Zayis Ra’Anan

The Gift of the Fresh Olive

At a festive gathering on the second day of the Succoth holiday, 2009, seventeen year old Sholom Bnayahu Werther related a piece of Talmudic lore to his family.

With uncharateristic gusto and passion, he explained how the olive is a metaphor for the destiny of the Jewish people. Thirty hours later the young mans life came to an abrupt end as the result of a hit-and-run accident.

Within days, the metaphor of the fresh olive, as well as Sholoms unusual name, became the key to numerous afterdeath messages. Applying the ancient tool of gimatriya that links the letters of the Hebrew alphabet to specific number values, passages in the Tanach (Bible) revealed numerous references to Sholoms life, faith and ultimate destiny.

Zayis Raanan: The Gift of the Fresh Olive is a riveting account of how those messages unfolded and became a source of consolation, hope and encouragement that will be an eye-opener to any person of faith.

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View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries Visit Homepage View Articles Published on 10-02-2011 06:57 PM 1 Comment Shabse Werther is an Orthodox Jew who lost the tenth of his eleven sons to an accident when the boy was seventeen. There followed such an astonishing series of communications in the religious and cultural idiom they shared that the father felt compelled to record his experiences. This little treasure of a book is the result. People familiar with the afterlife literature are used to the standard methods by which our loved ones assure us of their survival, from coins and birds and butterflies to songs on the radio and familiar smells. But all of that is clumsy hit-or-miss when compared with the elegant manner in which young Sholom here repeatedly greets his dad.

Orthodox Judaism is more than a religion. It is a way of thinking and living so timeless and complete that we secular moderns have trouble comprehending it. We tend to think of the Old Order Amish frozen as they are in the eighteenth century as a truly ancient religious culture. But when they are compared with Orthodox Jews, the Amish are relative Johnny-come-latelies! Observant Jews share a way of thinking which has changed little in three thousand years, and that makes it hard for you and me to understand the significance of Werthers experiences unless we first try to understand his life.

Even in twenty-first-century America, Orthodox Jews dont just practice their religion. Instead they live it as a cultural worldview, an exultant realm of ever-deeper learning, a comforting and uplifting daily round of practice and prayer and study. Secular folks have nothing comparable. And modern-day Christians, who scarcely need to bother with spiritual matters at all if they will just let Jesus save them, have trouble imagining what it must be like to be part of a three-millennia-long tradition of ardent and complete devotion to God.

Werther is uncompromising in his use of Jewish terms, but he offers good explanations and translations. Beginning his book is a bit like starting a piece of exotic fiction, and the fun of that feeling is heightened by our awareness that this complex new world is real. I have a dear Orthodox Jewish friend so observant that he has to live near his shul and he spells the Lords name as G-d in his emails because to spell out the name is disrespectful. Like most observant Jews, my friend doesnt much talk about his faith with the goyim around him. But Werther is a father in deep grief. He must immerse his readers in Judaism or we will never understand the significance of his experiences.

Young Sholom is like most of those who die in childhood. He is unusually loving, gentle and spiritual, and almost certainly an advanced being who planned his brief life and early death as a loving gift to those around him. He was educated in religious schools, so