Sharon isn't the first story of an after-death experience.
In recent years it seems more and more people who have been
declared clinically dead have survived to tell of their otherworldly
experiences, reporting such similar visions as a strong white
light at the end of a tunnel and an encompassing feeling of
peace and warmth. Yet Sharon's story is so detailed, his visions
are so vivid, that it changed his entire attitude on life.
Sharon
was striving in military intelligence, serving as a commander
of an anti-terror undercover unit in Judea and Samaria and
having served as chief of security for secret intelligence
delegations in Eastern Europe. His religious affiliation,
like many Israelis, was traditional. He respected Rabbis and
gave charity to Jewish schools, but simply wasn't a religious
fellow, until the day of his enormous car accident in June
1997.
That
morning, Mr. Sharon, a father of three children, left his
home in Rechovot to help arrange a salvation strategy for
the Army's upcoming partial withdrawal from Hebron. Five minutes
on the road, his left front wheel blew out, leaving the car
to spin out of control into the opposite lane, where it was
demolished by an oncoming truck.
When
the rescue workers finally extricated Sharon's body from the
remains, it came across more like a load of flesh and blood.
His left arm and his hips were crushed. The car's engine had
smashed his legs, his jaws were broken, his nose was torn
off and all his teeth were knocked out. One of the medics
gathered them up and put them in a cup. His lungs were so
badly wounded that he stopped breathing and lost consciousness.
By the time he was laid out on a stretcher, his pulse and
breathing had stopped. The ambulance squad covered him with
a white sheet and filled out the form - "Dead at the
scene of accident."
The
accident scene caused a massive traffic tie-up; one of the
vehicles caught up was an Egged city bus number 212, going
from Ashdod to Rechovot. A young man came off the bus and
said he was an IDF army medic. On his shirt was written, "Medical
Officer." The rescue workers pointed him in the direction
of the other injured waiting to be evacuated, but he went
over to Sharons body under the white sheet and said, "What's
with this one?" "Oh, he's dead," they answered.
Yet the medical officer wanted to investigate for himself.
He pulled off the sheet, and with the help of a few crude
tools including a ballpoint pen; he performed an emergency
tracheotomy and cleared Sharon's lungs of the blood and fluid
so that air could get in. Suddenly Sharon began to gurgle
and breathe. The emergency rescue workers saw the change in
his status and instantly transported him. In spite of this,
precisely afterwards, the medical officer disappeared, and
to this day no one has been able to discover who he was, despite
newspaper and radio ads looking for him.
While
all this was happening below, Sharon was experiencing something
altogether different from above. As he lay dead on the pavement
of the scene, his soul was standing before the Heavenly Court
in judgment,
His
wife Avivit, who at this point had no idea that he had been
declared clinically dead, said she noticed the change in him
even as he was being wheeled into the emergency room. He could
barely breath, yet he kept mumbling, "I saw Grandfather.
Grandfather pushed me." And as he drifted in and out
of consciousness after the initial nine-hour-long surgery,
with massive effort he whispered, "Where is Aunt Miriam?"
Aunt Miriam was a righteous woman who spent her days doing
kindness for others. Her health situation had been declining
rapidly and Sharon had visited her the day before the accident.
She passed away just hours before the accident, but, not wanting
to upset Sharon, his family told him she was fine. "They
didn't understand," Sharon explained. "I wanted
to know if she was really dead. I saw her in the hall of the
Heavenly Court."
Over
the next few hours, in and out of consciousness, Sharon's
questions continued, his requests baffling his family. He
told his wife to take down a plaque that was hanging on a
wall in recognition of a contribution he had given to a Jewish
School and to put it away in a drawer. He asked his mother
if he had ever made a pledge he didn't keep in the end. She
replied that six years before he had pledged to donate a Torah
Ark to a certain synagogue following a previous car accident.
"I must finance it as soon as possible," he told
his mother in desperation. Later he looked up, smiled, and
said, "God, I love you." His behavior was baffling,
but his family attributed it to the severe injuries he'd suffered
in the accident. At that point they didn't know he had been
declared clinically dead. They only found out after he was
moved out of the recovery suite into the intensive care ward,
when his wife and sister took a peek into his file, which
was lying open on the bed. "He was actually dead!"
they realized. What had transpired during those minutes?
In
the meantime, Sharon spent months in the hospital, undergoing
surgery after surgery as doctors pieced him back together.
He remembers nothing of those months, being under heavy sedation
and high doses of morphine so that his body would have a chance
to heal without the interference of the intolerable pain he
would have felt had he been awake. He is considered a medical
miracle, and he has been the subject of various medical symposia.
The surgeon who operated on his head even became more religious
after witnessing Sharon's amazing survival. By the time he
was moved to the rehabilitation wing of Tel Hashomer Hospital,
he was surely alive, but doctors didn't give him much hope
of further recovery. His left hand was totally nonfunctional;
he couldn't move his legs and his body was massively scarred.
In place of his shattered bones, in the course of 17 operations
doctors had implanted pieces of metal to connect whatever
bones were still viable, and his daily dose of physical suffering
was more than most humans could bear. But he bore it with
grace, as the Heavenly Court had told him he would have much
suffering in the physical world if he chose to return to life.
One evening during those long months, his brother-in-law shared
a personal visit with him. "You've experienced something
only very few merit," his brother-in-law said. "Something
happened to you when you were hovering between this world
and the next. Please tell what you saw."
Sharon had hinted at his metaphysical experience before, but
he was always afraid to divulge what had happened Up There.
Perhaps no one would believe him. Perhaps they'd think he'd
gone crazy. Besides, he spent his days drifting in and out
of consciousness. This time, during a period of lucidity,
his brother-in-law pressed on. "No more boundaries,"
he implored. "Tell who you saw, what it was like. It
will strengthen others in their fear of Heaven."
