Messianic Judaism - The Torah and the Testimony Revealed

ON BECOMING A EUNUCH

This article was originally written to inform those considering surgical castration of the gravity of the decision so that they could better determine if it is something they want to do for themselves.

The article therefore contains a considerable amount of my history beginning from adolescence onward to bring out the severity and history of my addiction, my attitude towards the addiction, my determination in overcoming my addiction, and the actions I took to overcome my addiction.

The book now has a dual purpose added of communicating to men with sexual addiction a way that they can permanently, and very effectively, overcome their addiction down to the deepest core of their thoughts through the procedure of surgical castration. I say dual, because this is a solution that it is my hope and prayer will be made available to both law abiding men seeking to overcome a destructive addiction in their life, as well as mandated upon those whose addictions have progressed to repeated criminal behavior of a sexually driven nature.

Concerning this latter group, Europe has utilized surgical castration for its sexual offenders for over 40 years with tremendous success, reducing recidivism rates across the board for all classes of sex offenders to less than 3%. This compares to anywhere from 3% to 5% in America for incest and exhibitionistic cases, to as much as 30% for the violent rapist.

Sexual addiction, like any addiction, also has its victims. It doesn't matter if the activity of the addiction is lawful or unlawful. It doesn't matter if the addict is one serving time for doing what society deems to be a sex crime, or whether it is someone who has destroyed their own or another's relationship and/or marriage, and/or left a trail of broken hearts, broken families, and/or tears in their wake.

I regret that I myself was so caught up in my own misery and inner-conflict that it wasn’t until 1986 that I realized that my addiction was a real problem; and until 1990 that I was able to realize that the recipients of my actions were now unwilling victims rather than consensual partners and peers.

I have learned many lessons as a result of my past and God has taught me how to be a better person as a result.

Following is a list of some of the problems I have overcome through the lessons I have learned in life through the Testimony of Yeshua, and through the commandments of God, as a Jewish believer in the Messiah Yeshua.

1986- I overcame 13 years of drug abuse
1991- I quit smoking
1999- I overcame about 20 years of sexual addiction, and all other sexually related problems

I am now married to the most beautiful woman I know, with two of the most precious gifts of step-daughters anyone could ever hope for, and who I love as my own. I don’t deserve what I have, but neither do I take what I do have for granted.

Sincerely,

Shad Meshach & Family

Introduction

Two men went up to the Temple to pray,
one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector
.
The Pharisee stood and prayed in this manner,
"God, I thank You that I am not like other men,
extortionists, unjust, adulterous, or even as this tax collector.
I fast twice a week, and I give tithes of all I possess."

And the tax collector, standing far off,
would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven,
but beat his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

I tell you, this man went down to his house
justified rather than the other;
for everyone who exalts himself will be brought low,
but he who humbles himself will be exalted. Luke 18:13

This is my story and my plea of,
"God, be merciful to me a sinner".

To understand why surgical castration is so effective it is important to understand that we are chemically driven creatures just much as we are psychologically driven creatures.

In fact, in the case of the addict, and in the case of many other types of disorders, the psychological processes of our minds can, and often do, take a back seat to any bio-chemical imbalances of our bodies. And quite often a psychologically balanced mind is dependent on a bio-chemically balanced process within the body.

There are, no doubt, those who can benefit and learn to control their addictive behavior and thoughts through psychology and/or other types of self-help and support group programs.

But for those whose addictions are too severe to benefit from these traditional methods, as was the case with me; or for those who do not have the tremendous amount of time or finances available to pursue these traditional methods that may or may not produce the desired results being sought, surgical castration is a viable option that is both affordable and effective.

The procedure, likewise, empowers the addict to not just control their addictive behavior, but to virtually eliminate the very impulses and thoughts that propel them into that behavior.

Following is a look inside the mind and life of a sex addict, of how he became the person he was, and how God showed him the way to overcome. That person is me, Shad Meshach.

This is a true account of how I overcame a sexual addiction which had destroyed my life, and harmed a multitude of others.

