Chapter^1

1 "Can I Really Know You?"............................................. Acknowledgments............................................................viii

Know You?"

t was three days before Christmas 1973. The sun was

Istill rising on that cold, misty Toronto morning.

Suddenly He was there. The Holy Spirit entered my
room. He was as real to me that morning as the book you
are holding in your hand is to you.
For the next eight hours I had an incredible experience
with the Holy Spirit. It changed the course of my life. Tears
of wonder and joy coursed down my cheeks as I opened the
Scriptures and He gave me the answers to my questions.
It seemed that my room had been lifted into the
hemisphere of heaven. And I wanted to stay there forever. I
had just turned twenty-one, and this visitation was the best
birthday or Christmas present I had ever received.
Just down the hall were my mother and dad. They
would never possibly understand what was happening to
their Benny. In fact, had they known what I was
experiencing, it could have been the breaking point in a
family that was already on the verge of shattering. For
nearly two years—since the day I gave my life to Jesus—
there was virtually no communication between my parents
and me. It was horrible. As the son of an immigrant family
from Israel, I had humiliated the household by breaking
tradition. Nothing else in my life had been this devastating.