That opened up a door that I wanted to close.
Then I didn't know who to go to, to close it.
My parents, they'd send me to a rabbi.
A rabbi couldn't help.
Rabbi, I'm hearing voices.
There's a demon inside me.
You know what'd he do.
He would send me to a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist, when you are meshuga [crazy] like that,
they didn't know what to do.
So they would give you electric shock treatment.
And then you'd really be meshuga.
And I'm a Jew,
so I'm not gonna go to a priest or something.
Death looked better to me than life.
I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home.
I went to the synagogue faithfully until I was bar mitzvahed.
And I couldn't wait to get out of the synagogue,
but I did go on the high holidays with my parents.
If you said to me, did I believe in God?
I would have said, I guess as a Jew,
I'm supposed to say yes, but I don't know.
And I quickly learned that I could be happy
if I made a million dollars.
I had a degree from a major university in the United States.
I had a job with the largest stock brokerage firm in the
world at that time.
So I did something I'm not proud of.
I left my job.
I left my wife.
I left my daughter and I got involved in what was called a
new age meditation course.
I was told that they would teach me how to know things that
were not programmed in my brain.
And then I thought, well,
if I could know this information from the invisible world,
then, I could know what stocks are gonna go up.
Then I could make a million dollars in the market.
Then I could be happy.
So I took this course
and I actually didn't think it would work.
They told me how to mentally slow down my brain waves
through mental exercise.
And then when I'm in a passive, almost a hypnotic state,
I could invite an imaginary friend into my head.
And this imaginary friend would give me information that had
been never programmed into my brain.
So I went along with it, I'll tell you between you and me,
why I went along with it.
They said, they'd give me my money back if it didn't work.
So I figured I'd, I'd do everything
they said, I knew it wasn't going to work, but it did.
And I knew things that were,
had not been programmed in my mind.
And I thought I'm now gonna be happy.
And the power actually started growing.
And then I got involved in something
called astral projection.
That's where your spirit leaves your body.
But then I found out once your spirit leaves your body every
night that you go to sleep your spirit goes
for a spirit walk.
What if my spirit left my body and didn't make it back
in time, I'd be buried alive.
And I have to tell you,
I was so fearful that I couldn't even sleep.
And I was convinced that what was inside of me was evil.
It was actually a demon.
I have tasted the power of the dark side
of the demonic world.
And contrary to popular opinion, it's not fake.
There are genuine supernatural things that are miraculous.
Death looked better to me than life.
Life was too hard.
I wasn't looking for God.
I wasn't looking for religion.
I was just looking to go back to the way I was.
I'd opened up a door that I wanted to close and I didn't
know how to close it.
And I didn't know who to go to to close it.
For instance, my parents would give their life for me,
but they couldn't help me.
They'd send me to a rabbi, a rabbi, couldn't help.
Rabbi, I'm hearing voices.
There's a demon inside.
You know what he'd do?
He sent me to a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist, when you are meshuga
like that, and they didn't know what to do.
So they would give you electric shock treatment.
And then you'd really be my meshuga.
And I'm a Jew,
so I'm not going to go to a priest or something.
I knew there was nowhere I could go.
I was told there was a greater power than that devil that
was pulling me under, that demon inside of me.
And that power was the name of Jesus.
Did I believe in him?
No, but did I have nowhere else to go?
I had nowhere else to go.
And at that time I'd been given a Bible
by these Christian businessmen.
We Jews have nothing to do with the new Testament.
We Jews have nothing to do with a church.
You know, when you're sinking in the middle of the ocean,
you don't care who throws you a rope.
In desperation, I prayed of two word prayer:
Jesus, help.
I really didn't want to wake up.
Life was too difficult.
Well, I did wake up the next morning.
And I couldn't believe what happened.
That demonic thing that was inside of me, it was gone,
totally gone and replaced with the greatest peace and love
a human could have.
I could not be afraid and fearful if you gave me a million
dollars, because this love conquered all of my fear.
It was the love that I had never, never experienced.
I'd never felt before.
And I returned to my wife and daughter
and my marriage was restored.
And I can tell you that Joy and I have celebrated
our 53rd wedding anniversary.
My dad was angry with me the entire time
that I became a believer.
All of those years. You can't be two things
You can't be the Jewish and a believer in Jesus
He wanted nothing to do with the Christians.
And he was really ashamed that his son was a public believer
in the Messiah.
My mother observed how my marriage was restored,
how I became a good husband, a good father, a good provider.
And she said, you know, I don't believe in this Yeshua,
but Yeshua made my son a mensch.
That means a good human being.
I discussed with her, why I believed in Yeshua.
And one day she said a prayer to know the Messiah.
And then when my mom died,
my father asked the most important question he could ask me.
He said, Sid,
will you go to the synagogue for almost a year with me
and say Kaddish for your mother?
And just as I was going to say,
no, dad, I don't have time.
I heard the voice of God.
And I felt, God said, yes.
Tell him yes.
And you know,
I went with my father every day to the Minyan and I said the
Kaddish and I put on the Tefillin. One day, my father said,
because I was being such a good son in his mind,
Do you still believe in Him?
And I said, yes, dad, I do.
I believe the blood of Yeshua washes away my mistakes.
And I am clean.
I opened up my Tanakh
and I read the 53rd chapter of Isaiah it to him.
It says we Jewish people reject him,
but he won't die for his own sins.
He'll die for our sins.
And by his stripes, by the blood that will flow from him,
we will be healed.
My dad said, Stop! You're reading from a Christian Bible.
You're talking about that man.
And I thought to myself, isn't that amazing?
I am reading from a Jewish Bible
and he thinks I'm talking about Yeshua.
I tell you, God is wonderful.
He restored my life.
He restored my family.
My entire mishpocha [family] came to know the Messiah.
I owe everything to Yeshua and I'm one grateful Jewish man.