It is my account of how I had tried all of man's solutions from counseling, to psychotherapy, to pharmaceuticals, alternative lifestyles and the like; all to no avail. And how it was not until I combined my faith in Yeshua, with a cure prescribed by Yeshua Himself, of becoming a eunuch, that I gained the victory over my bondage and was set free in Him.

Today, I am happily married with two step children, and am free of all forms of sexual addiction since Memorial Day, May 30, 1999.

My story is told shortly after my surgery in 1999, and from the perspective of the lifestyle and influences I had grown up around prior to my entry into the Messianic Jewish faith.

It was a lifestyle of the ugly world of addiction; but if you relate best to the tax collector in the Scripture quoted above, then you will understand from this testimony the power of God to change lives; and

Truly I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the
angels of God over even one sinner who repents.
Luke 15:10

This is my testimony of the power of God to change lives, and appropriate to be shared in this age of sexual addiction and looseness.
As it is written,

Those who are well have no need of a physician,
but those who are sick. Mattit'yahu (Matthew) 9:12,13

He who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end,
to him I will give power over the nations. Revelation 2:26

To he who overcomes I will make a pillar
in the Temple of My God. Revelation 3:12

So, why would anyone want to become a eunuch?

There are many reasons. The most common reason is medical. For example, some become eunuchs as a result of treatment for testicular cancer, from injury to a testicle, or other medical condition.

Another reason is as one step in a gender change operation. A third and lesser-known reason is simply the desire to modify one’s body in this radical way as part of a fetish interest.

There are also men, like myself, who want to become a eunuch, because they want to get control of their sexual impulses by eliminating the testosterone production in their body. At a more personal level, I wanted the surgery in order to grow closer to God and to improve the quality of my life.

As a result of my voluntary surgical castration, I went from being a completely dysfunctional social deviant whose life was controlled by addiction, to being a healthy, functional, productive member of society who is now at peace with himself and with God.

In the following summarization of my life and struggle I will describe the background, the events, and the thought processes that led to this rather extreme decision in my life.

The Background

My sexual desires, from age fourteen onward, had dominated my life so completely that I couldn’t function healthily or normally. I couldn’t hold down a job or develop long term relationships. I had trouble focusing on my goals and commitments. I had come to the point where I realized that I had an addiction, and that I needed to find a way to overcome it.

I came to hate my addiction. I did have other goals in life I wanted to do. My greatest goal was to grow closer to God and to develop a greater spiritual life. Other goals were to have a family, to own my own business, to go out and do normal things like camping and hiking, to enjoy good friendships, and simply to be able to be with people without my addiction dominating every thought.

I also wanted the opportunity to reach out to others to help them with their life problems. But I couldn’t achieve any of my goals because I was as controlled by my addiction as if I had a ball and chain attached to my leg.

It began when I was 8 years old when I entered in at the half way point of the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's. It began with common activities like playing doctor, and exploring the differences between one's own body and that of the opposite gender.

I grew up in a home where we went to church, but at age 10, after my father was killed by a drunk driver in a motorcycle accident, we no longer went to church.

It is at this point that my experimentations with the opposite gender began to go beyond simple "curiosity"; and began to escalate into more daring activities such as, "Truth, Dare, or Double Dare", strip poker, spin the bottle, and skinny dipping.

Within a year or two after my father's untimely death I remember my mother purchasing a book called, "The Joy of Sex" around the same time that another relative of mine was introducing me to "Playboy", "Penthouse" and "Hustler" magazines. It was the generation where having a Playboy emblem on your T-shirt was the "in" thing to do.

My home, likewise, was filled with nude, hand carved statues which my father, who was an ardent collector of fine art, had purchased in Europe and in other places. One of his favorite statues in his "art" collection was one that doubled as a whiskey dispenser.

It was a statue of a young boy peeing in a pond, and you would simply place your shot glass under the boy's appendage, and whiskey would proceed to be dispensed from it into the shot glass.

