The Final Testament of the Holy Bible Part 3

When I was in the coma, I was conscious. Not conscious like I am now, but definitely aware, definitely awake in a way. It was this state where sometimes there was silence and blackness, this infinite blackness, but other times I would see and hear and understand things I shouldn't.

It was beyond individuality, or ident.i.ty. I wasn't Ben, not Ben Zion Avrohom or Ben Jones, or a man or a human being in any way, I was just part of this greater thing, or place, or force, or energy. I don't know. That's why I wanted to see you.

I'm hesitant to comment, because this doesn't sound like G.o.d as I know or understand G.o.d.

This sounds like something that might be organic to your injuries, which I don't know the specifics of, but were obviously rather traumatic and related to your brain.

He smiled at me, pointed to a copy of the New Testament sitting on a small table next to his bed.

Pick up that book.

I reached over and I picked it up.

Open it.

Where?

Wherever.

I opened the book.

Put your finger down, and tell me the chapter and verse.

I followed his instructions.

Luke 12:5.

But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into h.e.l.l; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

You've been studying it, with your brother, perhaps?

Never read it. Never even held a copy of it. I can do the same thing with the Old Testament, with the Mishnah and Gemara, and the commentaries in the Babylonian Talmud. I know, by date, every day of all twelve cycles of the Daf Yomi, from today backwards to the day it started.

And you knew all of this when you woke up?

Some of it. The rest has come with the seizures. Every time I have one I know more.

You're going to have to excuse me, Ben, but this is my first time seeing you in many years, and I'm not familiar with everything about you anymore. What type of seizures are you having?

The doctors think it's some type of epilepsy. They're giving me CT scans, MRIs, all sorts of tests. I don't know what I should tell them, if anything, but what happens is that I feel them coming, I know a few minutes before. It's this heavy calm that very gradually covers me. It feels like someone is pouring water very slowly over my body. And when I'm covered, I have this moment, just a brief, brief moment, an instant, where I feel everything, see everything, know and understand everything, and where the world, or the universe, or whatever we are and are a part of, feels perfect, and I feel perfect within it. The only thing it's like is having an o.r.g.a.s.m, but this is a thousand times more intense, and it's beyond just the physical. It's like a giant, unreal o.r.g.a.s.m where all the knowledge and wisdom there ever was and ever will be is mine, but only for that instant. And then the seizure hits. And I feel everything in the seizure, and the pain of it is unreal, and as beautiful as the moment before is, the seizure is its horrific complement, its terrible companion. Somewhere near the end, everything goes black. And when I wake up, I know more, like I've kept some of what I saw or felt or knew.

I imagine you have capable physicians caring for you. What do they say about this phenomenon?

I haven't told them. Just you and Jacob.

Perhaps you should.

They'll tell me I'm crazy.

I could speak to them for you. My position as a rabbi might lend some credibility to what you're saying.

Words of G.o.d mean nothing in the face of science.

I would disagree with you on that point, Ben.

Can your words of G.o.d cure cancer? Or AIDS?

Can your words of G.o.d save a dying child?

Some people believe they can.

They're delusional fools.

And if that is so, what are you, who is hearing the words of G.o.d?

I might be a delusional fool as well.

The door opened and a doctor came into the room, followed by Jacob and his companion, the young man with the Bible. I stood and decided it was best for me to depart, with the hope that I would be able to return sometime in the near future. I said goodbye to Ben, and remarked that I would like to see him again. Jacob objected, but Ben said he would like me to come back, the next day if possible. Jacob said his fellow pastors from the church were coming the next day, and Ben said he would like me to be there with them. Jacob said absolutely not, and Ben leaned back onto the bed and closed his eyes and asked the doctor to begin doing whatever it was he needed to do.

