The Jewish Testimonies

[Book of Jeremiah]

Atonement Questions and answers - Jews for Jesus

Atonement: Questions and answers

Note: Elaine the correspondent is fictional, but Karol Joseph is real and serves on the staff of Jews for Jesus. She can be reached \n ">by e-mail.

Dear Karol,

I didn't tell you everything that was on my mind in the last letter, because there's a second area where I need some clarification.

It's regarding the blood atonement. Jerry asked me if you had used Leviticus 11 in trying to convince me that blood atonement was needed for atonement (he really does know a lot about the arguments you guys use) and showed me several verses to demonstrate that you are wrong, and that there are numerous other means of atonement found in the Tanakh, not just shedding of blood (e.g. prayer, repentence, charity, even flour!). He also tried to make the point that the blood sacrifices were the least important of the ways of making atonement, especially since they were only for unintentional sins. I was surprised when we looked in Leviticus, to see that the sacrifices really were only for unintentional sins.

Jerry also gave me a tape by Tovia Singer on the topic, which I listened to last night. He made mostly the same points as Jerry, but one thing that was different was where he pointed out that the sacrificial system is the only thing that the prophets were constantly degrading. He said that sacrifice was prominent in the pagan world to appease the gods. The Jewish people had become obsessed with this whole blood issue, so that prophets kept saying that God wants other things rather than this. Have you ever heard of this? It didn't seem quite right to me, and he didn't really give any scriptures to back up what he was saying, but I thought I'd ask. Tovia Singer's tape also raised an entirely new question for me, that you and I have never even talked about. He said that even if we needed blood atonement, we have never needed the blood of a man. I must admit that it does sound a bit strange that God would ultimately want His son, Jesus, to be sacrificed, after repeatedly commanding Israel not to do as the other nations, who sacrificed their children to the god Molech.

I hope that you'll have time to again respond.

Sincerely,
Elaine

________

Dear Elaine,

It was good to hear from you again. Let me begin in responding to your questions about the atonement, with some background on how the notion came about in the first place that other means of sacrifice, such as prayer, repentence, and good deeds, could replace blood sacrifice in the Jewish faith. No one, not even the great Jewish rabbi Rashi, would disagree that while the Temple was standing, blood sacrifice was essential. According to the Talmud, "there is not atonement without the blood" (Yoma 5a, Zebahim 6a, Menahot 93b). By the way, although the anti-missionaries often accuse Christians of citing Leviticus 17:11 to prove that God required blood atonement, is actually the rabbis of the Talmud who quoted this verse in this way.

Remember when we talked back in June about the two main commentaries on the Talmud, the Tosafot and Rashi? Well, in the Tosafot, the blood is actually called the "fundamental principle;" Rashi's commentary would agree, and so would the Encyclopedia Judaica. It was foundational; the blood sacrifices were the heart and soul of biblical atonement. Read Leviticus 16 and try to imagine the Day of Atonement without blood sacrifice. It's really quite a leap to go from the biblical requirement to the rabbinic practice today, isn't it?

The question of what else besides blood could make atonement really didn't became a critical issue in Judaism until after 70 C.E., when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. It's interesting that in the Talmud, in Sukkah 45a, it says that as the Temple is being destroyed, one of the sages said, "stupid Romans, while the Temple was standing we could make atonement for you. Now what will you do?"

In the midst of the crisis and chaos that followed the destruction of the Temple, Yohanan ben Zakkai (remember him, the father of "Rabbinic Judaism," who organized the schools at Yavneh?) offered a solution. He told the people that just as sin was surely followed by punishment, so repentance would surely be followed by redemption. But how could this happen without the Temple? Johanan had the answer to this, too; in fact he had an answer that changed the course of Jewish practice from that day forward. Read this legend about the great rabbi:

Once as Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai was coming out of Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua followed after him, and beheld the Temple in ruins.

"Woe unto us!" Rabbi Joshua cried, "that this place, the place where the iniquities of Israel were atoned for, is laid waste."

"My son," Rabban Johanan said to him, "be not grieved; we have another atonement as effective as this. And what is it? It is acts of lovingkindness, as it is said, For I desire mercy, not sacrifice (Hos. 6:6)... What then were the acts of lovingkindness in which he was engaged? He used to outfit the bride... accompany the dead, give a perutah [coin] to the poor and pray three times a day.1

Yohanan taught that although there could no longer be sacrifices, there could be prayer and lovingkindness, chesed, and through them, the Jews might make atonement for their sins. "Just as the Jews needed a redemptive act of compassion from God, so must they now act compassionately in order to make themselves worthy of it." 2 In this Yohanan provided an interim ethic by which Israel could live. No longer would prayer worship be a supplement to the true cult, it was the true cult!. Over the years at Yavneh, that's what became incorporated into the Jewish liturgy and practice. What happened at Yavneh was the recreation of Judaism without the Temple.

Notice, however, that this is not biblical teaching so much as it is rabbinic teaching, and as we've discussed many times before, that is a key issue--whether or not the rabbinic teaching, the Oral Torah, is authoritative or not. As you know, I totally reject the Oral Torah as authoritative, and I believe that if you were to examine it closely (we can do that together if you want), you would too. Don't get me wrong, however; I don't mean to say that just because it's in the rabbinic teachings it's automatically wrong. For that we need to look more directly at the teachings themselves, both in the Bible and in the rabbinic literature, e.g. the Talmud, and we can do that in a moment. First, however, let me challenge you to think of why the rabbis would ever believe that our God, who commanded sacrifice to make atonement, would then bring the destruction of the means of atonement as a judgment on His people, and then require less for the people to make atonement? Could it be that the rabbis got it wrong? I think so.

With that in mind, let's take a look at some of the specific biblical citations that I'm sure Jerry gave you to argue that there were other means of atonement than blood in the Hebrew Bible. But, first let me tackle an easy issue you raised, because Jerry actually didn't tell you the truth when he said that the biblical sacrifices were only for unintentional sins. In all of the verses he did show you, I'm certain you must have skipped over the following from Leviticus Chapter 6:

Leviticus 6:2-7 "If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the LORD by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him, or if he finds lost property and lies about it, or if he swears falsely, or if he commits any such sin that people may do--when he thus sins and becomes guilty, he must return what he has stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to him, or the lost property he found, or whatever it was he swore falsely about. He must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day he presents his guilt offering. And as a penalty he must bring to the priest, that is, to the LORD, his guilt offering, a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for him before the LORD, and he will be forgiven for any of these things he did that made him guilty."

