THROUGHOUT MY JOURNEY and discovery concerning the Priestly Prayer of the Blessing I would update my friend Rick Amato about my findings. It was because of him that I began my quest to understand the truth about G-D’s divine prayer of the blessing.
When I finally sent Rick the amplified Hebrew-to-English translation of the prayer and the audio recording of it being sung in Hebrew, he was overwhelmed. He shared with me that now he too has experienced the name of the one true G-D of Israel upon him. Though he had been withdrawn from ministry for several years, he now has received a yearning and passion to preach again and make the name of G-D known to the nations!
Rick wrote me:
Dear Warren,
All my adult life I have told you amazing stories from across the globe about my life that, if they hadn’t happened to you and I together, I’m not sure, either of us would ever believe any of them. We’ve come to know these God-sent miracles with the word Albert Einstein used—synchronicity. Well, here is one more. This one may be the most amazing and life changing yet. And it is a direct result of your faithfulness and holy devotion to the one true [G-D] of your fathers (you are my favorite rabbi) in deciphering that pendant the Israelis gave me.
Not that long ago, I was simply listening to the audio CD of the Priestly Prayer of the Blessing you spoke over me, and the amazingly beautiful way it was sung in the Hebrew. It occurred to me how much I have not only survived against all odds, but found enormous prosperity and above all a heart full of perfect peace! A warm feeling of serenity, peace, and inner prosperity washed over me again and again. Never have I experienced anything like it. I thought, “So this is the [G-D] of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the [G-D] my earthly daddy Emanueli called, the ‘Great I AM’?”
My next thought was “I’ve led over a million people in forty-nine countries to have faith in the [G-D] of Israel through Jesus Christ. I’ve memorized the entire New Testament and large portions of the Old—and I missed this?” Then it dawned on me that none of it was ever about me or my name anyway. It was about hallowing [G-D] the Father’s name because that’s where His character and person is. It’s about the Father heart of [G-D]. Then I thought of my precious daughter, Beth Anne.
You know Beth Anne loved and believed in you, Warren. After that first dinner with you she said “Daddy, I’ve been all over the world with you and met every kind of person but that man is the real deal with [G-D].” She was just an eighteen-year-old kid then. You can kid a fool, but you can’t fool a kid.
No words will ever be able to describe the purity and honest compassion of her heart and life. Only a little over two and a half years since her death now, her devotion to her three sons and the elementary school children she taught and freely served is the stuff of legend at the school. To be her father was to have my name honored and loved. She always sought to live up to her last name no matter what. She literally was only disciplined once in her entire life and was the one kid that lived all that I nurtured her and trained her to be. The hospital tragedy that claimed her life left me despairing to see another day on earth and having to force myself to breathe. She was my firstborn, my baby. To lose any child is the greatest sorrow a human can know in this life. To lose this kind of child is an unspeakable tragedy.
Now, Warren, you know I see myself as a man of science and not easily given over to religious experiences. Not that long ago, however, I had one that was not from this world. All I can say is that after the worst trouble a human can endure on earth, now, instead of dying with my precious baby Bethie, I want to live for her. More than that, I want to live purely for the Father who is represented in the blessing spoken over me. I want to honor my heavenly Father’s name whose breath has touched my spirit and made me new again. I want to show the world what you’ve been trying to tell me about the Fatherhood of the Almighty for all of humankind.
I’ve made a new choice to live simply to honor the blessed name of the one true [G-D] (YHWH) by being the person and character of authenticity He deserves. I want to honor His name instead of my own name. Ever since I began listening to and trying to follow the teachings you are disseminating about the sacred Hebrew name nothing remains unblessed in my life. The audio CD with the Hebrew chanting of this divine prayer and the pronouncement of the Priestly Prayer of the Blessing took me into an entirely new unfathomable level of intimacy and personal authenticity with my heavenly Father. Thank you with all my heart, Warren.
The presence and power of Providence in my life through this spiritual experience made me think of something else: Could it be a divine synchronicity that while the Israeli people gave me that pendant, the first replica, as a token of gratitude for helping tens of thousands of Jewish people leave the former Soviet Union and immigrate to Israel when the USSR fell—could it be that it was because [G-D] knew you, Warren, would decipher its secret code, which in turn would revolutionize my life as a grieving father when no one else could help me?
Over time we will see, and over time the truth always comes out. What I did not know and what has transformed my life and set me back on the path of an inner healing and delight of life, is what I’m learning now about the power to be 100 percent authentic that studying the character and person of the sacred name can give a human being. I’ve experienced its outer power for a lifetime with [G-D’s] Spirit upon me. Today, I feel rocketed into another dimension as I am learning through His name the power He placed within me!
This, I think, is going to be the key to all future understanding of the significance of the Bible. It is also validation of what I’ve said for so long now, that it is impossible to understand Jesus the Messiah outside of the Jewish context.
Warren, after five “study trips” to Israel and forty years of seeking to understand the one true [G-D], because of the teachings I have received from you about the character and person of the name, I might finally be beginning to be onto something completely real here. Perhaps that is why the incredibly astronomical odds against me ever getting that thirty-nine-year-old file, which was returned to me all the way from the Far East, proves that divine providence has a way of accomplishing certain objectives among humans.
Providence no doubt gave me you as a friend. I’m more thankful that since Beth’s death, the blessing of knowing you as a teacher and preacher has helped me to recover my authentic sense of self as a child of the Most High [G-D]. If it can happen for me, it can happen for anyone—no matter who they are or what they’ve done. My life will never be the same. Blessed be the Name.
YOUR FELLOW SERVANT,
RICK AMATO