I left the hospital and started heading home, taking the subway, as I usually did when I moved about New York, and especially when I was outside of the borough of Brooklyn. As I rode the train, I thought about Ben, who, while clearly the same person, hardly resembled, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise, the child and young man I had known and tutored for so many years. He was, I believed, or had been since the moment I heard of his conception, the type of individual that came along, depending on one's theological position, once in a generation, once in a lifetime, once in a millennium, or just once, once over the course of all of mankind's existence. The signs had led me to this belief, and while some of them were open to interpretation, some were absolutely not, and I had never questioned the signs, for I had no reason to question them. This Ben, though, this new man, this new incarnation of a person I had not seen for so many years, and who refused to discuss what he had done or where he had been for all of those years, brought up a number of questions for me, and certain things about him, including the extensive knowledge, gained, he said, during a coma, of a book not recognized as valid by my religious authority, conflicted with some of the signs I believed would confirm his ident.i.ty. I had had tremendous expectations going into my meeting with him, some of which I should have certainly tempered. I knew his brother harbored great resentments towards me, which he had extended out to include all Jews, and Judaism as a religion, despite what I was told were his new beliefs regarding G.o.d, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the End Times, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and Israel's required existence for those events to come to pa.s.s. I wondered if this wasn't some elaborate trick that would result in Jacob exacting some form of sad, unnecessary, and ultimately misguided revenge upon me, and if Ben hadn't been convinced to play along in order to regain his brother's, and thus his mother's and his sister's, favor. On the other hand, something about him did seem otherworldly, divine. His scars and his skin and his eyes, which were remarkable, and the fact that he had survived such ma.s.sive trauma, it all supported my initial reaction, and I had no real reason to doubt what he was telling me, as it was, and still is, my inclination to take someone's word as truth until I have reason not to. And that moment, just before he told me that he believed he might be speaking to G.o.d, when he took a deep breath, and the way in which he took that breath, was indicative of something astounding, and unless he had somehow gained knowledge that only I or another rabbi could have pa.s.sed to him, he would not have known it would mean anything to me.

When I arrived home, I went directly to the dining table, where my wife and three children were waiting for me to have our nightly family meal. My wife could see I was preoccupied, which I rarely am, and tried to ask me why, but I didn't feel Ben Zion was an appropriate topic of conversation, and didn't want to discuss him or his family in front of the children. When dinner was over, I excused myself and went to my study, where I keep a small library of Jewish scriptures and sacred texts, which I use in my own continuing study, refer to when I work on one of my sermons at home, or share and use with my family, particularly during holidays and High Holy Days. I walked over to the Babylonian Talmud, which alone takes up several shelves. The copy I own is comprised of sixty-four tractates, totaling 2,711 pages, printed in twenty-four folio volumes. The cycle of Daf Yomi involves studying a single page of the Talmud every day, beginning on page one and continuing for 2,711 consecutive days. It was conceived by Rabbi Yehuda Meir Shapiro of Poland at the First World Congress of the World Agudath Israel, held in Vienna in 1923, which was the year 5684 on the Hebrew calendar, and the first cycle began on the first day of Rosh Hashanah that year. Each day, approximately 150,000 Jews around the world study, contemplate, and discuss the page, and there is a celebration at the end of each cycle called the Siyum HaShas. The most recent Siyum HaShas took place on March 1, 2005, known to us as the year 5766. The idea that someone could know the entire book, or even a single volume of it, was inconceivable, and frankly, quite ridiculous. I chose a volume at random and opened it. Its pages consist of the Mishnah, or Jewish law, printed in the middle of the page, with the Gemara directly below it. The Gemara is a commentary on the law and how it relates to the Torah, written by the Amoraim, a group of ancient rabbinical sages. The Tosafot, a series of commentaries by medieval rabbis, are printed on the outside margins of the page. This incredibly dense text, written in Hebrew, governs Orthodox Judaism. One could devote one's entire life to the study of it, and many do, and not even begin to fully and completely comprehend and understand it, much less have it memorized, which, if even possible, would be a superhuman feat. I placed the volume back on the shelf and went and kissed each of my children goodnight. I returned to my study and I prayed. When my wife came into my study and asked me what was wrong, I told her that Ben Zion had been found, and I had spent the afternoon with him. Having been with me for so many years, she knew what that meant to me, and possibly to all of Judaism, and also the world. Instead of spending time together, as we did most evenings, she left me in prayer, and I prayed for several hours before going to sleep.

The next day I went to the synagogue, where most of my thoughts revolved around Ben, and I found my daily tasks and responsibilities, which I usually so thoroughly enjoyed, to be a tremendous burden. I tried to finish them as soon as possible, and went immediately to the hospital. When I arrived at Ben's room, the young man who had been sitting near Ben's bed, and who was still clutching his Bible, was standing outside the door. When I tried to go into the room, he stepped in front of me and said that Jacob was inside with Ben's doctors and that he had been instructed not to allow anyone to enter. I told him that Ben had specifically asked me to return, and that I had been the family's rabbi before their conversion, and that as far as I knew, I was still Ben's rabbi because he had not converted to Christianity. The man told me he knew who I was, and that Jacob had told him not to allow me inside the room. I asked him his name and he told me it was Jeremiah. When I offered him my hand, he did not receive it.

