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Aug. 9, 2022
Jews and Christians Learning to Relate: Bill Callahan's Story
Bill Callahan shares his journey to becoming an ardent Christian Zionist and a pioneer in Jewish-Christian relations in his hometown of West Palm Beach, Florida. His transparency and philosophy of “just showing up” has created warm and sincere friendships in one of the nation’s leading Jewish communities.
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Transcript
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Well, welcome back for another episode in our series, Jews and Christians Learning to
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Relate.
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Today, we have another pioneer with us from the Christian community that has a fascinating
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story and has written a book about it and has just developed a wonderful relationship
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with his local Jewish community.
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So stay with me.
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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, Connecting Israel, the Bible, and You.
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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural
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perspective to equip the Christian world with a balance and biblical response.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith in bringing the
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Bible to life in your everyday world.
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Now, let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.
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Yes, so today I have with us a pioneer in Jewish Christian relations.
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He has forged an amazing relationship with the local Jewish community in his town of
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West Palm Beach, Florida.
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And this is Bill Callahan.
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Bill has recently written a book about the story of his life and how this relationship
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evolved and what he's been able to accomplish and what it has meant in his life.
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So there's a lot for us to talk about today.
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And Bill, I just want to give you a very warm welcome.
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Thank you for joining us today.
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Thank you, Susan.
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It's quite an honor to be here with you and your program.
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Great.
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Well, Bill, you know, the first question I want to ask is, was there something in your
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childhood or your upbringing or your background that kind of prepared the way for you to be
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such an effective relationship builder with the Jewish community?
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Yes, Susan.
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Part of it was geography growing up in Long Island in New York, being surrounded by a
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large and very dense Jewish community where I guess you could say I was the minority,
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but also just the fact that my, the influences in my life, the people I went to school with
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largely Jewish and my mother had a moment where she went to Israel in 1980 when I was
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roughly 12 years old and she not only came back a changed person, but also she identified
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that there was a, that there was some Jewish lineage on her father's side.
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And all that happening at an age of 12 or 13 left a deep mark on my life and, you know,
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had a profound impact on my journey.
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Well, then take us forward then.
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You ended up working there in New York City and 9-11 was a real turning point in your
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life.
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Tell us about that.
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Exactly.
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Well, I graduated college and my first job was to work in Manhattan or New York City
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and I was working in the financial industry, working for a very large investment bank,
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Morgan Stanley, and obviously there was large percentage of Jewish people who were my partners
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and people who I was my coworkers.
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And when 9-11 happened before my very eyes live, that was the moment where I turned my
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life over to God and, you know, I'm abbreviating it for the sake of the show.
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More of it is outlined in my book, but, and also the person that was in my life at that
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moment who's now my wife, Sandra, was already a very, you know, she was already a devout
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Christian and someone who, who already loved Israel and wanted to go there with me.
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So all those factors collided.
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There was a lot of factors, but they all collided and generated an immense interest in myself
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to travel to Israel.
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And, and I had that benefit with you and I see EJ at the Feast of the Tabernacles in
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215.
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Well, now, if I remember right, you lost friends in 9-11, is that right?
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And that's what initiated your move to Florida.
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Absolutely.
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I lost several very dear friends of mine, one of which was a childhood friend, one of
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which was a college friend and several other coworkers.
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And the one, I guess, that deeply hurt and really defined that we needed to find another
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place to move or live was my friend who was also Colombian, like my wife.
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His name was Cesar Agustino-Mario.
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And I was just, he was just a deeply passionate and considerate and kind individual and his
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passing really hurt.
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And my wife and I knew that we needed to go someplace else.
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And my wife had prayed about it, we prayed about it, and we discussed it with our families
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and we ended up in South Florida, which also happens to be a place where there's a large
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Jewish community.
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Yes, depending on how you count them, it's the second or the third largest Jewish community
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in the nation.
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Of course, there's a large community of Israelis that live in Boca.
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So it's a very vibrant area.
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But when I met you, Bill, I met you in Washington, D.C. and we were both at an APAC policy conference,
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even though we both lived in Florida at the time.
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And I remember you stood up in a meeting and in front of a room of several hundred people,
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you said, I'm a Gentile Christian and I love Israel and I go to a mega church in West Palm
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Beach and I don't remember what else you said, I just remember thinking to myself, I've
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got to meet him.
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And we did meet in D.C., I don't think, but we did run into each other later back in
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Florida.
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But tell us how you got started in APAC and really becoming politically active in support
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of Israel.
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Well, when we moved to Florida, my business partner is Jewish or was Jewish when he's
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now since retired, but his wife, Orly, is Israeli.
