I was sitting in a Fuga, an acrobatic plane in the Israeli Air Force. Ze’ev, the commanding officer, was already in the pilot's seat. It was to be the first time I had ever left the ground. This was my reward for having led a battalion of Air Force cadet for three months, training them in fighting tactics suitable to the main streets of Gaza.

We started flying in the direction of Gaza. I was terrified. All I wanted was to feel firm, solid earth beneath my feet. We were descending in the middle of the desert, it was surrounded by a long, high fence, which was broken periodically by watchtowers. At once I had a very strange feeling - a flash of déjà vu: I had been down there once before…

Memories came alive, flashing across my sub consciousness. It had happened years ago, the summer that I was fifteen. Here, below, in the heart of the Negev, on the path that wound alongside the Air force base, I had barely escaped with my life…

I was studying in the city of Be'er Sheva and was looking forward to going home on the weekend. I had no money for the bus, so I decided to jog home, as the distance was fifteen miles or so. I took a shortcut, angled off the road into the desert and soon lost my way and eventually ended up at the boundaries of a large, fenced in area, the Air Force base, which was now sprawled out below.

Along the way I had run out of water. I continued to drag myself along the fence, but collapsed onto the path and blacked out…The next time my eyes opened, it was dark. "Help!" I weakly called out. My faint echo was all that answered me. "This is it. You're not coming out of this alive." I said to myself, moved my hand up to cover my eyes, and cried, "Shema Yisrael!"

Suddenly I heard what sounded like a number of jeeps. Flashlight beams arced through the darkness…a strange object had been detected on the path outside of the fence, and the jeeps had come to investigate. The soldiers cut away the bottom portion of the fence, and gently hoisted me onto one of the jeeps to be brought to the base to recover.

…Ze’ev and I landed safely. Upon our return, I asked him to accompany me. I found what I was looking for - the break in the fence. It had been mended years before, woven over with thick iron bars, and it now stood before me as a monument to my narrow escape.

At this moment I had an epiphany. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I was not alone. Someone or Something, Somewhere was sending me a sign... Was it a coincidence that I ended up at the exact same spot where my life had been spared at the last possible moment? I sensed that this power was sending me a message. I didn't know if it had anything to do with any religion at all. I was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery and discover the eternal meaning of existence.

And so, a couple of months later, as I finished my tour of duty with the army, I was on my way to New York… While the rest of my graduating class of 1989 was pursuing their dreams of riches and worldly success, I was embarking on my search for the ultimate Truth. The long, winding road I traveled came to a close eight years later as I piloted a plane from Key West to Boca Raton, FL, as I will continue to relate in the following installments, with god’s will...