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."