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And she believes she trained people to drive tanks in the IDF.
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And she's a very tough, what you would call Sabra, tough on the outside, but very soft
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and sweet on the inside, Israeli.
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And we connected and our views, our views about a lot of things were very similar.
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And so much so that she encouraged us to spend time celebrating Shabbat on Friday evenings
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with their family and their then young daughter who now just graduated college.
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But we started becoming deeply involved with them as friends and the relationship grew
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to a point where we were going to synagogue with them because as Christians, as evangelical
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Christians, it is not a conflict for us to go to be at a synagogue and hear the Torah
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being preached and to celebrate our Jewish roots.
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So we started being very involved with them as not just friends, but we got deeply involved
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also in my business partner suggested that we get involved in APAC.
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And at the time, I'll be honest, I didn't know anything about APAC, but it fascinated
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me and I went to a meeting and they encouraged us to go to Washington, D.C. on a policy
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conference.
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And on that first policy conference, I ended up meeting a lot of people from ICEJ and I
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think that's where I actually met Revan Malcolm Heading and his son Darryl.
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And I think that's where your RPATHs crossed at least initially.
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And then of course, later on, you and I, RPATHs crossed because you're in Florida as well
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as I am.
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And then we started doing things together.
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So it was one of those things where one thing led to the next and things started just building
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on themselves and my fascination and passion for all things Israel just started to grow
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and blossom in a way where I just started being more and more involved.
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That's how it just unfolded.
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Well there's been some phenomenal events here in South Florida hosted both at synagogues
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and in churches for the two communities to come together and have joint speakers and all.
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And so there are lots of opportunities here to at least engage with each other even if
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at an early stage in the relationship.
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But I have to say, you have really developed deep friendships and you're really known
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throughout the whole community there in Palm Beach County.
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I would say.
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So let's tell me, I know that you went to Israel with the ICEJ for the FISA Tabernacles.
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So take us a quick minute, tell our audience what that was like for you and your wife Sandra.
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Until I went to Israel, everything was in theory.
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Everything was wonderful.
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I felt this passion, I felt this love, but then going to Israel itself, I would say ignited
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or lit the fire inside of me.
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We enjoyed going to FISA Tabernacles during the Sukkot, the end of September, early October
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in 2015.
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And that was with you and your group ICEJ and just the education and the enlightenment
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but also the spiritual awakening because you start to all the things that you read about
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or learned about in the Bible start to become very real because Israel does such a phenomenal
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job of these archeological digs and showing where the evidence of this profit or where
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Jesus, his ministry was.
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So it just, it brings everything to life in a way that's very three dimensional.
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And also I'd say that going to Yad Vashem, I had learned about the Holocaust in my history
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books.
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I had known that there was a deep hurt in the Jewish family of people that was a perpetual
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pain that would never go away, avoid.
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But it wasn't until I went to Yad Vashem and experienced that through the eyes of someone
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who was a survivor, I still remember her name, Hazy Freund.
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And when I experienced that, I just had this uncontrollable emotional response where I
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cried, I really couldn't get over it.
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And I'm glad that you guys followed that up with the parade in Jerusalem, which was very
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uplifting with all the people in Israel because I was really at a point where my wife, where
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my wife said to me, she says, do you want to just go home at this point?
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And I said, no.
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I said, I just need to process what we just saw.
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It was just very hard for me to see all that.
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And anyway, deeply affected me in my spirit.
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And I knew that my life wasn't going to go back to being a passive person, sitting on
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the sidelines and being neutral about all this.
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I realized that God had had a better plan for me, and that was a plan where I would be
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an outspoken advocate, not just for Israel and the Jewish people, but the interfaith
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relationship between Jews and Christians, because that's been very fractured and damaged.
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Well, what's so interesting in your story, Bill?
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First of all, you had the same life-changing experience your mom had had.
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Hers back in 1980, and here's yours in what, 2015, I think.
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But that trip to Israel just did it.
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Things just clicked, and that's what happened for so many of us.
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It happened for me.
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It's happened for millions of Christians that have gone, and that's why we always encourage
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everyone, go if at all possible.
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There's just nothing compared to it.
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What you see, what you hear, what you absorb, and you connect a lot of dots that just otherwise
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you don't.
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What I also love about your story is that you were already an advocate for Israel before
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you had even gone there, and that's really quite amazing.
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I think it was because of your friendship with Jewish people and what you had learned
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from them and wanting to support them, but coming back now it's your passion.
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It is absolutely your life, your calling.
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It drives you every day now after that experience at Yad Vashem.
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You just returned from what your second trip there, and you studied at Yad Vashem.