So, blood sacrifice was needed for all guilt, intentional and unintentional. Again, go back and read about the Day of Atonement in the Hebrew Bible and see if the scapegoat carried only the unintentional sins of the people away; you'll find it was both.

As to the verses regarding the use of other means of atonement, let me start with the easiest to see: the use of flour as an atonement for sin. The answer becomes immediately obvious simply by looking at the verse itelf from Leviticus 5:

Leviticus 5:11-13 "'If, however, he cannot afford two doves or two young pigeons, he is to bring as an offering for his sin a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He must not put oil or incense on it, because it is a sin offering. He is to bring it to the priest, who shall take a handful of it as a memorial portion and burn it on the altar on top of the offerings made to the LORD by fire. It is a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for him for any of these sins he has committed, and he will be forgiven. The rest of the offering will belong to the priest, as in the case of the grain offering.'"

As you can see, the use of flour alone wouldn't have made atonement for sin; it was only effectual when mixed in with the blood sacrifices of the entire community. The blood sacrifice was what was necessary, the flour offering allowed the poor person to join in on the communal sacrifice.

As to the other verses that speak of making "atonement" in ways other than blood, I think in looking at them you'll see that they generally fall into one of two categories. The first relate to those where the verse wasn't actually referring to "atonement" in the sense of forgiveness of sin. Let me explain. The Hebrew word lekapper, that is often translated as "atone" in many English Bibles, doesn't always mean that sin is forgiven. It may mean just "remove" or "wiped away" as in Isaiah 28:18, Your covenant with death will be annulled (lekapper), your agreement with the grave will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, you will be beaten down by it.

Or it may mean "ransom" rather than "atonement money," as in Exodus 30:12: "When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the LORD a ransom (kopher)for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. In this instance, it wasn't atonement money in the sense that it bought forgiveness of sin, it was rather a protection from a plague. It's interesting that this is the verse from which Judaism today derives the notion of giving charity (money) as a means of making atonement. It is also interesting that this is the same notion as in the New Testament when it speaks of Jesus, in Mattew 20:28: "...just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." In Jesus' death on the cross, He made the payment that prevented God's wrath from falling on those who deserved it (namely us).

The second category of verses bring us back to Yohanan ben Zakkai, as we deal with the question of whether prayer and sacrifice can replace blood sacrifice in atonement. Now I would guess that one of the verses Jerry showed you included Psalm 51, where King David says in verses 16-17: "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. What I would guess he didn't show you was the rest of the psalm, where David continues in verses 18-19, Psalm 51:18 "In your good pleasure make Zion prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then there will be righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings to delight you; then bulls will be offered on your altar." David, like all the prophets by the way, recognized that without a right heart attitude all the sacrifices in the world were meaningless. He wasn't saying that a right heart alone would suffice, but that sacrifices without a right heart wouldn't either. In fact, this is the core of what the Bible teaches, that it takes both repentence and sacrifice to receive forgiveness from God, one without the other simply will not do.

Similarly, other verses that speak of prayer bringing atonement without explicitly mentioning sacrifices can do so only because the Temple was standing, and sacrifices were being made. It's a fallacy to think that people would have to run to the Temple and make a sacrifice every time they sinned. No, the priests were offering sacrifices daily for the community; therefore on an individual basis the need would be to have a right heart. That's why in 1 Kings 8:46-50, King Solomon can ask God to forgive the people when they turn back to Him and pray:

"When they sin against you--for there is no one who does not sin --and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to his own land, far away or near; and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their conquerors and say, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly'; and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name; then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their conquerors to show them mercy;

Notice that the Temple was still standing! Solomon wasn't praying that when the Temple would not be there, accept their prayers as atonement, but that coupled with the sacrifices being offered in the Temple, the repentent cries of the people would be heard and their sin forgiven. If you want, look up for yourself 2 Chronicles 7:19 and see that God rejected the Temple in judgment against the people, leaving them with no means of atonement. That's why Daniel, in chapter 9, is looking toward Jerusalem and crying. He doesn't have any assurance of the forgiveness of his sins, the national means of atonement was gone. Because the Temple is detroyed, there is either no means of atonement for Israel (or anyone else for that matter), or God has given us the ultimate means of atonement through Jesus.

Before moving on to your final atonement question regarding human sacrifice, and how that is dealt with in Christ, I simply have to comment on your saying that Tovia Singer's tape said something to the effect that "....sacrifice was prominent in the pagan world to appease the gods. The Jewish people had become obsessed with this whole blood issue, so that prophets kept saying that God wants other things rather than this..." I was amazed to hear a Jewish rabbi speak in such a cavalier way about the system that God clearly established in the Law of Moses. I don't know that it deserves much more attention than that.

Now lets take just a few minutes to deal with the question of human sacrifice, and of Jerry saying that God never wanted the blood of a person, only of a goat or a lamb. Without going into a whole Biblical analysis (we can do that together in the fall if you want) let me suggest that after you've read through Leviticus 16, about the Day of Atonement, then turn to the book of Hebrews, Chapters 9 and 10 in the New Testament, and you'll see how the Day of Atonement was pointing to the death of Messiah, who in one act would provide the blood of atonement anad remove our sins once and for all.

In addition to the biblical analyis, you might be interested to know that the notion of "the death of the righteous" making atonement for sin is a very Jewish concept, going all the way back to the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, and carried forth in the Law and later in the rabbinic literature. Look, for example, at Numbers 35:33+ which discusses the death of the high priest atoning for those who have been guilty of manslaughter and have run for safety to a City of Refuge. Then in a little known midrash (Jewish commentary) on this text notes that the high priest atones because he is at a high level spiritually. So the death of the righteous is very powerful. This is a concept that has continued in Judaism to this day, as a way of giving reason to the sensless deaths of "innocent" people like in the Holocaust, that their death (their blood) made atonement for sin. And the more righteous the person, like the high priest, the more powerful their death. So, imagine what the death of the Messiah would bring! That could atone for the sin of the whole world! And that's exactly what happened when Jesus died:

1Peter 2:22-24 "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

It's interesting that Peter should be quoting here also from a key messianic prophecy, that you and I have reviewed many times together, Isaiah 53. Perhaps you could read that chapter again, and pay special attention to verse 10: "Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,..." The word for "guilt offering" is the same as would be used in the Hebrew word, asham used in Leviticus. This Messiah, prophesied by Isaiah some 700 years before Jesus, would be sacrificed as a guilt offering. I don't know that you'll ever get a clearer statement of the substitutionary death of Jesus, whose blood coupled with our repentence, makes the way for the forgiveness of sin.

