The Esther Code Read online

  The next day, Simon does not see that same flame in his father’s eyes as he stands next to his hospital bed. Now Simon just sees fear and pain. He will spend the next nine days in the Coronary Care Unit before his heart, too badly damaged for any intervention, finally gives out. As the minutes tick by, each one seems to echo in Simon’s ears, while his father draws closer to the edge of death.

  “Your grandmother. She will put your name on her accounts after I die. Once you are eighteen, you can use the money to finish what I started,” his father’s hoarse voice explains, breaking the silence.

  Simon cannot say anything in return but swallows the lump in his throat. He can only nod his head in understanding.

  “Promise me that you will finish the work. That you will see each and every one of these cowardly murderers get the punishment they deserve. Promise me you will finish my life’s work. In honor of your grandmother, your grandfather, and their families who didn’t survive. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” Simon vows. His notices his own fists are clenched, and a tear slides down his cheek.

  His father sighs in relief. His body, pale and drained, seems to melt into the hospital bed, as though a burden is suddenly lifted off his shoulders. Yet there is hardly a pause before Simon’s father continues, “Write again to the Department of Justice, to every head and lackey if necessary.”

  “Yes, Dad,” Simon promises. More tears are running down his cheeks.

  “I’m proud of you, son.” These are the last words his father ever speaks to Simon. The funeral is held the next day.

  By the time Simon turned eighteen, his father’s estate was settled. Simon was the sole beneficiary. The house and dry cleaning stores were sold. With all of his father’s traveling, the stores were not nearly as profitable as they had been in their prime. The lawyer advised selling them while they were still “in the black.” The money was put away for Simon, plus $100,000 from Dad’s life insurance policy. By college, he had all of the money he would need for quite some time. There were some splurges during Spring Breaks, but otherwise, he was very meticulous in managing his money. Even after he finished graduate school, he had plenty left over. His father had been an only child. He was an only child. He thus became the sole heir to his grandparents’ estate, which was worth close to eight million dollars and climbing every year, as his grandfather had amassed his fortune in real estate. Three years ago, Simon sold a parcel of land that had had a fledgling used car dealership to someone who put up a McDonalds. He netted over two hundred thousand dollars. The money would be used to cover his expenses. There is no cheap way to do something, if you want to do it right.

  * * * * *

  As Simon returns to the task at hand, he reviews his data on his next victim and the family. This case will be slightly harder than his last one. He takes another sip of coffee and looks at all of the facts before him. August 8 will not be here soon enough. Can he wait that long?

  Watching the cars drive by out in front of the store, Simon starts to contemplate the idea to hurry up and get it over with. Maybe it is because he knows these evil men are not long for this world anyway. It would be heinous for them to die before they receive justice. He hopes he has given the FBI enough information to figure out when he will strike next. This is a key to his plan. Could it be that the FBI closing in on him is causing him to sweat a little about finishing the job? No, there is nothing worrisome about the FBI being on his trail. He has planned for this. He is going to play them like a violin.

  There is something else that is pushing him to finish. Maybe it is that now-familiar knot in his stomach that makes him to want to hurry. Simon can ignore his uneasiness, though. Besides, he is truly almost done. So close. That thought seems to appease his stomach. “I must get back to work and stick with the plan,” Simon thinks determinedly.

  He looks back at his facts, checking them over. The next victim’s wife is very ill. They live in a small condo, and she has visiting nursing twenty-four hours a day. It might cause some complications, but it should not be a problem for Simon if everything is done correctly. There can be no collateral damage. The wife and visiting nurse are innocent and do not deserve to die.

  Drinking the last of the coffee in his cup, Simon starts to feel tired, despite the extra caffeine. Maybe not tired, but irritated. Something is still nagging at him. Simon’s fear is that he must have forgotten something important. Thinking back over all of his hard work, Simon is sure he did things perfectly. He has committed the perfect crimes. It is not the crimes that bother him, but the criminals.