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Tell us about that.
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That was an amazing experience that I don't think I can do justice to in a couple of quick
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sentences, but I guess I'll just say what I said on Rabbi Feldman's podcast was that
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one of the most amazing experiences of all that, aside from all the learning and the
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education and all the things that they brought to our minds and our hearts, but actually
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going to the Hall of Remembrance on the Yom HaShua, the Day of Remembrance, and the experience
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of being there live and not watching it on a broadcast, which I had done in previous years,
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but being there live and having Isaac Herzog, the president, and Naphthally Bennett, the
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prime minister, and all these Mickey Levy, the Speaker of the Knesset, Esther Hayyuth,
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the head of the Supreme Court, there was all these dignitaries and people, but also you
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had the head Rabbi, Mir Laugh, Rabbi Israel Mir Laugh, and then I'm sitting next to this
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Holocaust survivor, Nachman Loebbel, who has several generations of his family sitting
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next to him, and he leans into me and he says, who are you?
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And I said to him, I'm a Christian person who loves Israel and I'm training with the
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Yad Vashem and I'm learning about the Shoa and I'm learning what a void that has been
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for the Jewish people and I'm learning how to be a better advocate for Israel and bringing
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Jewish and Christian people together.
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He just started crying.
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And I started crying too because I was overcome by his emotion.
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And then his family starts crying because it becomes infectious when somebody cries,
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you start, everyone starts getting emotional.
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And he says to me, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.
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And I never realized that people like him weren't aware that there were people like
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us there.
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So I said to him, I said, well, I'm not alone.
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I said, I'm part of a group, but there's millions of people like me.
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In fact, many, many millions of people like me in America and many millions around the
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world.
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And it was almost as if this gentleman had been, this is him hearing this for the first
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time.
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And that had such an impact on me because I said to myself, wow, there's a lot of work
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still left to be done.
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This isn't even close.
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The work we're doing isn't even close to scratching the surface.
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So it was an amazing trip.
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Every time I go to Israel, I feel like I'm learning something new.
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It's like you're peeling back layers of an onion and they're just keeps being more.
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It's like when you open up the word of God, they're just keeps being more.
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So I just enjoy going to Israel.
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It makes me feel alive.
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And also my mother had just passed away several months ago, so it gave me a time to go pray
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for her and to feel her presence with me and to feel the pride that she has in me as her
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son because really the legacy of what I'm doing started with her.
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So as they say in Hebrew, l'ador v'ador, generation to generation.
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She passed it to me and now I'm passing it to my children.
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And it's ironic that at the time that I'm there, my daughter's giving her final presentation
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at her Christian school on Anne Frank.
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So I can't feel I can't help but to be blessed that God is doing something really special
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and meaningful in my life.
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And I just keep waiting for the direction of what's next.
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That's how this is going.
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That story is really astounding and the Lord allowed you to minister healing at a point
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of very, very deep hurt.
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And with the Jewish people, the Holocaust, the Shoah, it is a very, very deep wound.
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And it's a privilege that you were able to speak healing to that deep wound in that man
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and his whole family.
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It reminded me of the Hebrew, Isaiah 40, where that's the motto of ISEJ, Comfort the
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My People.
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And I realized that Isaiah being a Hebrew prophet, one of the things that I saw, I saw
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when I was there, was the Mishkanot Shannanim, which is the Isaiah 32, 18, which says, my
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people will live in a peaceful dwelling.
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And that's something that's really powerful, is that the Jewish people all need to understand
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that this is not just their homeland.
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It's where God gave over to them a place where they could peacefully dwell and live and be
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the keepers of his land.
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So it's just, there were so many things learned on this trip.
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I look forward to my next trip.
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And God says that he will comfort his people in Jerusalem.
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And the point here is that he's using us to bring that comfort to his people, that he
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promised them that he would do, that he would bring them back and he would comfort them in
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Jerusalem.
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It's a very special ministry, but it's one, it's very delicate.
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And that's why to learn from you how you have learned and obviously you've learned a lot
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over the years, but the Lord trusts you to such a degree to allow you to minister to
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that man at that moment.
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And this is the point we're making in this series, is that this relationship between
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Jews and Christians.
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It really is quite new and it's still highly delicate.
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And that's why we need to share and learn from each other, lessons learned along the
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way so that we don't have to make those same mistakes and that we can really enlarge and
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deepen this relationship and not to torpedo it through our lack of understanding.
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So we want to learn from your experiences.
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So do you have some lessons that you could share with someone?
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What is it that you've learned, the most important lessons in approaching the Jewish
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community?