Ultimately it is the forgiveness of sin that is at issue. As a believer in Jesus, I can have the assurance that my sins are forgiven and that I will spend eternity in heaven with God. Can Judaism say the same? In the end, can the rabbis assure you that they are right, that atonement is certain through prayer, repentence and good deeds? Absolutely not! Just read the legendary account of the end of Yohanan's life. The conclusion is obvious:

"In his last hours, rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai kept weeping out loud.

'O master,' his disciples exclaimed, 'O tall pillar, light of the world, mighty hammer, why art thou weeping?'

He said to them, 'Do I then go to appear before a king of flesh and blood, whose anger, if he should be angry with me, is but of this world? and whose chastening, if he should chastise me, is but of this world? Whom I can, moreover appease with words or bribe with money? Verily, I go rather to appear before the King of Kings of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be he, whose anger, if he should be angry with me, is of this world, and the world to come, and whom I cannot appease with words or bribe with money! Moreover I have before me two roads, one to paradise and one to Gehenna, and I know not whether he will sentence me to Gehenna or admit me into Paradise. And of this a verse says, Before him shall be sentenced all those that go down to the dust, even he that cannot keep his soul alive (Psalm 22:30) - and should I not weep?" 3

For all the efforts to maintain and preserve Jewish life, at the end of it the rabbis cannot say even that God will be pleased, let alone whether or not they will receive eternal life. To have that, you need to accept Y'shua's sacrifice for your sins. I hope that you'll want to do that even now.

Sincerely,
Karol

1The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, tr. Judah Goldin (Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 34-35. Cf. Wylen, Stephen M., Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism, (Paulist Press, 1989), p. 175. 2Neusner, Jacob, First Century Judaism in Crisis, (Abingdon Press, 1975), p. 170. Emphasis in the original. 3Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 28b.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Could Jesus be God Could God be a man - Blog - Publications - Jews for Jesus

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Immanuel God With Us - Jews for Jesus

I have always enjoyed the tradition of giving and receiving presents at Christmas, although I must admit the reason why people do it has escaped me, if indeed it was ever within my grasp. But I do believe that Jesus' birth, death and resurrection on this earth was God's colossal gift to mankind.

Sound strange coming from a yiddishe maidel*? Well, both of my parents are Jewish believers in Jesus. So it's not so unusual for me to be thinking such things.

The idea of God taking humanity upon Himself is an outrage to some and bewildering to others. Theologians speak in terms of the Incarnation, Kenosis and Hypostatic Union. But no word or collection of words can ever adequately explain the mystery of God stepping into humanity, leaving footprints on this earth which are at once human, and yet nothing less than divine.

I had a dream a few years ago that gave me a new perspective on Christmas, on the Incarnation." Many people dream dreams, see visions. Some feel that such things are but a fleeting collage of images sensible only to one who sleeps. Perhaps they are right. But perhaps God does send some of us dreams now and then…to help us understand what we can not grasp when we are limited by the inhibitions and the worldly wisdom of our waking hours…

In my dream, I stood on a sandy shore somewhere in Israel. I looked off into the distance with a sense of growing anticipation and excitement. Why? Because I was soon to meet Jesus, face to face! What would he look like? What would he say? What would I say? I was excited and nervous. I squinted into the bright sunlight, looking for some sign of his coming.

At last, a tiny moving speck in the distance began to resemble the outline of a man. I wondered if this could possibly be him, but as the figure approached, I sighed with both disappointment and relief. This was not Jesus, it was only an ordinary man. He stopped and looked at me and I thought perhaps he would speak. But no, he looked at me as though he, too, were waiting. I thought maybe he was waiting to meet Jesus also, and I asked him, "Do you know when Jesus will be here? I've heard he will surely pass by this way." His answer was plain, and given without hesitation. "I am Jesus," he told me.

It never occurred to me that he might be lying. That simple statement carried authority, and I had to believe it. But my disappointment must have been apparent. This ordinary looking man, Jesus? He was so nondescript that I can't even recall enough to tell you what he looked like. I only remember his eyes, because as he read the disappointment on my face, those eyes were filled with sorrow and pity. And as I looked into his eyes, they spoke directly to my heart. He gazed at me and he made me understand how appropriate his appearance was.

That any physical beauty, any human aura, could begin to reflect the splendor of the Almighty is unthinkable! His appearance among us had to be ordinary, because no human appearance could possibly describe him. He looked into my eyes as through the windows of my soul, and I had no doubt that this was Jesus. I was awed by the love that motivated him to confine himself in this form. His ordinariness became for me the most glorious sight I had ever beheld, for I now understood its sacred meaning. And I was ashamed, so ashamed that I had expected some sort of spectacular superman. I know that no mere human form could do God justice. I had been presumptuous in expecting to recognize Jesus by something special in his physical appearance. No longer able to look into his eyes, I looked down—down at my feet, at the sand, any place but into those eyes that had seen right through me. Yet, he continued to gaze at me, and I was compelled to look once more into his face. As I looked at him, I knew that he forgave my stupidity—that he loved me and wanted me to understand him better. And I did understand, and it made me glad.

Well, such was my dream. Yes, perhaps to some it sounds like no more than "a fleeting collage of images sensiblle only to one who sleeps." And yet, in my waking hours the dream comes back to me again and again. I re-experience the wonder of Jesus' love, the paradox of his humility, the dignity with which he bore our iniquities. And I'm amazed. I am truly amazed by the enormity of God's Christmas present—the reality of His presence among us.

My fellow Jews scold me and say that it is a sin to believe that a man could be God. Most don't realize that I agree. I have never believed that a man could become God. But I believe that God lacks neither the imagination nor the means to be and perform things beyond our comprehension. Neither is He lacking in love, that He should reach out to us. And, if the Master of the Universe who spoke the world into being chose to care for that world, chose to cry out over the tragedy of that world, chose to commit Himself to the salvation of that world, it is just possible that He could also choose to come into that world and be Immanuel, God with us…couldn't He?

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

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An Orthodox Jew's Unexpected Encounter

I was brought up in a modern Orthodox Jewish family. We went to synagogue every Shabbat and on every major Jewish holiday. My family kept kosher and I had twelve years of yeshiva education. I learned how to read and write Hebrew fluently and I learned many Jewish subjects, including the myriad of laws and customs. I learned that being Jewish was an honor and that I was one of the "Chosen People." We did not associate with people who were not Jewish. It was frowned upon to befriend anyone who wasn't Jewish because that person might want to convert you. It was forbidden to marry someone who wasn't Jewish. If you married out of the religion it was a shameful thing and if you converted it was as if you physically died to your family and community. I lived an isolated life away from the rest of the world. All of this left me with an uneasy feeling.