  Standing, Simon closes his laptop and gets ready to leave. He decides that ignoring the uneasy feeling will have to do for the moment. There are more important things he has to do, and he cannot lose focus. He packs away his laptop and walks out of the Starbucks, wanting to just leave behind the knot in his stomach.

  Chapter 32

  Rabbi Silverman stares straight ahead, his thoughts blocking out Jamie’s voice. A numbing sensation fills his body as he fixates on his discovery. A mixture of unbelief and horror fills his mind. He sits at the table, staring into and beyond his printout, contemplating the unimaginable. That is, until he is jolted out of his thoughts by Jamie’s voice, which has become increasingly forceful…and loud.

  “What are the initials? How did you guess the next one was A.R.?” Jamie trumpets. She is beginning to draw attention.

  “It wasn’t a guess,” Rabbi Silverman replies, still stunned. He hesitates a moment, then asks softly, afraid of the answer, “Was I correct? Was the next one A.R.?”

  “Yes.” Jamie has also seen that others are curious, and she reins in her emotions. “What is going on? May I see that?” Jamie asks, reaching for the paper. She senses the ominous change of mood in Rabbi Silverman.

  He hands the paper slowly over to her, looking as if he is going to be sick. She surveys it quizzically. At the top of the page, it reads, “The List of Nazis Hanged after the Nuremberg Trial in 1946.” Jamie glances back at the rabbi, still not making the connection. Returning to the paper, Jamie starts to read the names on the list. There are ten of them in total. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg…Jamie suddenly stops. She checks the initials. Sure enough, they match. J.V.R., W.K., E.K., A.R.…

  “You did it!” Jamie exclaims, “you solved the initials! But what does it mean? Why would he have a name of a son of Haman with the initials of someone hanged at Nuremberg?”

  She puts the paper down on the table and looks to Rabbi Silverman. He is unmoved from when he handed her the paper. His eyes stare blankly into the distance. It is as if his mind is still processing the information. No, he’s uncertain whether I can handle the information.

  “It’s complicated, but the code in Esther points directly to the Nuremberg Trials. I’ll do my best to make it make sense, Ms. Golding, but it is a lot to take in. I will have to go into a lot of detail. Are you ready for this?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Jamie assures him with an equally determined and serious stare.

  “Okay, here goes. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esav, ‘Esau’ in English. Esau had a grandson named Amalek. The Nation of Amalek turns out to be the archenemy of the Jews. His nation attacked the children of Israel after they left Egypt, and, because of this, even God declared that nation to be Enemy Number One.” He takes a deep breath, preparing. “Fast-forward several hundred years, and King Saul is commanded by God to wipe out Amalek once and for all. Saul attacks, but he fails to kill the King of Amalek, Agag. For this, Saul loses the kingship, and it transfers to David. What you need to remember is that the King of Amalek at that time was Agag. Now, fast-forward again another few centuries, and we meet Haman, the villain of the book of Esther, which you have already seen.”

  Rabbi Silverman flips to the back of the volume in front of him, to the book of Esther. He again turns the book so that it is right-side up for Jamie and pushes it over in front of her.

  “He is introduced
in chapter three as Haman, the son of Hamedasa, the Agagite. So now we know that Haman is a direct descendant of Agag, King of Amalek, the mortal enemy of the Jews. Amalek is a different type of enemy. He is not one that wants you to become like him, to become a subject of his kingdom. He wants to totally wipe you out. That’s what Agag wanted, and that’s what Haman wanted, and that’s what the Nazis wanted. Men, women, children—it didn’t matter.”

  “Okay, fine, so Haman was from Amalek, and he felt the same way as the Nazis. Couldn’t that just be a coincidence?” Jamie interrupts with an unconvinced shrug.

  “Well, wait. Now, if we can also show that Nazi Germany was also descended from Amalek, then we have a more direct connection. Give me a few moments; I need to print something else to show you.”

  Rabbi Silverman returns to the little office and begins to work on one of the computers. Jamie watches him leave, taking note of his solid black suit. She thinks it is strange that she does not remember seeing anyone wearing those clothes when she went to Hebrew school. Of course, she has forgotten plenty of things about those days. When a few minutes pass by and Rabbi Silverman does not return, Jamie takes out her phone.