I grew up with no concept in my early years of nudity or sex as shameful or wrong in any capacity. Even in public, I recall seeing many times on the news whole groups of adults streaking down the street expressing their right to free speech while the cameras rolled on filming their bare butts in mass.

By the time I had reached my early teens I had already been exposed to all these influences, as well as to alcohol, marijuana, mushrooms, and LSD.

My peers frequently skinny dipped, and "sex" was the "in" thing to do.

As I grew into my late teens, my activities came to include public sex; and eventually as a young adult, threesomes. I recall in my teenage years of engaging in sexual acts in public parks with one of my girlfriends.

On one occasion I was in a park with a girl friend when another couple came up and joined us by our side.

On another occasion in the same park, a vehicle with several people drove by us and clapped, whistled, and hooted, cheering us on as they drove by.

I also, on several occasions, was molested by both men and women while I was a teenager. And ultimately, I became an exhibitionist.

My exhibitionistic activities occasionally got me into trouble, but the only ones who ever seemed to have a problem with this activity of mine were the police. And my peers always saw the police as "the enemy", which I was quite amenable to.

My attitude towards judicial officials as "the bad guys" began when I was 10 years old, shortly after the drunk driver, who had killed my father in a drunk driving incident, was released from the courts with little more than a small fine.

I knew that what the drunk driver had done was wrong, and I knew that it was wrong for him to be released from the courts virtually unpunished.

So, combining my experience with how I saw the police in the news interact with the "freedom of speech streakers" and others, it appeared to me that the police were the "bad guys".

So skinny dipping, smoking marijuana, drinking beer, public sex, and so on, were seen as only issues of concern among "the bad guys".

Rebellious activities in America's secular society like "streaking," skinny-dipping, strip poker, and the many forms of experimentation of the 70’s all seemed like the "in" thing to do at the time, whether in public or in private.

And I gave no thought to any of it as being possibly morally wrong except to people of the "police community" who had no credibility in my eyes concerning right and wrong after letting the killer of my father go.

The lure of my activities with my peers, or even by myself, came from getting away with something and from the mutual excitement shared with my peers. It all appeared like harmless fun at the time, with an undercurrent of adolescent rebellion against authority.

But as I got older, it became less of a joke. I came to the point where I wanted to stop the behavior as many of my peers had done as they grew older and matured, but what had earlier been childish fun now revealed the ugly face of addiction.

Sexual immorality wasn’t something I did for thrills anymore, it was something I was compelled to do, just like others may be compelled to overeat, overwork, drink, smoke, engage in pornography, or eat chocolate. This was my addiction. I hated it with every fiber of my being, and I desperately wanted to change.

I had no idea what to do to change, however. Even in light of about 1500 hours of psychological counseling and self-improvement programs invested in over a 20-year period of time, I had gained no power to overcome my addiction.

I’d attempted many times to change my behavior by changing my thinking, but nothing was able to stand against the powerful effects of the male hormone of testosterone on the brain; and I had no clue at the time that any of my addiction had anything to do with testosterone.

The Decision

My desire to change my life in general came around age 16 or so while I was in a juvenile detention hall, and some bible believers came in and sang songs with us and invited us to accept Christ as our Savior.

I was very touched that perfect strangers would come into the juvenile jail there and sing songs with us, when not even my own relatives would visit me. So touched, that I accepted their invitation.

After the meeting, I went back into my cell, and I prayed to God to forgive me of my sins, whatever they might be, and for Christ (who I know now by His Hebrew birth name "Yeshua") to come into my life and heal me.

Soon, if not immediately thereafter, I felt a serene presence overwhelm me that is very difficult to express in words. I describe it as an unearthly, supernatural type of cleansing, comforting warmth, beginning in my chest area, and then filling my whole body.

A warmth not natural to the biological processes of the body. A warmth and softness that I had never experienced up until that time, and which I never experienced again in the 20 years leading up to the time of this writing.

It was a warmth, and a cleansing, that caused me to feel "clean", and forgiven.

