Episode Summary

Are psychics and mediums real? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? This episode explores our need to deny death and our need to find a way to restore a connection of love that has been severed by death.

Episode Notes

The core of this episode is a true story about how when my best friend and partner in the God squad, Father Tom Hartman was dying of Parkinson’s disease I asked him to send me a sign after he died that Heaven was real. Tommy agreed an asked me what kind of sign I wanted him to send. 

I told him that I would not specify a sign but that that he should send me a sign that was completely and totally unambiguous. Tommy died in 2016 and for two years after his death in I received no sign. Then one day on the second day of the Jewish New Year, when I was eating chicken salad in the Celebrity Diner on Long Island near my synagogue with Mike Pascucci, the dear friend who had supported our work from the beginning. Mike told me that the spirit of Tom Hartman had come to him while he was shaving that morning and told him to give me a message at lunch. 

This was the message: “Sol thinks he is in charge up here and Heaven is the most beautiful place you have ever seen.” 

Mike was obviously shaken and confused by this visitation and then he asked me, “Who is Sol?” I was stunned. 

I answered Michael, “Sol is my father who died in 2007.” Michael did not know my father’s name, but Tommy did. My dad Sol Gellman was never in charge of much in his life, but he always acted as if he was in charge of everything. Tommy knew that too.

That was the sign. It was totally unambiguous. 

It had no explanation other than the obvious fact that Tommy’s soul was safe in Heaven along with dad and that one of the fundamental beliefs of all major faiths was true: death is not the end of us.