  Finally, Rabbi Silverman comes back with some newly-printed sheets and a large volume in Hebrew. Jamie puts her phone away.

  “Sorry about that. Some of what I need is from the encyclopedia and not found in the study hall. This is tractate Megilla from the Talmud that deals with none other than the book of Esther and with Purim,” Rabbi Silverman explains, putting the book on the table.

  “In it, Germany is mentioned by name. Of course, the Talmud was completed in the year 500, a long time before Germany came into existence,” Rabbi Silverman continues. He opens the book and flips through the pages. “Now then, here we are, page 6b, yep, and I quote:

  Rav Yitzhak said, “What is meant by the verse in Psalms?: ‘God, do not grant the desires of the evil man, and do not let his plot prosper, lest he raise himself

  above.’

  Jacob our forefather foresaw what his son Esau would do to Israel, and he prayed these words to God: ‘Do not grant the desires of the evil man’ – he was referring to Esau, and ‘do not let his plot prosper’ - he was referring to Germamia of Edom, for should they go forth, they will destroy the entire world.”

  He pauses, watching Jamie to make sure he is not confusing her with all of the information. She nods in the appropriate spots and looks him straight in the eye as he teaches her.

  Satisfied, Rabbi Silverman continues, “Now Rashi, who was the foremost commentator on the Talmud and lived in the 11th century, says ‘Germamia’ refers to the name of a monarchy from the Kingdom of Esau.’ In modern Hebrew, Germany is Germania.

  “But still, how do we know that what they were talking about refers to our current Germany? The Talmud continues, ‘Rebbe Chama bar Chanina said: There are 300 crowned princes in Germamia of Edom…

  So, I just printed this quote from the Encyclopedia: ‘The political disintegration of Germany had far-reaching economic effects; 300 princedoms and free cities guarded their economic autonomy fiercely.’ And here is a quote from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: ‘By the end of the Middle Ages, which had seen Britain and France emerge as unified nations, Germany remained a crazy patchwork of some 300 individual states.’

  “So here we have Haman coming from Esau and Amalek, and the Talmud foresees the nation of Germany also coming from them.

  “That being said, let’s get back to the book of Esther. This book is unique in that it does not mention the name of God even once. This is very unusual for a book of the Bible. Our rabbis learn a profound lesson from this. It is so clear once you read the entire story that the whole thing was orchestrated by God and that what seemed like a random set of coincidences are in fact not coincidences at all. Likewise, so it is today, when we may not see God in a revealed way, but we know that he runs the show. Okay, so it is interesting that, throughout the Megilla, sometimes you see Achasverosh, the King, referred to as ‘King Achasverosh’, and sometimes he is only referred to as ‘the King’. Our rabbis taught us that, if you want to read the Megilla on a deeper level and see the hidden hand of God, then every time it says ‘King Achasverosh’ read it as referring to ‘Achasverosh’, the King; and when it just says ‘the King’, read it as the ‘King of Kings’, God.”

  “One instance where this makes a big difference is in a conversation between Queen Esther and ‘the King’ after the ten sons of Haman have been killed. The Jews were given permission to defend themselves against the eradicating force. The Megilla says: ‘The King said to Queen Esther, ‘In Shushan the capital the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men, including the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the King’s provinces? What is your petition now, it will be given to you, what is your request and it will be done? Esther said: If it pleases the King, allow the Jews of Shushan to do tomorrow as they did today, and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows. The King ordered that this be done—.”

  “Why hang them? Aren’t they are already dead?” Jamie cuts across him with her question.

  “Exactly. Now in this whole paragraph it doesn’t mention Achashverosh, but only ‘the King.’ So in the way we mentioned a second ago. It is as if Esther was asking God that tomorrow, meaning sometime in the future, that the Jews of Shushan should do like they did back then and hang ten sons of Haman,” Rabbi Silverman replies.