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For me, it's going to sound ironic because people know me to be a talker rather than
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a listener.
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And I think that what being around the Jewish people has taught me is to be a listener and
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not a talker.
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In other words, you speak when you're spoken to, you speak when there's a question.
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You answer that question, but you listen.
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And I think listening more, there's an old expression, I think it's attributed to Theodore
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Roosevelt, it said, people don't care about what you know until they know you care.
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And so until you can establish a real relationship, a friendship and trust and people know that
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you care, I don't think that you should ever go into the Jewish community and start having
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arrogance or start speaking in ways that seem aggressive or proselytizing because at the
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end of the day, you have to respect who they are.
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You have to respect them as a people group.
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You have to listen and you have to love them.
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And in order to repair a relationship that's been fractured and has centuries of damage
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done, and to be an emissary of God, you have to have humility about it.
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I'm not saying I never have had arrogant moments in my life or moments where I say or do things
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that are wrong.
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I'm just saying that when I pray before I ever get before the Jewish people, and I just
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have to remember, God has placed me there as an emissary, an ambassador of goodwill.
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And so my job is to do no harm.
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My job is to listen, to be a good friend and to acknowledge the damage that's been done
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through many centuries and to simply try to start a new relationship, one that's based
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on trust and based on respect.
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We're not going to agree about everything.
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That you have to put aside.
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Politics don't have a place when you're sitting in front of a Jewish crowd.
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You need to just remember that we're all people.
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We have differing viewpoints.
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We have differing life experiences.
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And if you're doing God's work, you focus on the things we have in common.
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And there's a lot more that we have in common than we have differences.
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And so that's where I just put the emphasis.
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And I...
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Well, Bill, you know what you're saying is very biblical.
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That's exactly what the apostle Paul said in Romans 9 through 11.
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He said that we Christians should approach this relationship realizing we're like the
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wild olive branches that were grafted into their tree and that we need to have humility
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and not to be arrogant and not to be haughty, but to realize that that tree supports us.
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And so that's exactly what you're describing.
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Now, in your book, you talked about another quality and that was just what you called
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showing up.
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Do you want to explain what that means?
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Well, you know, it's funny because when we went to Israel with you and Reverend Malcolm
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Heading presided over the remarriage of my vows with my wife on her 12th wedding anniversary,
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he said something to me afterwards.
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He kind of reached over and touched me on the shoulder and said something about, you
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know, you're going to have a profound impact in your community.
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And God is going to lead the steps.
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And, you know, and I remember feeling a little bit nervous by all this.
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Like, what does that all mean?
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And I didn't have a plan and I didn't really know what the next steps were.
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So I just realized that I had a moment of clarity where I was praying about it.
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And I realized that the next step was just showing up.
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The next step was just showing up to whatever the events were.
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Like, you know, there was a situation where three boys were kidnapped and killed on Rasha
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Shana that exposed a plot where Hamas was going to pop up through these tunnels and
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kill a bunch of Jewish people in Israel on Rasha Shana.
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And when those boys were kidnapped and killed, there was a big memorial in the Jewish community.
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Here in Palm Beach.
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And I just showed up.
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I didn't have much to say other than I'm sorry for the loss of these three boys.
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Nephthali, Nip, was it, the three boys that got kidnapped and killed.
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And I just said, I'm sorry for their loss.
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I'm sorry for what happened to them.
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And I just showed respect and honored them.
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That's all.
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And I think a lot of people think that there's more that you need to do.
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And I don't and I think less is more.
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I think sometimes just simply showing up and being a comfort that they know that there's
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other people in other communities other than theirs that support them and love them.
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And it's human decency.
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And so that that's been my mission is just showing up and and being there for the moments
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that are important to them.
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Well, I want to encourage everyone to get a copy of Bill's book.
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It's called A Gentile's Journey.
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And in this book, he tells his whole life story, but gives many examples of how that
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he did just show up and his interaction with the Jewish community.
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And he also has a very interesting section of questions that Jews ask about questions
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and questions that Christians ask about Jews.
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So it's a very informative book and anyone wanting to engage in Jewish Christian relations,
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it's a great read.
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And it's a great example of someone that God has used in an amazing way.
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And he shares with you his advice.
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So we are so grateful, Bill, that you took time to share with us today.
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We love you and Sandra and your family and you're an integral part of the ICEJ and the
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whole mission that we are about.
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And so we appreciate you all and we just encourage everyone to get a copy of your book.
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We put a link in today's show notes how you can buy a copy of Bill's book.
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And all proceeds, he donated the book.
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So all the proceeds will go to the ministry of the ICEJ.
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And so please pick up your copy today.