And though no one other than law enforcement, or people I had associated with them, had ever told me that any of my behavior was wrong; it was at this point that I started feeling the need to change something in my life.

I still had no conviction or concept of exhibitionism being "wrong", only a need to want to control it, and to at least maintain it in a way that law enforcement couldn't arrest me for it.

But it was only a conviction from within; and absent a clear knowledge of my behavior as wrong, I was doomed to a life of ever increasing addiction and moral decay.

No one had ever told me of any need to change, only to believe that Christ is the Messiah. So I received little guidance from others, though I do remember one couple kicking me out of their house upon learning of my addiction that I had been hiding from them.

But at that time in my twisted way of thinking, this reaction of theirs just made them like the police to me.

I reasoned that I was supposed to be under grace, and acceptable as I was. But like the police, I was only under grace and acceptable if I went by their rules; otherwise, they would just condemn me like the police who let the killer of my father go.

Looking back now I realize that their reactions to my behavior were actually proper in light of the fact that my behavior was still a current behavior in my life, and a behavior that I had been dishonestly hiding from them.

But I knew I believed in God, and I did sense that I was supposed to overcome this behavior of mine, but I had no idea why, and did not even realize that the conviction was from God.

Eventually, however, I had read the Holy Scriptures enough to realize that my desire to stop my behavior was indeed a conviction from God, and that it is also part of what God wanted for my life. And so for the first time, I began to realize that the "grace, come as you are, and stay are you are" doctrine was not of God, but of man.

I learned that grace was not a license to excuse sin, or to remain as I was and continue a life of sin. And that likewise, that what God called sin, and what man called sin, were often two different things.

That man defined sin basically the same way that police defined it, as a violation of human laws and cultural traditions. All of which I already knew from my experiences in life as being full of hypocrisy, inconsistency, corruption, and imbalance.

For example, in man’s eyes right and wrong were often defined in terms of consensual relations versus non-consensual, so that if a woman consented to sleeping with 5 men at one time it was considered okay, but if she did not consent, then it was wrong.

To me that was like saying that if I consent to having you rob and kill me, it’s okay, but if I don’t consent, then it’s a crime. The standard of consent versus non-consent to determine right or wrong seemed an absolutely senseless and unreliable standard to me for determining morality.

The Scriptures, however, based right and wrong on a person’s actions in light of God's eternal standard and Wisdom. This made much more sense to me as a standard.

And every time I would go to an assembly, I would sing songs with the adherents just like I did as a juvenile, sensing that there was some truth to what they were sharing with me, but not entirely certain how to filter it all out.

So I continued to fellowship with professing believers and to study the Scriptures. I learned that the grace of God is not a license to stay as we are, or to continue in sin, but rather is the Mercy of God. That is, that His grace is His willingness and commitment to forgiving us when we repent and stop sinning.

I also learned that God has a Law of commandments that defines for us, in truth, what sin is; that is, what is right and what is wrong in His eyes. The Law of which, human religions never shared with me except in negative light.

I also became familiar with the Scriptures and what they teach, and came across some significant passages. One passage in particular stuck with me for several years through my trial and error experimentations.

It was about overcoming sin. It is the passage that ultimately led me to the solution of surgical castration.

The passage is located in Mattit’yahu (Matthew) 5:29-30, where Yeshua said,

5:29 "If your right eye causes you to sin, then pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

5:30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell."

Other Scriptures also mentioned the blessings that eunuchs received, and stated that eunuchs are children of God and not rejected. So, I decided to try castrating myself.

I wasn’t sure how to do it. I had heard of people tying rubber bands around their privates until they simply fell off. I didn’t have any rubber bands, so I tried it with a piece of string. But that method was far too lengthy and painful. I wanted something quicker.

I decided next to try something thinner and tougher, like fishing line or cheese-cutting wire. But when it came down to actually pulling the string, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too concerned about bleeding, infection, and well, what if it didn’t work?

Another option I considered was getting a paper cutter like what is used in offices, and using it like a guillotine to remove my privates in their entirety; even considering an actual guillotine, so that all I would have to do would be to flip a switch and it would all be over.

