It's Supernatural

Join Sid on this edition of It’s Supernatural.

Sid: Hello, Sid Roth here.

Welcome to my world, where it’s naturally supernatural.

Life from the dead music? You heard me right.

The Bible says that if it was a blessing

when the Jewish people rejected their Messiah

so Gentiles could believe in the Jewish Messiah,

how much greater when the two people groups come together?

It will be life from the dead.

We have put together the best traditional Jewish music

and the best Christian music in an album.

Maurice Sklar, we really should change the name:

“Life From The Dead Music”, because that’s what it brings.

But it’s really “The One New Man.”

Now Maurice Sklar comes from Russian Jewish heritage.

He was a violinist prodigy.

You started playing at age four.

But also, when you started playing the violin,

as a young man you had a mysterious friend.

Tell me about him.

Maurice: I wasn’t really raised in a religious Jewish home,

we were more secular.

But I would always feel this presence come.

It was like pure love, and it would be like a blanket

that would wrap itself around me.

I especially felt it when I would play.

I knew somehow that God was there; He was near,

even though I didn’t know what to call Him.

So that was like my Friend.

Sid: Then, when you were 13 you went to a secular camp,

mostly Jewish, where you would…

How long would you have to play the violin

at this camp every day?

Maurice: I went to a summer music school.

It was like a concentration camp for violinists.

Or boot camp, whatever you want to call it.

It’s in upper state New York, still going on.

They have required practicing of about five hours a day,

so we were in our rooms practicing.

I was a practicing Jew – I practiced my violin.

Sid: Then you had this counselor who did something

that the camp wasn’t too happy about. What did he do?

Maurice: I had a friend, actually he became my friend.

His name was Eric.

He had come out of the Jesus movement, I think.

It was toward the end of that, 1976.

He had a Volkswagen covered with bumper stickers,

the name of Jesus on it, “honk if you love Jesus”,

that type of thing.

The thing would backfire, it would hardly work.

I don’t think he was too popular at the camp,

but we made friends together.

I felt that same presence even stronger with him,

and I would put up with the Jesus stuff

because I felt such peace when I was around him.

I didn’t really understand it.

He was not really popular up there,

and he was kicked out soon after…

Sid: Soon after he led you to know the Messiah.

Maurice: Yeah.

Sid: Your father was a perfectionist,

and he wanted you to fulfill his dream.

His dream was to be a professional musician.

He wanted you to fulfill that,

and you were really a driven person.

Maurice: Yes. I really thought that…

I really believed that if I played perfectly,

I would be loved and accepted by the world,

and I would find my place.

I most of all wanted my daddy’s love.

My parents divorced when I was very young,

and I stayed with my dad,

so it created some trauma in my early childhood.

There was constant pressure on me to play better and better.

The bar would always come up.

Sid: You went to Juliard,

you went to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia,

you graduated there, you won so many awards,

you’re achieving the zenith of what you’re supposed to achieve,

but yet you wanted to commit suicide. Why?

Maurice: Well, it’s hard to give that all in such a short format,

other than to say that I really believed that when I made it

(whatever that means) in classical music, I would be happy.

But I found the reality of being an adult,

the reality of the music business,

was so harsh and had so much pain in it.

I think all of this caught up with me in my early twenties.

I was in my last year at Juliard,

I was working with Dorothy Delay.

What happened was, ironically,

I won the young concert artists’ audition, and I had made it,

and that’s when everything collapsed on me.

Sid: Ok, I’ll tell you what.

We’re going to find out how angels stopped him

from jumping from the George Washington Bridge.

I mean literally. It’s so amazing.

But I want you to hear the gift God has given to Maurice.

Maurice, I want you to go to the other set

and play the best Jewish music and the best Christian music,

and maybe we’ll have a little life from the dead.