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So Bill, thank you again.
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God bless you.
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And we thank everyone for listening in.
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We'll be back here next week with another episode of this series.
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And until then, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, cpnshows.com, YouTube, or
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wherever you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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Well, welcome back for another episode in our series, Jews and Christians Learning to
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Relate.
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Today, we have another pioneer with us from the Christian community that has a fascinating
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story and has written a book about it and has just developed a wonderful relationship
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with his local Jewish community.
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So stay with me.
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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, Connecting Israel, the Bible, and You.
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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural
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perspective to equip the Christian world with a balance and biblical response.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith in bringing the
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Bible to life in your everyday world.
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Now, let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.
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Yes, so today I have with us a pioneer in Jewish Christian relations.
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He has forged an amazing relationship with the local Jewish community in his town of
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West Palm Beach, Florida.
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And this is Bill Callahan.
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Bill has recently written a book about the story of his life and how this relationship
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evolved and what he's been able to accomplish and what it has meant in his life.
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So there's a lot for us to talk about today.
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And Bill, I just want to give you a very warm welcome.
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Thank you for joining us today.
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Thank you, Susan.
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It's quite an honor to be here with you and your program.
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Great.
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Well, Bill, you know, the first question I want to ask is, was there something in your
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childhood or your upbringing or your background that kind of prepared the way for you to be
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such an effective relationship builder with the Jewish community?
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Yes, Susan.
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Part of it was geography growing up in Long Island in New York, being surrounded by a
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large and very dense Jewish community where I guess you could say I was the minority,
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but also just the fact that my, the influences in my life, the people I went to school with
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largely Jewish and my mother had a moment where she went to Israel in 1980 when I was
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roughly 12 years old and she not only came back a changed person, but also she identified
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that there was a, that there was some Jewish lineage on her father's side.
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And all that happening at an age of 12 or 13 left a deep mark on my life and, you know,
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had a profound impact on my journey.
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Well, then take us forward then.
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You ended up working there in New York City and 9-11 was a real turning point in your
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life.
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Tell us about that.
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Exactly.
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Well, I graduated college and my first job was to work in Manhattan or New York City
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and I was working in the financial industry, working for a very large investment bank,
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Morgan Stanley, and obviously there was large percentage of Jewish people who were my partners
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and people who I was my coworkers.
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And when 9-11 happened before my very eyes live, that was the moment where I turned my
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life over to God and, you know, I'm abbreviating it for the sake of the show.
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More of it is outlined in my book, but, and also the person that was in my life at that
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moment who's now my wife, Sandra, was already a very, you know, she was already a devout
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Christian and someone who, who already loved Israel and wanted to go there with me.
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So all those factors collided.
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There was a lot of factors, but they all collided and generated an immense interest in myself
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to travel to Israel.
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And, and I had that benefit with you and I see EJ at the Feast of the Tabernacles in
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215.
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Well, now, if I remember right, you lost friends in 9-11, is that right?
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And that's what initiated your move to Florida.
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Absolutely.
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I lost several very dear friends of mine, one of which was a childhood friend, one of
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which was a college friend and several other coworkers.
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And the one, I guess, that deeply hurt and really defined that we needed to find another
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place to move or live was my friend who was also Colombian, like my wife.
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His name was Cesar Agustino-Mario.
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And I was just, he was just a deeply passionate and considerate and kind individual and his
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passing really hurt.
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And my wife and I knew that we needed to go someplace else.
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And my wife had prayed about it, we prayed about it, and we discussed it with our families
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and we ended up in South Florida, which also happens to be a place where there's a large
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Jewish community.
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Yes, depending on how you count them, it's the second or the third largest Jewish community
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in the nation.
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Of course, there's a large community of Israelis that live in Boca.
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So it's a very vibrant area.
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But when I met you, Bill, I met you in Washington, D.C. and we were both at an APAC policy conference,
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even though we both lived in Florida at the time.
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And I remember you stood up in a meeting and in front of a room of several hundred people,
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you said, I'm a Gentile Christian and I love Israel and I go to a mega church in West Palm
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Beach and I don't remember what else you said, I just remember thinking to myself, I've
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got to meet him.
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And we did meet in D.C., I don't think, but we did run into each other later back in
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Florida.
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But tell us how you got started in APAC and really becoming politically active in support
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of Israel.
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Well, when we moved to Florida, my business partner is Jewish or was Jewish when he's
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now since retired, but his wife, Orly, is Israeli.
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And she believes she trained people to drive tanks in the IDF.
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And she's a very tough, what you would call Sabra, tough on the outside, but very soft
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and sweet on the inside, Israeli.