  “Yeah, but she said the Jews of Shushan should do tomorrow, not Nuremburg, or Germany, or even Esau. Sounds like a stretch to me that she was referring to people a couple of thousand years into the future,” Jamie retorts, folding her arms.

  “I thought the same thing when I first heard this. So when I got home I did some of my own calculations. If Shushan is supposed to be Nuremberg, then they must be related somehow. Amazingly, ‘b’Shushan Habira’, the way it is mentioned in this sentence, and ‘Nuremberg, Germany’, when written in Hebrew, have the same numerical value. Exactly the same.”

  Jamie’s face still shows skepticism.

  “Okay, if that is not good enough, here is where it gets really interesting. Your question was, ‘How could it be referring to a couple of thousand years into the future when Esther asks the King if the Jews of Shushan can hang the sons of Haman tomorrow?’ Why would we think that there would be any connection between the Nuremberg hangings and Esther’s words? If you look at any book of Esther, you will find the ten sons of Haman written in a peculiar way. The ten sons are listed in a column on the right side of the page, and the word ‘and’ is written in a column ten times on the left side of the page. First of all, why do we need to know their names at all? It could just say that the ten sons of Haman were killed. Why list them in such a peculiar way, with the word ‘and’ in between?

  “No idea. I have to trust that this is not the normal way things are listed in the Bible.”

  “It is not. If you add the numerical value with all of the ‘ands’ you get a large number, something over ten thousand. Then if you write the ten hanged at Nuremberg in Hebrew, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hans Frank, Julius Striecher, and add up the numerical value you get the same number! I’ve verified it myself.”

  “Exactly the same?”

  “Exactly the same. It is only because it is written in the unusual way with all of the ‘ands’ that it works.”

  There’s more. There are three letters that are written in a smaller font and one letter that is written bigger than the rest.”

  “What do you mean, smaller?”

  “Look inside the book and I’ll show you.”

  “The three small letters and one larger letter point to the year of the Nuremberg hangings in the Jewish calendar. When we say what year it is, we say, for example, this year is ‘taf shin ayin gimel’. Numerically those letters add up to 773. Now the year is 5773. We don’t mention the thousands, only the hundreds. I guess if you don’t know what millennium you are living in, you’ve got bigger problems,” he adds w
ith a small chuckle. He does not get the same from Jamie, who is concentrating on synthesizing all of the information.

  “So the three small letters add up to 707. But which 707? Which millennium are we referring too? The big letter is a ‘vav’, which is, numerically, six.”

  He puts up an additional finger as he counts off each of these dates. “707, 1707, 2707, 3707, 4707, and 5707 is the 6th time we have the year 707. So the one large letter and three small letters indicate the year 5707. The year 5707 in the Jewish calendar coincided with the year 1946 in the Gregorian calendar. The Nuremberg hangings were in 1946.

  “The ten at Nuremberg were all hanged on the same day, just like the ten sons of Haman. And not just on any day either, but on Hoshana Raba, in the year 5707,” Rabbi Silverman concludes.

  “Hoshana Raba?” Jamie inquires, surprised. “That is on my list of questions. What is it?”

  “Hoshana Raba is the 7th day of the Sukkos holiday—Tabernacles in English. It is a special day on which the nations of the world are judged. The Zohar says that ‘on Hoshana Raba sentences are issued from the King. Judgments are aroused and executed that day.’ It is no coincidence that they were hanged on Hoshana Raba.”

  “There have been two murders on Hoshana Raba,” Jamie tells him quickly.

  “Really? I see…”

  “Sounds like our guy already knows what you are telling me.”

  “I’m afraid so. But there is more. Here is a quote from an October 28, 1946, article in Newsweek. I also just printed it. The article gives an eyewitness account of the hangings in Nuremberg, and of how each condemned person approached the gallows and was allowed to make a statement. Here is a quote from the article: ‘Only Julius Streicher went without dignity. He had to be pushed across the floor, wild-eyed and screaming: “Heil Hitler!” Mounting the steps he cried out: “And now I go to God.” He stared at the witnesses facing the gallows and shouted: “Purimfest, 1946!”’