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?
I imagine you have capable physicians caring for you. What do they say about this phenomenon?
Perhaps you should.
I could speak to them for you. My position as a rabbi might lend some credibility to what you’re saying.
I would disagree with you on that point, Ben.
Some people believe they can.
And if that is so, what are you, who is hearing the words of God?
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 identity. 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 God, 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 pass. 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 massive 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 God, 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 passed 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