Sharon
began. His brother-in-law, Shachar Ashbal, who studies in
a Rabbinic School in Binyamina, was there with Sharon's sister.
Together they heard the story.
Right
after the accident, Sharon entered a large hall, which was
full of people who had died, some many years ago, some whom
Sharon still remembered. Everyone seemed happy and showered
Sharon with love and warmth, especially his grandfather. The
hall itself seemed to be unbounded, with no beginning and
no end, and he was able to identify everyone, even those he
didn't know. (His brother-in-law wrote down all the names,
most of them people he didn't know, and indeed he later discovered
that those people did exist, many of whom died before Sharon
was born.) Everyone wore fine clothing and looked as they
did at the time of their death. Sharon looked for his grandfather,
a very dignified man, but only found his uncle, his father's
brother. "Where is Grandfather?" he asked. His uncle
said, "Grandfather went with our other brother to speak
on your behalf."
Suddenly
Sharon felt himself being pushed in the direction of the stage.
He was uncomfortable, because everyone was dressed in their
finery and his clothes were torn and bloody from the accident.
As he approached the stage he saw three powerful lights. The
middle one was the strongest, and it was so blinding that
Sharon couldn't look at it. The sidelights were not as strong,
one serving as the voice of "good" and the other
as the voice of "bad." Next to the stage, standing
next to the side of "good," were four kabalistic
Israelis Rabbis who are alive: Rabbi Yitzchak Kadouri, Rabbi
Mordechai Eliyahu, Rabbi David Batzri and Rabbi Yoram Abergil.
(The
Talmud says that great Rabbis of the generation influence
both the lower and upper worlds.)
Suddenly
the voice of "bad" boomed out, "Either you
or the aunt must stay." It was referring to Aunt Miriam,
whom he had seen just the day before, and she looked as frail
as when he had last seen her. "I'm willing to stay,"
he heard her say, and then she was no longer next to him,
but far away, standing in judgment like himself. As the light
of "bad" began its speech, Sharon saw the movie
of his whole life pass before him. The entire hall was watching.
They judged him on his concentration during prayer, gossiping,
open and concealed hatred, promises made and not kept (the
Torah ark) and theft. After that he was asked three questions,
those mentioned in the Talmud:
1. Did you deal in business faithfully?
2. Did you set-aside specific time for Torah study?
3. Did you hope for the Redemption?
(Shachar
heard Sharon saying over theses three questions, but believe
me Sharon said, I had never heard of these questions before.
I had never learned a page of the Talmud in my life).
His
voice was taken from him, and the light of "good"
spoke instead. It told the court how Sharon had given charity
to Jewish School, but then the voice of "bad" interjected
that he had flaunted his contribution with a plaque on the
wall.
Then
they started checking his observance of the good-deeds, including
those Sharon had never thought of as important. He was praised
for his Shabbat observance, however minimal, and for wearing
a kippa. Then the four Kabalistic rabbis appeared, and although
Sharon had never seen them before, they testified on his behalf.
Other witnesses appeared, including a widowed aunt that Sharon
had helped substantially without his family knowing. It was
the aunt's testimony that tipped the scales and enabled his
soul to return to the world. After the trial, the judge spoke
from within the blinding light. The judge asked Sharon if
he would take upon himself three things, which Sharon will
not divulge. One thing he promised to do, and the other two
he said he'd try to do. Then came the time for Sharon to decide
if he wanted to return to his body in the mortal world.
The
judge stated that he would suffer much physical pain in this
world, but that the pain would expiate his sins and that he
should be grateful for it. Sharon then turned around and tried
to run out, and again he felt ashamed that everyone was looking
at his bloodied clothes. The hall then emptied out except
for his grandmother, who ran after him to make sure he left.
His grandfather was also there, making sure he got out quickly.
As his grandmother faded from view, he saw himself hovering
above his body as the medics worked on him, and then his special
vision stopped and he returned to his mortal self.
"I've
spoken to several others who have had after-death experiences,"
Sharon told a reporter, "and they've all had similar
stories of judgment. The only thing I remember now so clearly
of my own experience is my grandfather pushing me.
Soon
after the accident, Sharon pleaded with his family to find
Rabbi Yoram Abergil. (One of the four-kabalistic rabbis that
he meet in heaven) The Rabbi visited him in the hospital,
as he lay paralyzed, with doctors giving little hope for any
additional improvement The Rabbi's blessing became a prophecy.
He said that Sharon's right leg would totally heal and that
his left leg would remain with a slight limp. "You will
yet walk," the Kabalistic Rabbi told Sharon.
Sharon's
experience left him with a new understanding and commitment,
which he has translated both to his personal life and to what
he sees as his mission in the world. He lectures to audiences
around the country, as both a medical miracle and as someone
who has "been there." "You should know,"
he said, "in the Heavenly court they were interested
in all my actions. In the end those same worms are going to
eat everyone, and everyone is going to have to give an accounting.
Sharon's
fame, he says, was really accidental. People heard about his
story as a result of his intense efforts to find the medic
who saved his life and disappeared. He went on national television,
and his story was published in the national and religious
press, but not a clue turned up. Some people say it was Elijah
the prophet, but Sharon prefers not to make such a definitive
statement. The head of the surgery team who performed the
preliminary operations later told Sharon that he had never
seen such a clever, precise lifesaving technique done with
the most sophisticated equipment, let alone with a ball-point
pen.
Does
Sharon have plans for the future, perhaps to return to the
field of military intelligence in which he so excelled? "My
last plan was a 12:30 meeting about the security in Hebron,
which I never made it to. I look at the iron rods coming out
of my body, my face that has been pieced back together ...
How can I make plans? For me, God is the only Planner that
counts."
