Sid Roth

Sid: My guest by way of telephone I’m speaking to her at her home in Jerusalem, Israel is my friend Batya Segal. Batya had a job as a typesetter and guest what her first job was? The New Testament. She came from a very religious Yemenite background in Israel and she really had a tough time but she did typeset it; she read it and she fell in love with Yeshua. And then she had a visitation from an angel and then she went home to tell her husband the good news but it was bad news for him. He got so upset he said “I’m taking our daughter away from you” and so he proceeded with the religious courts to get rid of his wife Batya and to keep his daughter; but a great miracle happened and she was able to keep her daughter with her. I mean it’s an amazing miracle Batya even all of these years later as I think about it. Tell me what’s going on with your daughter today.

Batya: The amazing thing is even though I won the court case my husband then forced me to divorce him and I was able to raise up my daughter in faith and she grew up loving God. And she’s now assisting me in our humanitarian aid center and she’s wonder; she’s married and she’s wonderful and she has even a great relationship even with her father. I’ve been remarried and I have two other children and God has blessed me with a wonderful husband and family. And we’re praising the Lord together doing the work of the Lord in land blessing the poor and the needy. Bringing forth the good news of the Messiah from Jerusalem.

Sid: You’ve come a long way from that Yemenite background but I would like you to put Barry on the telephone. This is also a good friend of mine Barry Segal.

Barry: Shalom Sid from Jerusalem!

Sid: It sounds so good to hear that; the next best thing is for me to be there. (Laughing) Anyway Barry what I’d like to find out is you come also from a Jewish background maybe not quite as religious as Batya but tell me a bit about your background and how you became a Messianic Jew.

Barry: Well yes I always like to say that Batya was everything a good Jewish girl should be growing up, whereas I was everything maybe a good Jewish boy shouldn’t be growing up but not so bad. I was pretty much raised in a traditional Jewish home in suburban life in the United States; I’m actually from Motown the city of Detroit the city of a lot of music. And growing up kind of in that environment and growing up in the turbulent 60’s with the assassination of Kennedy and the Beatles coming out, then of course the Vietnam war and the anti-protest stream of things. I was pretty much growing up in this turbulent time of the 60’s and early 70’s. When I was bar mitzvah’d Sid according to our Jewish tradition where a boy becomes a man I decided the best thing I could do was go out into the world and prove I was a man was buy my first electric guitar and big amplifier. So by the age of 14 actually I was already playing in a Rock and Roll Rhythm and Blues band and my hair had grown down to my shoulders. I just really had a love and a passion for music and that was probably my primary goal in life.

Sid: And if someone had said “Barry one day you will be living in Jerusalem and you will be singing only for God” what would you have said to them?”

Barry: I think in those days it would have blown my mind; (Laughing).

Sid: Yeah, were you Zionistic at all, did you have any desire to go to Israel?

Barry: Well something happened the same month of my bar mitzvah in June 1967 I had this overwhelming realization as I was turning 13 the bar mitzvah, the 6 Day War that somehow I was born and breed to live in another country; whether it was Israel or somewhere I didn’t know. But there was something like a seed that was there that I knew that one day I would live outside of the borders of America. And Zionistic I think not so much because of my religious training but just something a deep inner conviction and an understanding historically of Israel’s fight for survival and that’s the home place for Jewish people. And so any how out of this situation and this kind of seeds being planted in my life I was about the age of 15 I went to hear a Rhythm and Blues band from San Francisco saw a tremendous guitar player with long black hair; a long flowing beard and a beautiful guitar over his shoulders and he looked like Jesus with an electric guitar.

Sid: Hm.

Barry: And to make a long story short basically this guy I walked up to him that night and he gave me a booklet of scripture and told me that Jesus is the only way and it was the most foreign thing Sid that I’ve ever heard in my life. I didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about; that Jesus was the only way and the answer in life. However, a seed was planted and about 2 years later after many other circumstances in my life and being very active in political protests and marches and things like that one night I was leaving a Jewish deli about 11 at night, I was in my right mind; I was walking home to go back to practice the guitar all of a sudden on the back side of the deli all traffic in the area completely stopped, no cars entered the area. There was an eeriness hovering around me and above me and as I was carrying this corn beef sandwich with Swiss cheese and Russian dressing, not very Kosher but tasty, it fell out onto the ground with this quart of milk I was carrying and when I saw the food spill on the ground then something hit me of a realization that I was just at the end of my understanding of what the purpose for my life was. And I fell to my knees with tears in my eyes, and as I fell to my knees tears continued to rush as if somebody else was crying out through me. And in the midst of those tears next to a tree an audible voice spoke to me and said “Barry you should have more faith than this.” All I could tell you and people have asked me for 33 years; they’ve asked me the same thing from that night in late June 1971 “How did you know that it was God and how did you know that Jesus, or who we call in Hebrew Yeshua, salvation, is the way and the truth and the life?” And the only answer I can give is “Once I was blind but now I see.”

Sid: Now tell me Barry about this CD that we’re making available “Go Through the Gates” very briefly. There’s something special about music from Israel, is there such a thing as an Israeli anointing?

Barry: I believe there’s such a thing as a Levitical anointing from heaven above upon Israeli’s.

Sid: Let’s listen to this selection from “Go Through the Gates.”