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And we connected and our views, our views about a lot of things were very similar.
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And so much so that she encouraged us to spend time celebrating Shabbat on Friday evenings
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with their family and their then young daughter who now just graduated college.
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But we started becoming deeply involved with them as friends and the relationship grew
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to a point where we were going to synagogue with them because as Christians, as evangelical
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Christians, it is not a conflict for us to go to be at a synagogue and hear the Torah
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being preached and to celebrate our Jewish roots.
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So we started being very involved with them as not just friends, but we got deeply involved
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also in my business partner suggested that we get involved in APAC.
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And at the time, I'll be honest, I didn't know anything about APAC, but it fascinated
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me and I went to a meeting and they encouraged us to go to Washington, D.C. on a policy
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conference.
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And on that first policy conference, I ended up meeting a lot of people from ICEJ and I
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think that's where I actually met Revan Malcolm Heading and his son Darryl.
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And I think that's where your RPATHs crossed at least initially.
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And then of course, later on, you and I, RPATHs crossed because you're in Florida as well
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as I am.
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And then we started doing things together.
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So it was one of those things where one thing led to the next and things started just building
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on themselves and my fascination and passion for all things Israel just started to grow
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and blossom in a way where I just started being more and more involved.
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That's how it just unfolded.
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Well there's been some phenomenal events here in South Florida hosted both at synagogues
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and in churches for the two communities to come together and have joint speakers and all.
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And so there are lots of opportunities here to at least engage with each other even if
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at an early stage in the relationship.
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But I have to say, you have really developed deep friendships and you're really known
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throughout the whole community there in Palm Beach County.
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I would say.
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So let's tell me, I know that you went to Israel with the ICEJ for the FISA Tabernacles.
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So take us a quick minute, tell our audience what that was like for you and your wife Sandra.
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Until I went to Israel, everything was in theory.
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Everything was wonderful.
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I felt this passion, I felt this love, but then going to Israel itself, I would say ignited
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or lit the fire inside of me.
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We enjoyed going to FISA Tabernacles during the Sukkot, the end of September, early October
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in 2015.
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And that was with you and your group ICEJ and just the education and the enlightenment
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but also the spiritual awakening because you start to all the things that you read about
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or learned about in the Bible start to become very real because Israel does such a phenomenal
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job of these archeological digs and showing where the evidence of this profit or where
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Jesus, his ministry was.
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So it just, it brings everything to life in a way that's very three dimensional.
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And also I'd say that going to Yad Vashem, I had learned about the Holocaust in my history
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books.
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I had known that there was a deep hurt in the Jewish family of people that was a perpetual
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pain that would never go away, avoid.
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But it wasn't until I went to Yad Vashem and experienced that through the eyes of someone
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who was a survivor, I still remember her name, Hazy Freund.
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And when I experienced that, I just had this uncontrollable emotional response where I
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cried, I really couldn't get over it.
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And I'm glad that you guys followed that up with the parade in Jerusalem, which was very
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uplifting with all the people in Israel because I was really at a point where my wife, where
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my wife said to me, she says, do you want to just go home at this point?
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And I said, no.
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I said, I just need to process what we just saw.
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It was just very hard for me to see all that.
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And anyway, deeply affected me in my spirit.
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And I knew that my life wasn't going to go back to being a passive person, sitting on
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the sidelines and being neutral about all this.
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I realized that God had had a better plan for me, and that was a plan where I would be
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an outspoken advocate, not just for Israel and the Jewish people, but the interfaith
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relationship between Jews and Christians, because that's been very fractured and damaged.
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Well, what's so interesting in your story, Bill?
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First of all, you had the same life-changing experience your mom had had.
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Hers back in 1980, and here's yours in what, 2015, I think.
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But that trip to Israel just did it.
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Things just clicked, and that's what happened for so many of us.
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It happened for me.
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It's happened for millions of Christians that have gone, and that's why we always encourage
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everyone, go if at all possible.
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There's just nothing compared to it.
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What you see, what you hear, what you absorb, and you connect a lot of dots that just otherwise
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you don't.
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What I also love about your story is that you were already an advocate for Israel before
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you had even gone there, and that's really quite amazing.
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I think it was because of your friendship with Jewish people and what you had learned
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from them and wanting to support them, but coming back now it's your passion.
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It is absolutely your life, your calling.
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It drives you every day now after that experience at Yad Vashem.
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You just returned from what your second trip there, and you studied at Yad Vashem.
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Tell us about that.
