Rav Yechiel Spero told a story about the Tzadik, Rav Michoel Ber Weissmandl, zt”l, who was a tremendous Talmid Chacham. One thing he was especially known for was finding codes and hidden secrets in the Torah by looking at letters that were equally distanced from each other.
What was particularly exceptional about this was Rav Michoel Ber did not use a computer to find his codes, and all his calculations were done inside his brilliant mind.
Rav Michoel Ber Weissmandl
Rav Yaakov Mordechai Greenwald related: I was once visiting Rav Weissmandl before Purim and he asked me, “Do you know how many letters there are in the Megilah?” I told him that I didn’t know. Rav Weissmandl said, “There are 12,196 letters in the Megilah.” I said to him, “And what can we do with that number?” He asked me to bring him a Chumash. He said, “If you start at the first Aleph in the Torah, which is in the first word, and you count the same amount of letters as there are in the Megilah, 12,196, you will reach a Samech. From that letter, count the same number of letters again, and you’ll get to a Tav. Do it once more, and the letter will be a Reish. This spells the name Esther. It’s unbelievable!”
Indeed, it was truly amazing. I then asked, “And what about Mordechai? Don’t you think he might feel left out?” Rav Weissmandl said, “I don’t know. Ask me again next year.”
Sure enough, the following year I returned and asked Rav Weissmandl, “Did you find a connection to Mordechai?” He excitedly told me that he found a hint to Mordechai as well. He said, “Chazal teach us in Chulin (139b), ‘Where is the name Mordechai hinted to in the Torah? It is in the words in Parshas Tetzaveh (30:23), where it describes one of the ingredients of the Ketores as Mor D’ror, pure Myrrh, and Onkelos translates this as
