- Well, I'm from New York City,
my parents were immigrants from Europe,
they both escaped before The Holocaust.
Then they settled in Long Island, that's where I was born.
Because my parents were afraid of Anti-Semitism
they didn't wanna send me to public school.
So, they sent me to Yeshiva.
So we weren't particularly a religious family,
while I went to an Orthodox Yeshiva,
now all of a sudden, we became religious.
Shabbat every week, Shul, learn Hebrew, Talmud,
Jewish history, all of that.
And, you know, we pretended the best
we could that we were a normal family.
But there was a lot of conflict in my home,
which were my Mum and Dad.
They sat us down, my brother and I and told us
they were getting a divorce.
And I moved in with my Dad, and I got to do
whatever I wanted pretty much.
So I graduated from Judaism and I didn't feel
really bad about it, it was just the prayers,
it was the religious things that we did,
so it really doesn't matter.
And pretty much as soon as I got to college,
I started smoking pot, started drinking beer,
and in the end of '69, I dropped out of college,
me and my girlfriend at the time and a couple other people.
We hopped in this old station wagon that I had
and we drove out to Colorado, Boulder.
Boulder, Colorado back in those days was a mecca for all
the up and coming hippies, experimenting with drugs,
LSD, meths, I decided that why should I pay retail.
So I decided to see if I could actually get into dealing.
So that was my life for several years,
I didn't mention that at that time I got married.
We had had two children, a girl and a boy.
They were quite little, I had a business,
actually a legitimate business,
in the real estate business in Colorado.
So, we had that and we had this other business,
our pharmaceutical business,
So kind of living a double life.
While I was living in Estes Park,
let's just say that I had a run in with the police.
So, I'm going down to Boulder
to deliver some drugs
with a friend of mine who had set up the deal.
And so we get down there, to this house in Boulder
and we're waiting outside and we're just waiting
for our money so we can hit the road.
All of a sudden, we're surrounded by agents
of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
With their guns drawn and we are now under arrest.
Here I was facing federal charges of drug distribution,
and in the court, the jury acquitted me.
All charges dropped believe it or not.
There was not enough evidence to convict me.
So you would probably think that I would have learned
my lesson from that, but no.
Because after that, we met an importer of Cocaine
from South America, and he said: "hey, would you and your wife
"be interested in going into business?"
We did that a couple times, and then I thought
you know what, I think that's enough of that life.
At the same time, my wife and I
were having serious marital problems.
It was not pleasant and during the time
is when I met Gloria, so a lot of times,
people will ask us because, they see us,
we were married for 35 years, oh how did you meet?
So we met in a bar and she was the other woman.
Here I was, a Jew from New York
and she a redneck from Mississippi.
So we started partying together, getting high
and so forth and then my wife and I split up
and Gloria and I started going together.
Yeah, so Gloria had a drinking problem.
And she would drink, her behavior would change,
and it wasn't good.
So one night, we stayed in the bar after hours,
for a late night party, it was about 3 a.m.
Gloria drove, I thought I can't drive,
I thought she was in better shape, so
we're driving back on this mountain road
and we missed the curb and went over an embankment
and went down the embankment and the car
went end over end about 3 times.
We could have easily both been killed,
probably should have been.
So that was like,
in retrospect, a real turning point for me.
So we started getting involved with a group
called 'Actualizations', one of the people that we met there
recognized that we were partying a lot,
we were drinking a lot.
So he did what we would now call an intervention.
What I learned was that I wasn't an addict,
although I certainly abused it and I abused drugs,
but I didn't have that addictive personality,
whereas Gloria did, and they started talking to us
about God, a part of the program,
is God as you understand him.
So I remember meeting with the councilor
I'm siting there in her office and she says,
"so you don't believe in god at all?"
No, I don't believe in god, I'm an atheist you know?
She said "okay, well it's really important
that you believe in something, that's outside of yourself,
you know, like even if its a tree".
And I thought, okay, I guess I can believe in a tree.
So we make a commitment, no more drugs,
no more alcohol and we start on this path towards sobriety.
So while I was believing in a tree,
Gloria was going back to the church,
'cause that was her background as a Baptist.
And she comes in the house one day, "guess what?
"I am a born again Christian, I've given my life to Jesus."
So what's running through my head is, what does this mean?
Is this grounds for divorce?
You know what, I'm Jewish, Jews don't believe in Jesus.
So that's great for you but don't bother me.
Right about this time, somebody had given me a book
about Isaiah 53, what's the big deal about Isaiah 53?
So I turn and I look and I'm reading Isaiah 53,
describing in detail about a person who
suffered, who took upon himself the sins of the nation
of Israel, and I'm going,
there's only one person that fits this description.
If any of this is true, Jesus has to be the Messiah.
So at that point I came to an intellectual decision,
an intellectual understanding,
okay, he is the Messiah, if there is a Messiah,
he is the one.
At this point I was starting to really struggle
with my identity, as being a Jew.
What does that mean?
Can I as a Jew believe in Jesus?
That's clearly the guide of the Christians.
A few months later,
it was the High Holidays,
it was coming up for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur.
And I'm beginning to think,
I need to reconnect with my Jewishness.
So when I call around the synagogues for High Holidays,
you have to pay for tickets and,
I really didn't wanna do that,
we were going through some financial challenges.
But then I though ah-ha,
what about that messianic synagogue?
So I called them up, do you charge anything?
No, no we don't charge anything!
Okay great, So, we decided to go.
Gloria and I and we took a friend of ours as well.
And we went down, went through the whole service,
and it was beautiful, the music was beautiful.
At the end of the service we leave
and we're driving home, I'm driving
and Gloria's in the next seat, and she's talking
to the friend that came with us.
And I remember the exact spot that this happened.
It's almost hard to describe.
At that moment
I just surrendered.
It all came together and it went from my head,
of understanding intellectually, cause that's how I had,
really that's how I had approached the question
is Jesus really the Messiah or not?
I just said God, I believe.
Not just up here, but I believe up here.
And at that moment, I just felt
this peace that I had never felt in my life before.
It just came into my heart, filled me up.
We dropped our friend off, I didn't say a word,
I couldn't speak, we get home
and I said to Gloria, I did it.
"What, you did what?"
I received Yeshua, "what, where was I, where was I?"
You were in the next seat talking.
But it was just me and God at that moment,
and I knew at that moment that my life was gonna be changed,
forever.