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That was an amazing experience that I don't think I can do justice to in a couple of quick
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sentences, but I guess I'll just say what I said on Rabbi Feldman's podcast was that
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one of the most amazing experiences of all that, aside from all the learning and the
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education and all the things that they brought to our minds and our hearts, but actually
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going to the Hall of Remembrance on the Yom HaShua, the Day of Remembrance, and the experience
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of being there live and not watching it on a broadcast, which I had done in previous years,
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but being there live and having Isaac Herzog, the president, and Naphthally Bennett, the
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prime minister, and all these Mickey Levy, the Speaker of the Knesset, Esther Hayyuth,
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the head of the Supreme Court, there was all these dignitaries and people, but also you
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had the head Rabbi, Mir Laugh, Rabbi Israel Mir Laugh, and then I'm sitting next to this
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Holocaust survivor, Nachman Loebbel, who has several generations of his family sitting
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next to him, and he leans into me and he says, who are you?
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And I said to him, I'm a Christian person who loves Israel and I'm training with the
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Yad Vashem and I'm learning about the Shoa and I'm learning what a void that has been
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for the Jewish people and I'm learning how to be a better advocate for Israel and bringing
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Jewish and Christian people together.
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He just started crying.
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And I started crying too because I was overcome by his emotion.
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And then his family starts crying because it becomes infectious when somebody cries,
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you start, everyone starts getting emotional.
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And he says to me, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.
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And I never realized that people like him weren't aware that there were people like
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us there.
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So I said to him, I said, well, I'm not alone.
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I said, I'm part of a group, but there's millions of people like me.
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In fact, many, many millions of people like me in America and many millions around the
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world.
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And it was almost as if this gentleman had been, this is him hearing this for the first
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time.
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And that had such an impact on me because I said to myself, wow, there's a lot of work
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still left to be done.
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This isn't even close.
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The work we're doing isn't even close to scratching the surface.
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So it was an amazing trip.
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Every time I go to Israel, I feel like I'm learning something new.
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It's like you're peeling back layers of an onion and they're just keeps being more.
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It's like when you open up the word of God, they're just keeps being more.
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So I just enjoy going to Israel.
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It makes me feel alive.
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And also my mother had just passed away several months ago, so it gave me a time to go pray
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for her and to feel her presence with me and to feel the pride that she has in me as her
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son because really the legacy of what I'm doing started with her.
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So as they say in Hebrew, l'ador v'ador, generation to generation.
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She passed it to me and now I'm passing it to my children.
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And it's ironic that at the time that I'm there, my daughter's giving her final presentation
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at her Christian school on Anne Frank.
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So I can't feel I can't help but to be blessed that God is doing something really special
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and meaningful in my life.
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And I just keep waiting for the direction of what's next.
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That's how this is going.
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That story is really astounding and the Lord allowed you to minister healing at a point
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of very, very deep hurt.
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And with the Jewish people, the Holocaust, the Shoah, it is a very, very deep wound.
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And it's a privilege that you were able to speak healing to that deep wound in that man
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and his whole family.
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It reminded me of the Hebrew, Isaiah 40, where that's the motto of ISEJ, Comfort the
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My People.
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And I realized that Isaiah being a Hebrew prophet, one of the things that I saw, I saw
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when I was there, was the Mishkanot Shannanim, which is the Isaiah 32, 18, which says, my
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people will live in a peaceful dwelling.
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And that's something that's really powerful, is that the Jewish people all need to understand
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that this is not just their homeland.
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It's where God gave over to them a place where they could peacefully dwell and live and be
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the keepers of his land.
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So it's just, there were so many things learned on this trip.
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I look forward to my next trip.
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And God says that he will comfort his people in Jerusalem.
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And the point here is that he's using us to bring that comfort to his people, that he
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promised them that he would do, that he would bring them back and he would comfort them in
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Jerusalem.
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It's a very special ministry, but it's one, it's very delicate.
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And that's why to learn from you how you have learned and obviously you've learned a lot
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over the years, but the Lord trusts you to such a degree to allow you to minister to
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that man at that moment.
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And this is the point we're making in this series, is that this relationship between
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Jews and Christians.
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It really is quite new and it's still highly delicate.
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And that's why we need to share and learn from each other, lessons learned along the
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way so that we don't have to make those same mistakes and that we can really enlarge and
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deepen this relationship and not to torpedo it through our lack of understanding.
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So we want to learn from your experiences.
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So do you have some lessons that you could share with someone?
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What is it that you've learned, the most important lessons in approaching the Jewish
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community?
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For me, it's going to sound ironic because people know me to be a talker rather than
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a listener.
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And I think that what being around the Jewish people has taught me is to be a listener and
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not a talker.
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In other words, you speak when you're spoken to, you speak when there's a question.
