ARRESTED: by Rudy Ellenbogen

Ten months ago I was in Caracas Venezuela for Yehuda Berg’s Power to Change Everything book tour. I was walking with a friend coming out of the subway on our way to the hotel when a policeman stopped us. He asked us us for identification. My friend show showed him his Venezuelan ID.  I looked the other way.

He asked me for mine.  I showed him my Peruvian ID. Then he asked for my passport.  But I didn’t have it. I had left my passport at his house so that it would not risk it being lost or stolen. I tried to explain the cop that my ID should be enough because of the Andean Community pact between Peru (my home country) and Venezuela.

His response simply was: “That’s not valid anymore, since last week your president and mine talked bad about our president”.

I was stunned.

He proceeded to ask us to follow him to an interrogation office. Yes, 30 feet away they had an interrogation office. I went in with my friend. Inside we found there were 2 other cops. There we were  in the interrogation room. My friend and I standing, one cop standing and the other cop sitting asking us questions:“Where do you work, what are you doing here, where is your passport…”

I told him the truth. He then said to my friend: “Well you have a good job, so you go home and get me his passport. He (me) will stay here.”

My friend was scared. He felt responsible for me and he was about to go when the cop said to me, “What do you have in your bag, open it?”

He probably realized, there was no need to wait so long, let’s just see if I can profit immediately. So I opened my bag and replied: “Look I only have clothes… and… my Zohar.” I pulled it out and showed it to him. His expression changed completely. He suddenly changed into a curious person and starting asking me all these questions about the Zohar. He completely forgot about the money. I answered him, opened the book and he went through the pages from beginning to end… and he said, “Wow 1852 pages, ok… you can go now”.

Just like that.

And we walked away.