We waited for a few minutes, and while Jeremiah was not physically imposing, something about him seemed off, as if he were very angry, very nervous, or very scared, or some combination of all of those emotions. He stood in front of the door, reading his Bible, and would occasionally either glare at me or nod to himself while saying Praise Jesus or Hallelujah Lord. When the door finally opened and several doctors stepped out of the room, one of them, a tall thin man who appeared to have some authority, walked over to me and addressed me. Rabbi Schiff?

Yes?

Dr. Wulf. Neurology attending.

Nice to meet you.

Ben is sedated right now. He's had two severe seizures today. Last night, however, he both asked and authorized me to speak with you about his case.

Do you know more than you did yesterday?

We do. If you can come to my office, we can talk for a few minutes.

That would be great. Thank you.

We went to his office, which was crowded with papers, books, degrees on the walls, and a large number of family photos depicting him and a woman, I a.s.sumed his wife, and three young girls, I a.s.sumed his daughters, on vacations, at ball games, in front of a church. There was also a crucifix on the wall. He sat behind his desk and I sat across from him, and he spoke.

We've been working hard to diagnose Ben. It's obvious that he's been suffering from some form of seizure disorder, most likely as a result of his accident. Jacob came to me last night, and he told me about what Ben has been experiencing. That information made it very clear to us that he is suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy, and a rare and specific type, called ecstatic epilepsy. Ecstatic epilepsy is characterized by an aura, which is a feeling the patient has right before a seizure. The auras of someone with ecstatic epilepsy tend to be extreme, often involving sensory hallucinations, sometimes erotic sensations, and, more rarely, religious or spiritual experiences. It can be, and was in our case, difficult to diagnose because the onset of the seizure isn't localized in a specific set point in the brain, which makes it difficult to track using EEGS, and because the experiences involved with the seizures are so profound, and pleasurable, that the patients don't tell their doctors about them because they don't want them treated and stopped. Both seem to be the case with Ben. I don't know what he has spoken to you about, but he told Jacob he believed he was communicating with G.o.d. As I told Jacob, that's actually normal given this diagnosis, but unfortunately, it is entirely a function, or rather a malfunction, of his brain. It is not real, as much as someone like you or Jacob or I would like it to be, and allowing it to continue should not be encouraged. We need to get Ben on a drug regimen and begin treating him.

I understand.

Has he spoken to you about his communications?

I don't discuss conversations between me and members of my synagogue.

Even if it may affect their health?

I understand your position and your concerns, and if they come up with Ben, I will address them with him.

Thank you.

I stood and left and went back to Ben's room, where his brother and Jeremiah were praying at his bedside. He was asleep, on his back, and looked as if he was at peace. Jacob looked up at me and I knew I was not welcome. Wanting to avoid an unnecessary confrontation, I decided it was best to leave. I said a prayer outside the door and went home.

After dinner I went to my study and turned on my computer and started researching epilepsy, and more specifically ecstatic epilepsy, on the internet, which I find a wonderful, though sometimes confusing and contradictory source of information. The diagnosis was perplexing to me. While Ben had clearly suffered major trauma to his head and body, and the epilepsy might have been a direct result of said trauma, if there wasn't a spiritual element, a true spiritual element to what he was experiencing, there was no way he would know the religious books he claimed to know. He had also, since before he was born, depending on who you believed, shown signs of messianic potential, which had grown stronger and more absolute following his birth and his childhood. On the other hand, I did not know if he actually knew the books, and he himself had stated that the words of G.o.d meant nothing in the face of science, and that he might well be a delusional fool. I found myself, until I knew more and spent more time with him and had more time for reflection and prayer, in the same place I was with G.o.d, which is a place of faith. I either had faith in Ben or I didn't. I either believed him, and in him, or I didn't.