Those ideas led me to the same conclusions as the string and fishing line did, too much effort and/or resolve or courage was required, and where does one find a guillotine anyway?

I also learned later that removing the appendage between the testicles was a violation of God‘s commandments, that it was only lawful to remove the testicles.

So I momentarily gave up and put my energies instead into designing a "chastity suit." The chastity suit was actually quite clever and practical, the best of my ideas so far.

The idea was to put it on, lock the padlock at the waist, and then leave the key at home when I left the house.

That way I was safe throughout the day until I returned back home. Once back home I was again safe from getting in trouble. It was quite effective when I wore it, the difficult part was getting myself to wear it.

Because I lived alone it was difficult to put on my chastity suit consistently. It was easy for me to talk myself out of it when I had confidence in my ability to resist temptation on any given day.

So, although the chastity suit was a potentially great idea, it was of limited effectiveness in the absence of a girlfriend, a partner, a wife, or a live-in friend to hold me accountable for wearing it every day regardless of my mood.

I was running out of brilliant ideas and beginning to lose hope in my future, wondering if I’d ever be able to get myself under control and have a productive life, or realize any of my goals in life.

Then I learned about the female hormone progesterone, produced by a woman’s body during pregnancy and lactation, and the synthetic version of the hormone, Depo-Provera, often prescribed to women for birth control because it "tricks" the body into believing it is pregnant, thereby tricking the body into not ovulating.

When a male takes Depo-Provera, the hormone "tricks" the body in a similar way. It tricks the endocrine system into believing that the body has sufficient blood testosterone levels, so that the testicles stop producing testosterone. This, naturally, results in the loss of sexual desire; and that desire was precisely what I needed to lose.

You see, throughout all my experimentation I learned that sexual desire dwells only in a certain part of the brain just like language, math, and motor skills do, and learned that this portion of the brain remains dormant until it is activated by the presence of testosterone.

This helped me to understand why it was that my addiction was only appealing to me when I was aroused, but otherwise, I wanted nothing to do with it.

So I considered the potential benefits of Depo-Provera. I thought again about the Scripture in which Yeshua teaches that it’s better to cut off a member of your body that causes you to sin than for your whole life to be destroyed.

I thought about the promises given to eunuchs, and felt that this medication might be a chance to find out what it might feel like to be castrated; chemically castrated that is, and thus to be finally without the addiction that controlled my life.

So I began taking Depo-Provera. Within five days, and quite to my amazement, I did indeed lose my desires. Although I could still become voluntarily interested in sexual activity, the compulsive nature of my addiction was completely gone; and the minor interest I could muster up was quite appropriate and easy to control.

I was astonished that I could actually be without any sexual thoughts, and without the compulsions and the careless and destructive behaviors they propelled me into.

I could now pass by former temptations, and be in previously high-risk situations, without experiencing even the slightest degree of temptation.

I was also amazed to discover that my addiction of the past now seemed like a strange and foreign thing. I could no longer relate to it at all, almost as if it were the behavior of another person entirely. The medication seemed to be the ultimate answer to my prayers, a dream I thought would never come true.

But there were concerns about side effects. Side effects like the danger of strokes, blood clots in the lungs, diabetes, breakthrough bleeding, and fluid build-up in the tissues.

I carefully considered the risks. Less than one half of one percent of those on the medication encounter the serious side effects; and I decided, that for me, the benefits far outweighed the risks.

After evaluating the pros and cons, I chose to remain on the medication as a transition step while I researched surgical castration.

The first step was to find out the requirements that might qualify me as a candidate for castration. I learned that all I needed was a doctor willing to do the surgery, and the money to pay to have the procedure done.

Although some form of counseling was recommended, it wasn’t required. More important was that I knew without a doubt in my mind that this was what I had to do. I decided to seek counseling anyway just to make sure I hadn’t overlooked anything.

I talked with fellow believers, friends, psychologists, and with my associates in group therapy. I read articles about surgical castration and its aftereffects.