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You answer that question, but you listen.
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And I think listening more, there's an old expression, I think it's attributed to Theodore
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Roosevelt, it said, people don't care about what you know until they know you care.
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And so until you can establish a real relationship, a friendship and trust and people know that
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you care, I don't think that you should ever go into the Jewish community and start having
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arrogance or start speaking in ways that seem aggressive or proselytizing because at the
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end of the day, you have to respect who they are.
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You have to respect them as a people group.
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You have to listen and you have to love them.
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And in order to repair a relationship that's been fractured and has centuries of damage
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done, and to be an emissary of God, you have to have humility about it.
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I'm not saying I never have had arrogant moments in my life or moments where I say or do things
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that are wrong.
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I'm just saying that when I pray before I ever get before the Jewish people, and I just
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have to remember, God has placed me there as an emissary, an ambassador of goodwill.
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And so my job is to do no harm.
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My job is to listen, to be a good friend and to acknowledge the damage that's been done
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through many centuries and to simply try to start a new relationship, one that's based
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on trust and based on respect.
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We're not going to agree about everything.
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That you have to put aside.
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Politics don't have a place when you're sitting in front of a Jewish crowd.
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You need to just remember that we're all people.
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We have differing viewpoints.
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We have differing life experiences.
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And if you're doing God's work, you focus on the things we have in common.
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And there's a lot more that we have in common than we have differences.
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And so that's where I just put the emphasis.
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And I...
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Well, Bill, you know what you're saying is very biblical.
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That's exactly what the apostle Paul said in Romans 9 through 11.
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He said that we Christians should approach this relationship realizing we're like the
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wild olive branches that were grafted into their tree and that we need to have humility
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and not to be arrogant and not to be haughty, but to realize that that tree supports us.
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And so that's exactly what you're describing.
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Now, in your book, you talked about another quality and that was just what you called
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showing up.
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Do you want to explain what that means?
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Well, you know, it's funny because when we went to Israel with you and Reverend Malcolm
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Heading presided over the remarriage of my vows with my wife on her 12th wedding anniversary,
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he said something to me afterwards.
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He kind of reached over and touched me on the shoulder and said something about, you
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know, you're going to have a profound impact in your community.
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And God is going to lead the steps.
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And, you know, and I remember feeling a little bit nervous by all this.
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Like, what does that all mean?
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And I didn't have a plan and I didn't really know what the next steps were.
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So I just realized that I had a moment of clarity where I was praying about it.
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And I realized that the next step was just showing up.
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The next step was just showing up to whatever the events were.
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Like, you know, there was a situation where three boys were kidnapped and killed on Rasha
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Shana that exposed a plot where Hamas was going to pop up through these tunnels and
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kill a bunch of Jewish people in Israel on Rasha Shana.
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And when those boys were kidnapped and killed, there was a big memorial in the Jewish community.
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Here in Palm Beach.
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And I just showed up.
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I didn't have much to say other than I'm sorry for the loss of these three boys.
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Nephthali, Nip, was it, the three boys that got kidnapped and killed.
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And I just said, I'm sorry for their loss.
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I'm sorry for what happened to them.
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And I just showed respect and honored them.
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That's all.
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And I think a lot of people think that there's more that you need to do.
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And I don't and I think less is more.
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I think sometimes just simply showing up and being a comfort that they know that there's
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other people in other communities other than theirs that support them and love them.
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And it's human decency.
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And so that that's been my mission is just showing up and and being there for the moments
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that are important to them.
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Well, I want to encourage everyone to get a copy of Bill's book.
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It's called A Gentile's Journey.
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And in this book, he tells his whole life story, but gives many examples of how that
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he did just show up and his interaction with the Jewish community.
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And he also has a very interesting section of questions that Jews ask about questions
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and questions that Christians ask about Jews.
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So it's a very informative book and anyone wanting to engage in Jewish Christian relations,
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it's a great read.
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And it's a great example of someone that God has used in an amazing way.
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And he shares with you his advice.
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So we are so grateful, Bill, that you took time to share with us today.
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We love you and Sandra and your family and you're an integral part of the ICEJ and the
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whole mission that we are about.
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And so we appreciate you all and we just encourage everyone to get a copy of your book.
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We put a link in today's show notes how you can buy a copy of Bill's book.
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And all proceeds, he donated the book.
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So all the proceeds will go to the ministry of the ICEJ.
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And so please pick up your copy today.
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So Bill, thank you again.
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God bless you.
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And we thank everyone for listening in.
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We'll be back here next week with another episode of this series.
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And until then, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, cpnshows.com, YouTube, or
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wherever you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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