When I started college and was among people of other cultures, races and religions for the first time, I realized that I was really not so different from them. At age twenty, I married an Orthodox Jewish man. As time went on, I realized that even though I believed in God, I felt very distant from my Creator. Deep down, I knew there was something missing in my life.

Things started to unravel in 2001 during my twelfth year of marriage. My mother-in-law, who was a virtuous woman in my eyes, suffered a very slow, painful death from pancreatic cancer. I couldn't understand why God would allow such a thing. During this year, my husband lost his job and I was pregnant with our third child. Once I gave birth, my husband opened up a business and began to work long hours. Having to handle so much on my own, I succumbed to depression. I couldn't sleep at night. I began seeing a therapist and taking antidepressants. I felt an emptiness and loneliness that nothing could fill. I felt used up, unappreciated and never good enough. I was hitting rock bottom. Then God used an ordinary man to speak truth into my life.

The man who regularly serviced my pool was kind and caring. I didn't understand how someone could be smiling all the time. It annoyed me because it took a lot to make me smile. I asked him what made him so happy and he said that God made him happy. I was bewildered by his answer, but deep down I wanted what he had. As time went on, he noticed the downward spiral in my mood and attitude. I told him that I was depressed and what I was doing to try to remedy myself. I had realized a short time earlier that he was a Christian but I never gave it much thought. He told me that I didn't need therapy or medication—I needed Jesus. I told him that I was Jewish and Jews don't believe in Jesus! He said that he completely believed what he was telling me and he would put his neck on a chopping block for the truth of God.

He asked me to read a book by a well-known Christian author. I decided I would read the book and just not read anything that had to do with Jesus. But once I started reading, it felt as if the author wrote it for me. God used this book to prepare my heart for the next step, which was to start hearing and reading the word of God. My service man read to me from his Bible every time he came to work. When he read to me, I sometimes got very bad headaches. I realized later that the headaches resulted from my mind fighting the new information that I was trying to process.

One day, my service man asked me to read Isaiah 53 to him from the Hebrew Scriptures. This section of the Bible opened my eyes to the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah. I never remembered reading this chapter in the Bible in school. How could I deny that Jesus was the Messiah when it is written in Isaiah 53:4-6:

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

After reading Isaiah 53, I kept thinking, how could Jesus be the Messiah and how could Jesus be God? And the Bible also taught that the Holy Spirit was God. I was 34 and all my life I was taught and believed that there is only one God.

That evening the Lord spoke to me in my mind. He told me to consider that he was like a "whole" pie made up of three parts. God is a whole united "one" made up of three separate parts: God the Father, God the son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit, which make a complete one. That night I acknowledged that Jesus was my Messiah.

My depression lifted as I continued to seek God, and I felt a new freedom in my heart and mind. As I continued to read my Bible, I got a strong desire to be around other believers in Jesus. I called up my friend the service man and told him that I needed to go to church. I was scared, since other Jewish people had always told me that we are not allowed to go to church. But I went to my friend's church with him that day, and I began to attend regularly.

The next difficult thing I did was tell my husband that I believed Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. It was hard for my husband to understand. I told him that I needed to go to church. He said he wouldn't stand in my way but that he wasn't happy about it. I was scared that my husband might want to divorce me. But even though my husband did not understand my passion for God, he supported me.

The next hurdle was to tell my mother that I was a Christian. When I first told her, it rendered her speechless. She was unable to process it, and she excused herself from the conversation. But once it sank in, my mother waged a war against me. She told me that I must not be her daughter because her daughter would never betray her and the Jewish people this way. She even suggested that I must have been switched at birth with her real daughter! She contacted every rabbi she could think of to intervene, but only one tried to help her by phoning my husband. This rabbi told my husband to divorce me and take my children. Since my husband loved me, he did not listen to the rabbi. Even though I have a relationship with my mom, she still will not accept the choice I have made to follow Jesus.

The next three years were rough, but I asked God to help my family and me. Then, in 2006, my husband asked Jesus into his life. Our two younger children have come to trust in the Lord too, and my older daughter has drawn closer to God. Now, after all that God has seen me through, I tell people, "Nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37).

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

I was brought up in a Jewish home, observed Shabbat faithfully and celebrated the High Holy days at the temple and with family. I attended Hebrew school twice a week and was bar mitzvah and confirmed. While attending classes I asked a lot of questions about God that the rabbi could not answer. Though I continued each year, mainly to please my parents, I became less interested in traditional religion. Feeling hindered in my spiritual development, I leaped headfirst into my own brand of freestyle spirituality after high school graduation.

By reading and attending lectures, I got involved in the New Age movement, became a vegetarian and for fifteen years practiced yoga and meditation. I used psychedelic drugs as part of my religious observances and smoked pot as part of my lifestyle. I experimented with various religions and the occult. I felt they each contained some part of the truth of the one "true" religion.

I studied the Ancient Masters, learning about Buddhism and Zen. I had a number of spiritual experiences which at the time I was sure were from God and leading me to a greater knowledge of myself and him. I discovered and believed in the Ascended Masters that were guiding our world into a greater evolutionary path. I was involved with UFOs and channeled messages. I was sure I was on the right spiritual path because of the various signs; things just fell into place. At the same time I also read the Bible (even the New Testament), not denying my Jewish roots.

I had also started to surf before beginning my spiritual pilgrimage. I fell in love with the sport and began traveling, surfing and entering contests. Surfing became my livelihood after I learned to shape surfboards. I became the New York champion and the eastern surfing champion. Hawaii proved to be an irresistible attraction due to its fantastic surf. I moved permanently to Hawaii with my girlfriend, Kathy, in the mid 1970s.

