make a tableau
based on the words "of Auschwitz". With our tableau set, the computer
will systematically look throughout the text for a minimal occurrence
of each of the sub-camps. Any one of these words can appear anywhere
in the text of Genesis. We find something very unexpected- that they
consistently appear in the area of the words "of Auschwitz."

D. The Future: Mr. Drosnin's book is based on a false claim. It is
impossible to use Torah codes to predict the future.

I myself as the original researcher of the phenomenon of Torah codes,
investigated thoroughly the question of predicting the future. I
reached the conclusion that it is impossible. I saw this through
experimentation and also as a simple point of logic. There are several
reasons why it's impossible. I will give the most basic reason. In
general, we always have difficulty understanding a text where we don't
have any syntax or punctuation. In the plain Hebrew text of the Torah,
without punctuation, I could easily read the ten commandments as
telling me to steal and murder. There's a verse that describes Moses
being commandment to bring incense. I could easily read it as a
commandment to use drugs. All we have is a few isolated encoded words
of a hidden text. Maybe we're missing some very critical words. It's
literally impossible to learn a coherent story out of the
juxtaposition of a few words that may be somehow related.

Additionally, just like there is a code that Rabin will be
assassinated, I also found a code saying that Churchill will be
assassinated!

Figure 3 "Churchill will be assassinated"

Even regarding past events, there are ELSs of words that appear near
each other that have no relation to each other. It is therefore
unwise, and one could say irresponsible, to make "predictions" based
on ELSs of words appearing near each other.

In summary, we see that predicting the future is impossible. We see
that by publicizing books and works of examples of codes that have no
scientific basis, it ruins the integrity of serious research. And
finally, we see that the scientific phenomenon of Torah codes is a
real one, and is one that deserves serious attention.



Doron Witztum 
Jerusalem 
June 4, 1997