I studied statistics on the recidivism rates of convicted "sex" offenders who were castrated in Europe, and saw that recidivism rates were less than 3% across the board, regardless of the nature of the original "sex" crime.

This compares to up to 35% for some categories of rape in American prisons, and more than 50% recidivism for all categories of crime in general.

I reviewed my own thinking processes, and the conclusions I’d reached over the years. I already knew from the Depo-Provera that I could easily live without sexual activity and desire.

The hardest decision to make was whether I could live without having children. This was a difficult dream to give up, but I knew what I had to do.

In the end I decided I wanted to do it. I wanted it with all my soul.

The Procedure

I had to find a doctor who would do it. The highly unusual motive behind my wanting to be castrated didn’t fit with current medical practice. The usual motive is to get rid of cancerous or otherwise damaged tissue, or as part of the sex change process, both of which are acceptable in the medical community.

However, being castrated just for the sake of eliminating my addiction, even though it would improve the quality of my life and help me to grow closer to God; these were unacceptable motives to the physicians I spoke with.

This is probably because it is not yet a common motive, therefore causing doctors to fear potential lawsuits.

Doctors have no problem with removing organs in the case of cancer, because that’s a life threatening condition. Or with performing a sex change, because that doesn’t limit the patient’s sexuality (so they erroneously think), it just changes their gender.

But in my case, I wanted to eliminate my sexual identity entirely, which is something most doctors couldn’t relate to. It doesn’t make any sense to most doctors, or for that matter, to most people. The initial result was to find no doctors who were willing to do it.

Finally I spoke with a friend who suggested I explore resources on the Internet.

After wandering through numerous websites that featured castration as a form of voluntary body modification and learning that there are even stranger things out there than my simple desire to be rid of my testosterone, I struck gold. I found a physician in Philadelphia, Dr. Felix Spector, who understood my motives and was willing to perform the surgery.

“All you have to do is be serious about it, and have sixteen hundred dollars to spend", Dr. Spector told me when I spoke with him on the phone.

Without hesitation I immediately replied, "I’m serious about it all right. It’s something I’ve wanted to do now for eight years."

Dr. Spector went on to describe the surgery and what I might expect. He explained that the procedure was permanent and irreversible, and asked if I had considered the fact that I would never be able to have children.

This was, as I noted earlier, the most difficult part of the decision. But, as I explained to Dr. Spector, I was blessed in the situation I found myself in.

My fiancée already had two children who were like my own children. She was aware of what I was going through, and was entirely supportive. So yes, I was ready to give up biological parenthood.

Dr. Spector then explained that there would be eventual bone loss from the absence of testosterone (just as post-menopausal women are subject to bone loss from the absence of the female hormone, estrogen).

Kosher, Calcium supplements with Vitamin D added for superior absorption would be available when that started to happen (I use "Freeda" Brand calcium supplements which can be purchased at www.koshervitamins.com); and would prevent the need reintroduce testosterone into my body. Dr. Spector also warned me that there might be some enlargement of the breasts.
It would be done as an outpatient procedure in the physician’s office and would take about two or three hours.

Dr. Spector suggested one or two days of rest and recuperation at home following the procedure. I would also have to be on antibiotics for a few days before the surgery and a few days afterwards.

I asked about payment, and Dr. Spector said that he accepted cash and money orders only.

It was all set, and I began investigating plane tickets, accommodations, and other trip plans.
Two days before my fiancée and I left for Philadelphia, it dawned on me at that time just how serious my decision really was. I had carefully thought through the whole issue over a period of eight years. But now, with my plane ticket in hand, the reality of the decision hit me as it never had before.

We took a flight there on Memorial Day weekend arriving on the morning of the 1st day (Sunday), and returning later that same day. Dr. Spector welcomed us to his office located in an older urban apartment building, and introduced us to his two assistants.

We filled out the paperwork, gave Dr. Spector the bank draft for sixteen hundred dollars, and confirmed that there were no further unanswered questions.

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