This gave me more freedom to pursue both surfing and my freelance spirituality. We thought we were becoming enlightened, reading about the Ascended Masters and "learning" about Earth's past history on Lemuria and Atlantis. We wanted to become servants of the New Age movement, convinced that if we all united we could usher in an age of spiritual cooperation and enlightenment. After nine years Kathy and I started to pursue our spiritual hunger more seriously and became involved in the "I AM" movement (the Saint Germain Foundation). We called on angels and powers unknown to us and tried to eradicate past life karma. Kathy practiced affirmations and mantras, studied herbology, polarity therapy and kinesiology, and learned about the supposed spiritual energies of the body.<

Then one week we had two friends over who had recently become Christians. One was a surfer who I knew from New York. We talked about end-time events for hours. I had been reading the Bible for years and was especially fascinated about the end of the age. My friends invited us to a Christian seminar on the New Age movement. During that same week I heard an audible voice say, "I am the Lord your God. You shall not want." From my Jewish upbringing, I recognized "shall not want" from Psalm 23. I had never experienced anything like it. Inside I knew this was the God I was searching for.

I attended the seminar on Bible prophecy and the New Age Movement while Kathy stayed home doing her New Age affirmations. The information I heard at the conference seemed incredible. The speakers knew all about the occult techniques Kathy and I were practicing and about the New Age Movement's master plans.

Though I was reading the Bible all these years, I was blinded by the viewpoints ingrained from the New Age influences. I was challenged by one of the speakers on my occult practices. He was aware of the "I AM" movement. He asked me, "If you're God, did you create the universe?" I had never thought this through. How could I become God through all these New Age techniques, when God is always all knowing and all powerful?

I could relate to what another of the speakers had experienced, especially in regards to the Ascended Master "Jesus." She spoke about another Jesus—the true Jesus of the Bible, which came as a total shock. I never thought there could be false Jesuses parading around as the real one. They were only Jesus by name but not the One who is God come in the flesh. It all made sense. When she prayed, my heart was pierced, and I knew I had heard the truth. But what would I do about it?

All the way home I wrestled with the realization that I had wasted the past fifteen years believing and doing the wrong things. I asked my friends who took me to the meeting numerous questions. Being new Christians, they could answer only a few. They just kept saying, "We know the Bible is God's Word and Jesus is the truth."

Kathy was waiting up for me when I got home. It was late and she was scared that I would come home a Jesus freak! As I came in, a peace came in the house and on her. I shared with her what the Scriptures say about the last days and how it isn't anything like what we were being taught in the New Age movement. Kathy suddenly realized that not only were we following the wrong Jesus, we were worshiping Satan, and that he is a real being. We got down on our knees and prayed to the true living God to forgive us for the occult beliefs we had been deceived into practicing.

The next morning we both went to a church, and the pastor said that he felt led to change the sermon. He spoke on sin, Satan and Jesus; we thought our friends had tipped him off! After the message, we dedicated our lives to God. That was in 1986. Five weeks later, Kathy and I were married and today have a 21-year-old son, Micah.

Immediately, I began to study the Bible in order to answer those who ask why we believe in Jesus. Since 1988 I have continued teaching on the cults and the occult, specifically the New Age world view. All through my searching I held on to my Jewish roots, and now, through Y'shua (Jesus), the Jewish Messiah, those roots have grown even stronger.

Mike Oppenheimer has hosted a TV program as well as a live call-in radio show, "Let Us Reason," on a local station in Hawaii. In 1994 he founded Let Us Reason Ministries as an up-to-date resource center to help equip believers in Jesus with both biblical and logical answers for their faith. You can visit the website at www.letusreason.org.

Jews for Jesus - 156 items tagged with life stories created 2012-08-02 16 43 47 Hits 7201 Jews for Jesus

 

[HaShev]

Life of Brian - Monty Python 2,972,378 hits
396,437 likes
Brian Wins, Brian must be the messiah!
I VOTE JOHN CLEESE TO BE THE POPE, just so I can see the funny walk to address the Vatican Square.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Vera Schlamm

One of the questions I was asked frequently when I first came to this country is: Was it really as bad in the camps as they say in the news?" Now the question is: "Was it as bad as was shown in films such as 'The Hiding Place' or 'The Holocaust'?" My answer is "Yes, except it was worse because there is no way you can show these things on T.V. or in a movie theater, and certainly no way that you can exaggerate what happened." The fact that the question is still being asked shows that we sometimes just don't want to believe the truth, and look for a way out.

When I came to believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and committed my life to him, I was amazed at the questions and misunderstandings that it created. One of the main Scripture passages that spoke to me was Isaiah 53. The little I had heard about Jesus made me see very plainly that this passage is talking about him. But when I try to explain why I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, people don't want me to use the Bible.

It surprises me because, after all, that is what Judaism is based on. When I studied medicine, I had to learn what the medical books were saying, not what writers in popular magazines came up with. The same is true for my faith. One reason that I started to read the Scriptures was that I wanted to know what God had to say, not what people were saying, because I found that even in Judaism as it is practiced today, there is a great variety of interpretation and observance.

Like most Jewish people, I used to think that Christianity was a gentile religion and had nothing to do with me. But the day that I committed my life to Jesus as the Messiah, I realized that I hadn't "changed," but rather grown in my own faith.

From "An Interview with Dr. Vera Schlamm," September 1, 1985, ISSUES: A Messianic Jewish Perspective,volume 4, no. 3.

Rose Price

In early 1945, the allies were destroying the Nazi war machine faster than it could be rebuilt. There were no more ammunition factories to work in and no more beets to pull up, so [my sister] Sarah and I felt useless. We weren't needed or wanted at Bergen-Belsen anymore, so once again we were put on a train that took us deeper into Germany and stopped at Dachau.

As Sarah and I were trying to settle on the top bunk, I noticed that she seemed weaker than usual and her face looked flush. Then I saw a rash on her arms and hands. Sarah had contracted typhoid fever. Thousands had died from an epidemic of the dreaded disease, yet it was vitally important for Sarah to look as healthy as possible. The guards were on fierce lookout for anyone who had the fever, so when they came to inspect the barracks, I put my threadbare blanket over Sarah and laid on top of her. She was safe for the time being, but her fever continued to worsen. Her skin felt like a flame to the touch. "She needs medicine, probably aspirin," said a woman in our barracks.

I could not let my Sarah die. That night, I waited until everyone was asleep and made my way in the dark to the infirmary. The fear that my sister would leave me overcame my fear of being caught. Still, my heart pounded in my ears. When I finally reached the infirmary, I discovered to my amazement that it wasn't locked. I took a deep breath and tiptoed inside. I expected at least the cabinets to be locked, but to my surprise, they too were open.

I grabbed as many bottles of pills as I could carry. I couldn't read the labels in German, so I raced back to the barracks and woke the woman who said Sarah needed aspirin. We pried open Sarah's mouth and forced her to swallow some tablets every few hours. Over the next few days her fever dropped, and she began to eat on her own again. Without my sister, I knew I wouldn't survive, so I silently thanked God for sparing her, both for her sake and for mine.