My research proved to be very enlightening, and epilepsy turned out to be far more fascinating than I'd imagined it could or would be. Over the course of recorded time, some of the world's most important historical figures either were or are thought to have been epileptic, including Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Petrarch, Dante Alighieri, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ludwig van Beethoven, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Vincent van Gogh, Alfred n.o.bel, Thomas Edison, and Vladimir Lenin. Many scientists and researchers believe that the genius these people possessed was either directly caused by, or most certainly related to, their epilepsy. The number of religious figures I found who are thought to have had it was astonis.h.i.+ng, among them the Priestly source of the Pentateuch, Ezekiel, Saint Paul, the Prophet Muhammad, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, Saint Birgitta, Saint Catherine of Genoa, Saint Teresa of avila, Saint Catherine of Ricci, Saint Margaret Mary, Ellen G. White, and Saint Therese of Lisieux. Among those who either definitely had or are thought to have had ecstatic epilepsy are Saint Paul, the Prophet Muhammad, Joan of Arc, Beethoven, and Dostoyevsky. The effects those moments, those brief moments before their seizures. .h.i.t, had on their lives, and on the world at large, are astonis.h.i.+ng: on the road to Damascus, Saint Paul had his vision of the resurrected Jesus, which led to his conversion to Christianity; the Prophet Muhammad is thought, by some, almost always non-Muslims, to have spoken to the archangel Gabriel and to have received the Qur'an from him during those moments; Joan of Arc is believed to have received the instructions from Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine, and Saint Michael that inspired her to lead the French Army into battle and resulted in its victories against the English in the Hundred Years' War; Beethoven is thought to have conceived of his symphonies in their entirety, which is perhaps how he was able to compose them even when he was deaf; and Dostoyevsky is believed to have conceived of his novels in their entirety. In thinking specifically of Saint Paul and the Prophet Muhammad, who, while I do not wors.h.i.+p in the same way as them or the followers of the religions that one preached and one founded, are certainly the two most important religious figures who have appeared on earth since the death of Jesus Christ, I was heartened in my belief that Ben might be divine, that his visions might be of G.o.d, instead of a false apparition of G.o.d, and that his condition might be a requirement of his potential rather than an impediment to it.

I returned to the hospital the next day, stopping first at the synagogue to ask my a.s.sistant rabbi to handle those responsibilities that are normally mine. When I entered Ben's room, Jacob and Jeremiah were sitting across from Ben, who was cross-legged on his bed. They both had their Bibles open and were giving him book t.i.tles with chapter and verse numbers, and as soon as they finished saying them, Ben immediately recited the text, in what I a.s.sume was a word-for-word rendering, back to them. Jacob looked up at me and started to speak, but Ben told him he wanted me to stay. There were no other seats, so I stood a few feet away from the foot of Ben's bed.

What I saw was absolutely amazing. Jacob was using an Old Testament, the first five books of which, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, also known as the Five Books of Moses, const.i.tute the Torah, and Jeremiah was using the New Testament, the primary focus of which is the story of Jesus Christ. For over an hour they drilled him. They'd quickly flip through the pages, the book, chapter, and verse they landed on, and each time Ben would recite the corresponding text correctly. Near the end of it, while Jeremiah was visibly awed and excited, and I was silent and, in a way, very proud, Jacob seemed very anxious and nervous. He stopped Jeremiah, closed his Old Testament, and spoke. How do I know you didn't memorize these while you were away?

Because I told you I didn't.

Why should I believe you?

It doesn't matter to me if you do or you don't.

Why won't you tell me what you did for all those years?

Because it doesn't matter.

Where were you?

I was drifting.

Where?

Doesn't matter.

It does to me.

Let's end our conversation. I'd like to spend some time with the rabbi.

Tell me what you did and I'll end the conversation.

I lived and felt and learned and hurt and fell in love once and most of the time I wasn't happy but some of the time I was and I never stepped foot in a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, or any other kind of religious establishment and I never picked up a book of any kind, much less memorized one.

You didn't answer my question.

I just didn't give you the answer you wanted.

Jacob stood and said he'd be back in an hour, and he and Jeremiah started to walk out of the room. Ben spoke.

I love you, Jacob. And I appreciate how much care and concern you've shown me.

Jacob stopped and looked back and he almost smiled, which would have been the first time I had seen him smile since he visited me in my office, and he said thank you, and he and Jeremiah left.

Ben looked at me.

You spoke with my doctor.

Yes, I did. It was very interesting, and very informative.

What do you think?

Words of science mean nothing in the face of G.o.d. Ben smiled.

It could just be a malfunction of my brain.

What do you know about Messiah?

The Messiah?

Messiah. Not everyone believes it will be a person. Many believe, as they do with large sections of the Torah, that the story, and the prophecy, of Messiah is symbolic, and not about an actual person who may have lived, may currently be alive, or may at some point walk among us, but about a period of time, a Messianic age, when Jews, and the rest of the world, will live in peace.

Is that what you believe?

No.

You believe in a person, an actual Messiah?

