The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

from him, which I did. He spoke.

Long time, Rabbi Schiff.

It certainly has been. I have often wondered what became of you and if, or rather when, I would see you again.

He smiled, didn’t speak, so I did.

Where have you been?

Here.

For a short while, as I understand it, but what about all of the preceding years?

Drifting.

Through greater New York, America, where? And how did you live?

Doesn’t matter.

Were you happy, or safe?

It doesn’t matter. I’m here now.

And I’m very excited to see you, Ben Zion, or excuse me, Ben, I was terribly shaken when you disappeared and your brother did what he did with your family. As you know, I have always thought you were extremely special, and did everything I could to watch over you as a child and…

He waved me off.

The past doesn’t matter. People cling to it because it allows them to ignore the present. I asked for you because I need to talk to you about the present. Something happened to me, or is happening to me, and I don’t understand it, and I don’t want it, and I’m scared of it.

You’ve had a terrible accident and…

I don’t remember much about my childhood, but I remember enough. You weren’t visiting me out of some sense of charity.

No, I wasn’t, though I did care a great deal about your family and its well-being, as I do about all of the families who belong to the synagogue.

Tell me what’s happening to me.

Only you can know, Ben, and at some point, if not already, you either will or you won’t, and you will either be, or you will not be.

I’m not ten or twelve years old anymore, Rabbi Schiff. Tell me what’s happening to me.

You need to tell me what’s happening to you, Ben, and if I can inform you or help you in any way, I will certainly do so.

He sat perfectly still, and stared at me in a way that felt very soft, and very gentle, almost quiet, if it is possible to stare quietly. I felt he was somehow looking into me, to see or learn my intentions. He took a deep breath, but only through his nose, which gave me the last piece of information I believed I needed, and then he exhaled, and then he spoke, spoke the words I had been waiting for thirty years to hear from him, he spoke.

I think God is speaking to me.

And even though I didn’t want to do it, and tried to resist doing so, I smiled, perhaps as wide and true a smile as has ever appeared in my life.

I have always believed this day would come.

I feel like I’m crazy, and I need to know why this is happening.

First, tell me what he is saying.

God is not a man.

A woman?

No. God is not man or woman. Something beyond that, beyond our humanity, our notions of male and female.

If not a man or a woman, what does God sound like?

It’s not some silly voice from above, like it is in the books of the Bible or in the movies, or like it is when delusional religious fanatics talk about it. It’s not even a voice at all. It’s just this presence, this feeling, this state where I learn things, where I’m shown things, where I see things.

What?

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 identity. 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 God as I know or understand God.

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 Hell; 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