From A Rose from the Ashes by Rose Price (San Francisco: Purple Pomegranate Productions, 2006). Jews for Jesus - 156 items tagged with life stories created 2012-08-02 16 43 47 Hits 7201 Jews for Jesus

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Eliezer Urbach

At the outbreak of the Second World War, I was seventeen years old. Life was pretty good. And then on September 1, 1939, the Nazis entered our hometown and I ran away with five Polish friends. We went way east, first by train and walking. Then the Nazi armies caught us, caught all the refugees, and told everybody, "Go back home." So I came home after four or five weeks and found that the Nazis had taken over all the Jewish stores.

From sixteen to sixty, all Jewish men were kicked out, told to leave, taken to [the train] and brought to the Russian border. Then they opened the railroad cars and started shooting. So the Jews started running. I had a Jewish friend who brought my brother to me. And we were together until the summer of 1940, when the Russians exiled us to Siberia.

My brother and I tried to escape from Russia into Afghanistan. We were apprehended on the Afghan border. We were given two years of a prison term. My brother died after a year. I survived after 22 months of Soviet and Russian prison.

My uncles invited me to Brazil and I worked in a factory. A younger man who worked in the factory invited me to his church. That first night I watched a movie that moved my heart. I professed to believe that Jesus is my savior. It was May 15, 1955. He dated the Bible he gave me in Portuguese. In my house you will not see crosses, but you will see mezuzot on all doors. Everybody sees that it's a Jewish home. But Jesus is our Messiah.

From Survivor Stories: Finding Hope from an Unlikely Source, DVD, 60 min. (San Francisco: Purple Pomegranate Productions, 2004).

Jews for Jesus - 156 items tagged with life stories created 2012-08-02 16 43 47 Hits 7201 Jews for Jesus

 

[HaShev]

The Temple Scroll:
(IIQT=IIQ19,20, 4Q365a)
Column II (The Covenant)
You must not bring any abominable idol into your house and come under the ban together with it.
You shall detest and abominate it for it is under the ban.
The rest talks about taking care not to make a covenant with the people who whore after their idol gods and sacrifice to it inviting them to do the same.

Metal idols
Leviticus 19:4
"`Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves. I am the LORD your God.
1 Kings 14:9
Isaiah 48:5

Isaiah 44:10
Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?


Literally the worship of images, idolatry in thebroader sense means allegiance to false values that substitute for God.
idols are regarded as evil spirits and Satan (adversary practice); those whoworship them are therefore enemies to God. The idol-gods, beingspiritual beings, have the nature of creatures, rather than of God, andhence cannot profit their adherents--cf. Spiritual Error and the Occult. The Bible views idols as human artifacts, not asrepresentations of deity. Hence idol worship is regarded as a form ofmaterialism, and, conversely, any false reliance on human power orwealth is a form of idolatry. A more spiritual conception of idolatryis to identify it with egoism and human craving, since attachment tothese false realities separates us from our true nature. In ourcentury, the idols of nationalism, racism, and secular ideologies havecaptivated millions, with horrible results.

The prophets (including Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) were spokesmen for God to the people and to their leaders: they often disagreed with the men in power and had no fear of expressing their messages from God -- generally directing against the idolatry and "false gods." Jeremiah warned the people not to use idols such as totem-pole-like "gods"
Idols: it has Imigrated into Men’s minds from the dogma’s of the churches philosophies, also from the wrong path of the Hierarchy that imposes the control. It is in the way they bow to the cross, burn candles, kiss medalions and worship a Prophet as God Himself in place of God. One of the things that G0D forbids is idols, worship using images gods or even of G0D himself (Exodus 20:4 and Leviticus 26:1). Man, as it is written, was created as an image of G0D (Genesis 1:27). And, so, worshipping a man as G0D is idolatry.
After all, G0D himself says that "G0D is not a man" (in Isaiah 2:22, 14:13, I Samuel 15:29, Numbers 23:19, and Hosea 11:9).


In Isiah44;9 It states they that make a graven image are all of them vanity and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses;(christians) they see not; nor know; that they may be ashamed. Still confused well here is some more. Isaiah44;13(notice it is 13) The carpenter(Who is that was Jesus not considered a carpenter) strecheth out his rule(over the world)he marketh it out with a line;he fitteth it with planes and he marketh it out with a compass, and maketh it after the fiqure of a man(JESUS);according to the beauty of a man;that it mat remain in the house(Maybe over your bed?) One more passage Isiah44;17 And the residue thereof he maketh a god(JESUS)Even his graven image(AGAIN JESUS);He falleth down unto it and worshippeth it. and prayeth unto it and saith Deliver me; for this art my god(JESUS).

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

When I was six years old, my world changed. If I had remained in the city of my birth, Buffalo, New York, my neighbors, my friends, my surroundings, my culture, most associations would have been Jewish in the way that my parents' and their parents' associations were Jewish. But when I was six, my family moved South (of Buffalo, anyway) to a town called East Aurora. This was a town where the Jewish population numbered six: my father, my mother, my two sisters, my brother and myself, with my grandfather making seven during the spring and summer months. It was there that I grew up—in a friendly, educated, upper-middle class, but non-Jewish environment. I was a part of this community, yet in a way separate. Being Jewish made me different.

Our town had no synagogue, and my parents weren't particularly religious" Jews, so I wasn't brought up in a traditionally Jewish way. I lived in a world of gentile friends, gentile culture, Santa Claus, Christmas carols and Christmas trees, Easter bunnies and colored egg-filled baskets, and churches to which much of the community went on Sunday.

But I was also influenced by a culture and heritage not shared by my peers. These things were shared by my family…The trips into Buffalo to spend time with relatives and participate in events of Jewish life, such as going to Temple services on holidays, lighting Hannukah candles, going to Bar Mitzvahs and weddings, eating special foods, listening to stories on Jewish life told by my grandfather, and general association with my people.

"I was part of this community, yet in a way seperate. Being Jewish made me different."
The special times affirmed to me that I was different because I was Jewish and that being Jewish meant there were certain things in my day-to-day life which were "not for us." After all, could my parents, my grandfather, and all my relatives have taught me wrong? And the most obvious "not for us" was Jesus. My Jewish world said Jesus was a good teacher and nothing more; my gentile world was fairly quiet on the subject.