Messiah, or Mos.h.i.+ach, means anointed, or the anointed one, in Hebrew. It is a word that has been used to refer to many things and many people in the Torah, including kings, prophets, priests, and warriors. Some believe we may have seen many Messiahs already, the most prominent being David, Solomon, Aaron, and Saul. In at least three points in our history, a great many Jews believed the Messiah was among us. In 132 CE, a Davidic soldier named s.h.i.+mon Bar Kochba united the armies of the tribes of Israel and led a revolt against Roman rule, which freed Israel. He established a new government in Jerusalem, and he started rebuilding the Temple of Solomon. Rabbis made proclamations naming him Messiah and stating that the Messianic age had begun, which lasted for two years, at which point the Romans returned, crushed the Jewish armies, and killed a large portion of our population, including Bar Kochba. Fifteen hundred years later, in 1648, a Turkish rabbi named Sabbatai Zevi proclaimed himself Messiah, basing his claim on a prophecy set forth in the Kabbalah text of Zohar, which predicted the Messiah's arrival in that year. Though he was not Davidic, and possessed none of the requirements of Messiahs.h.i.+p, by 1665, when he proclaimed himself Messiah again, he was able to convince eighty percent of the world's Jewish population at the time that he was indeed Messiah. He ultimately converted to Islam before Sultan Mehmed iv of Constantinople, humiliating his followers and embarra.s.sing Jews around the world. Against all reason, there are people today who call themselves Sabbatians and believe he was Messiah, and that in order to herald the Messianic age, they pray for his return. The most recent individual thought to be Messiah was Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Rebbe of Chabad Lubavitch in Brooklyn, who lived from 1902 until 1994. He was undoubtedly a great man, and spent his life spreading Orthodox Judaism and working to unite Jews, but his call for prayer to hasten Mos.h.i.+ach was not a proclamation of his own Messianism, despite the belief of many of his own followers, which he neither supported nor rejected. You ask what I believe, and as you know, as an Orthodox Jew, and as a rabbi, I am required as part of my belief to subscribe to the thirteen principles of faith set forth by Maimonides. The twelfth principle states: I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. How long it takes, I will await his coming every day. I also recite the Shemoneh Esrei, the eighteen prayers, three times a day, at morning, afternoon, and evening services, and in that prayer, I pray for the conditions of the Messiah to be met: the return of Jewish exiles to Israel, a return to religious courts and G.o.d's system of justice, an end to evil and the humbling of sinners and heretics, rewards to the righteous, the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of a king descended from David, and the building of the Third Temple of Solomon.

And when that happens, the Messiah arrives?

Or he arrives and then it happens, or some of it happens before and some after, no one knows, and the prophecies aren't specific about it. We only know, or believe, the Messiah will arrive, and that the arrival could be at any time, or it could have been and we missed it, or it could be now, or it could still be coming, and that's part of the beauty of Messiah, the fact that no one knows. There are, though, beliefs that specific events will herald the arrival of the Messiah: if every Jew on earth observes a single Shabbat, or if no Jew on earth observes a single Shabbat, if the world is good enough to be deserving of Messiah, or if the world is bad enough to need Messiah, if an entire generation of Jews is born innocent, or if an entire generation of Jews loses hope. None are likely, though, so instead of waiting for them, or trying to bring them into being, rabbis, or at least some of us, myself included, have looked for specific signs, which have been known for centuries, that Messiah, or the potential Messiah, will possess.

Such as?

The Messiah, or potential Messiah, will have been born on Tisha B'Av, the day of the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The Messiah, or potential Messiah, will have been born circ.u.mcised, as were Adam, Noah, Joseph, Moses, and David, and some believe Jesus, though Jews do not believe that particular myth. The Messiah, or potential Messiah, will be able to judge people, whether they are good or bad, whether they are honest or deceitful, whether they are deserving of Heaven or undeserving, with his sense of smell. The Messiah, or potential Messiah, will also perform miracles; though the exact nature is not revealed, the most common miracles are related to health and medical issues, and having the ability to heal either themselves or others. I watched Ben to see if he would react to what I said, as he knew he had been born on Pa.s.sover. I knew, though I did not know if he did or not, that he had been born circ.u.mcised, which is one of the reasons I had tried, for the entirety of his life, to be close to him and his family, and to watch, guide, and counsel him when I could, and I believed, based on what I had seen, that he had acquired the ability to judge people using his sense of smell. The fact that he was alive, given his traumas, was an obvious miracle, though I did not know, at the time, whether he was able to heal others, or perform any other type of miracle. I doubted, because I did not, and do not, believe the Christ story as it is written, that he would ever have walked on water or turned water to wine. He did not react, which surprised me, because surely he knew he possessed three of the traits, and must have, given the difficult situation within his family, which had revolved around the circ.u.mstances of his birth for his entire life, suspected that he possessed the fourth and that he had been born as he was.

He stood up and looked at me and spoke.

I need to do something.

Shall I wait here for you?

It would probably be better if you went home.

Is everything okay?

He smiled and nodded.