But who was this Jesus? "Never mind," I was told. "He's for 'them,' not 'us.' " I accepted this answer and decided that as a Jew, I didn't need Jesus.

Years later in college, into my life came a girl who was different from other gentiles I had known while growing up. This Jesus was important to her and her friends. He made a difference in their lives. She talked a lot about Him—telling me that He was the one of whom the Jewish prophets spoke, the one who was born to die for the iniquities of the people, the one who was resurrected, offering eternal life to those who believe in Him…

She told me about this Jesus, this one who wasn't allowed to be a part of my Jewish world. No, my life had no room for Him. After all, if He was who she said He was, why had my parents, my grandfather, my relatives told me otherwise? Yet I was faced with the words of Jesus, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6.)

"My Jewish world said Jesus was a good teacher and nothing more…"
Could it be true? Could I even consider the possibility that he was the Messiah? I felt guilty for even considering that this might be true. What would they say if they thought I was nibbling at the the forbidden fruit? Would I be betraying my family and heritage if I believed in Jesus? Even so, part of me wanted to know the truth, even if it meant that the truth was Jesus.

So I prayed. I asked God if Jesus were indeed His Son and my Messiah. I told my Father in Heaven that I knew He would want me to believe in Jesus if all that I had read, all that I had been told about Jesus were true. I asked God to reveal the truth to me and help me understand. While the answer God gave me was not a convenient one for me, I knew it was true. And He has helped me to understand. Jesus did fulfill our Jewish scriptures. The guilt I felt for considering a belief that my family and culture dictated was "not for me" was no longer an issue. I found that I wasn't betraying my heritage; I wasn't "going over to the other side" after all. Jesus is for us; He is on our side, and I now believe in the greatest Jew who ever lived! And how can any Jew feel guilty for believing what the Jewish prophets fortold?

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me he who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Micah 5:1.(5:2 in Jewish Scriptures.)

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31.)

________________________

Another testimony of a life transformed to the Glory of God! Meet David Lovi:


My name is David Lovi. I was born in 1980 and I grew up in a mixed home. My father is a non-practicing Jew and my mother was Catholic. We sometimes went to a cousin's house to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, and my mother would take me to a Catholic church for Christmas Eve. I remember as a kid in kindergarten someone asked what religion I was and I said both," thinking there were only two in the world.In high school, I began reading books on Taoism, Buddhism and even Islam, all of which were very confusing and did not satisfy my hunger for something real to grasp on to. All the while I was sinking lower and lower into all kinds of drugs and sex.

When I got to college, I was so entrenched in my sinful lifestyle that I felt as though I was drowning. I wasn't sure if Truth even existed. Then one day in August of 1999, as I was sitting on the floor outside the Harper College library reading a book, a Korean man named Dr. Paul Koh approached me. He said, in a heavy accent, "Excuse me, would you like to come to Bible study?"

I was stunned for a moment, and then much to my surprise I heard myself tell this stranger, "Why not, when are you gonna have it? I might as well keep an open mind." He offered to meet me at the library that very night and I agreed! After he walked away I wondered what I had gotten myself into. So I brought three or four other guys with me! That night, Dr. Koh opened up his Bible to Genesis 1. For the first time in my life I read the verse, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." There was power behind that verse and I wanted to learn more. I started to see how the Bible was different from all the other books I'd been reading!

Dr. Koh was an amazing man of God. He was an endocrinologist who felt impressed by God to reach out to college students in the United States. So he left Korea and began to do just that. He was a highly intelligent person and though our meeting seemed random, it was obvious that he cared about me.

I continued to study every week with Dr. Koh, usually one on one. My eyes were opened and I finally saw that the Bible had the very thing my soul was longing for—Jesus! However, receiving Jesus as my Lord and Savior did not happen instantaneously. It took two years of meticulous study before I surrendered my life to Him—but when I did, I was drastically and forever changed. The old David was dead, and the new David was born again!

I began leading group Bible studies and I developed a burning heart for lost people. I really wanted to do more to reach out and shine the love of Jesus to the world—as Dr. Koh had done with me.

Some years later, I was taking a course on "Religions of the World" and I had to do a project on Judaism. I'd planned to interview a rabbi, but none would talk to me. So I thought, who better to call about Jewish questions than Jews for Jesus! Through a series of phone calls and e-mails I not only got the information for my class but I got hooked up with a missionary from Jews for Jesus named Micha Cohen. Micha invited me to Passover dinner at his home. While we were sitting around the table, I told Micha how the Lord had been prompting me to tell others the gospel. He understood perfectly my desire to share the love and grace that I'd experienced with others. And so we started our Thursday tradition of hitting the streets (Devon Avenue in particular) almost every week to reach out and offer people the life-saving gospel of Jesus.

Devon Avenue is very diverse. West of California Avenue is almost all Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, and east of California is dominated by Muslims and Hindus, kind of like the Middle East today! Micha and I hand out broadside tracts, and try to engage in as many meaningful conversations about God as we can. We usually have at least two or three great conversations about Jesus every time we go out. I leave feeling amazingly uplifted. It's true that while sharing the gospel on the cold street we are often rejected, laughed at, or yelled at, but it is worth it! We are planting seeds and sometimes we even get to watch them grow!

Just the other day, I saw a Hindu businessman named Sri, whom I had met a few weeks ago. I had given him the Jesus movie in his native language and he told me that he has since watched the DVD twice! He was too busy to continue our conversation but he wants to meet and talk about Jesus again.

Obviously street ministry is not the only way to share the gospel. Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:15). "All" means from college campuses, to Devon, to our families and even to foreign nations. We must develop a passion in our hearts for the souls of men. Preaching the good news is more than a request; it is a command! Jesus tells us to GO!

How are we to experience a great move of the Holy Spirit like the disciples did unless we do what they did? They preached the gospel in season and out of season and so should we (2 Timothy 4:2).

I have heard people say, "But I am just not that outgoing," or "I don't have the gift of evangelism." I would bet a dollar to a doughnut, that if these believers had just one glimpse of the eternity that awaits unsaved people, they would very quickly become outgoing evangelists.

I think about what a missionary named C.T. Studd once said, "Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell."

I shudder to think where I would be right now if Dr. Koh had not reached out to me in obedience and shared the love of Jesus with me in that college hall. The love and grace of God compels me to "pass it on" and serve others in the same way. To people who want to get involved but don't know where to begin, I quote Acts 16:9, "During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.'" Micha and I are like that man. Anyone in the Chicago area is welcome to join us in serving the Lord through our evangelistic efforts. If you are not in this area I encourage you to pray and step out in faith on the streets. For those who can't get out on the streets, please pray for us.

Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field"(Matthew 9:37-38).

In conclusion, I pray that many will listen to the call of the Lord and serve in His harvest field. May we all echo Isaiah 6:8 and say to the Lord, "Here am I. Send me!"

26-year-old David Lovi has an Associate Degree from Harper College in Palatine and is working to complete his BA in liberal arts from Indiana University. He works part-time as a handyman (thus shattering the stereotype that Jewish men don't know how to fix things). He hopes, after his graduation, to enroll in seminary where he will pursue an M.Div., with the view of becoming a full-time preacher or pastor.

 

[HaShev]

Christian testimony of conversion:
As my children were attending the Peninsula Temple Sholom preschool, I became very curious about Judaism and how to build a Jewish life for my family. My husband clearly identifies as a Jew, but had not been raised in a strong religious tradition. I had been raised as an Episcopalian. Through the preschool and adult education courses, we started to feel a part of the community, and believed that making a commitment to raise our children in the Jewish tradition would enrich all of our lives.

I approached Rabbi Dan Feder about studying with him. He was very warm and welcoming. We had numerous (almost monthly) meetings over the course of a couple years. (Generally the process takes about a year, but I had extended it.) Rabbi Dan would suggest that I read one or two books a month and do a brief write-up, which helped to focus my thoughts. He carefully and thoughtfully addressed all of my questions. I was also able to take a few adult education courses with Rabbi Dan. He teaches with humor and an engaging style. As a prior religion major, I particularly loved the readings and delving into discussions with Rabbi Dan. His guidance has helped to shape my Jewish identity and frame the questions that I have as I continue this journey.

A fundamental part of my family’s Jewish experience has involved creating roots in the Jewish community. Both Rabbi Dan and Rabbi Rebekah Stern have been helpful in our quest to create community at Peninsula Temple Sholom. We have developed sustaining friendships and community through the activities at the preschool, events at the religious school, and through classes and services. I am very grateful to Rabbi Dan for his patience and guidance during the past few years of my studies.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

I was born in 1932 in Belarus. My parents were religious; they knew God. My father was a rabbi and was sent to prison for five years for conducting circumcision rituals. My father always took me to the synagogue, but I did not understand anything there. I only understood Yiddish. My father always prayed before meals, "Baruch Atah Adonai Elohenu," then he dipped bread into salt and then we could eat.

Tell me about yourself as a child.
I was born in 1932 in Belarus. My parents were religious; they knew God. My father was a rabbi and was sent to prison for five years for conducting circumcision rituals. My father always took me to the synagogue, but I did not understand anything there. I only understood Yiddish. My father always prayed before meals, "Baruch Atah Adonai Elohenu," then he dipped bread into salt and then we could eat.

I asked my father, "Where is God? Who is that God?" And father always answered, "He is in heaven." And I would ask, "Why is he there?" And father would joke, "He was thrown up that high." I was very curious to find out how he happened to get to heaven! When my mother left me home alone when I was little, she would tie my hand to my bed and say, 'God bless you and save you!'

World War II found us in the town of Romny (Sumy region.) I remember the awful hum of bombers and the explosions of bombs. People ran into the field —Russians, Jews. Some Russians crossed themselves. I was nine. I asked my mom, "What are they doing? Will their God save them?" "Yes," my mother said.

​

When did you realize that God is real?
We were very poor. I never had a doll. Once, when we were in the ghetto and had to wear yellow stars, I thought, "If there is a God, let my friend Julia give me a doll. And if there is no God, I will know it because nobody will give me a doll." When I next saw Julia, she asked me, "Zina, would you like to have a doll?" "Where would I get a doll?" I wondered aloud. And she said, "Oh, I can give you mine!" That's when I got the notion that God really does exist!

When the Nazis took all of us Jews of Romny to be shot, we saw no way out. Someone lost their mind on the way there, someone got beat up by soldiers; it is difficult to remember it all. We were guarded by the Nazis with dogs. Ahead of us was a fence around an electricity plant. And I prayed, "God, if you exist, save me from death! I will believe in you all my life!" Suddenly, my thirteen-year-old sister, Sarah, grabbed my hand and we ran to the fence. She then hit the fence with her foot and miraculously knocked two boards out at once. Then we dove into the bushes and crawled. Our hands were torn and bloody, but we could not cry—if we were heard, we'd be shot.

Who helped you and your sister hide?
After December 25, when the Nazis were roaming everywhere, we had to wander around villages and beg. The frost was biting; the temperature was 40° below zero! Sometimes we were allowed to sleep in a house, sometimes in a barn, sometimes we just found an empty structure. My sister finally brought me to a house and said we need to save ourselves separately. So we separated. I lay in the snow and cried, being very tired. An old man found me and brought me home. His wife was not very happy, "Oh, but she is a ****," she said. But the man insisted, "We have three sons at the front. God will save them all for this child's sake!"

From whom did you first hear about Jesus?
I was changing houses constantly. I stayed with believers and nonbelievers, with the Russian Orthodox and with Baptists. In 1942, I stayed with a family of Baptist believers and they told me about God.

Did people ever betray you to the Nazis?
Just once. The Germans announced, "Whoever will bring us a Jew will get a free coat." And getting clothes was dear at the time. So one woman grabbed me, saying "I'm going to get a coat for you!" She dragged me straight to the German commandant. But instead of giving her a coat, the commandant called her a dirty pig. Then he looked at me, saying, "Kinder (child)… kinder." As soon as he turned away for a moment, I jumped out of an open window and ran away. The Lord saved me!

Some time in 1943 the Nazis caught me and I was taken to be shot. I was carrying a piece of bread in my hands, so as I raised my hands up, there was bread in one hand. And the Germans thought it was a grenade and fell down. While they were thinking what to do, I ran away. The Lord saved me again! The Lord saved me from bombs, from shootings, from starvation—from everything!

Howdidyoucometobelieve that Jesus is the Messiah? How did you reconcile with God?
After the war I settled in Kharkov. There I had the same dream twice: the land is burning under my feet, a car is moving and people are thrown into it. I cried, "Lord, forgive me, I am not ready!" Then an old woman approached me and said, "The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" After I had this dream for the second time, I felt no rest. The words "The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" kept ringing in my ears. At that time I had not read the Bible and knew nothing from its text. Then unexpectedly my landlady began to urge me to start looking for believers in Jesus.

So I found believers and shared my dreams with them. They accepted me and exclaimed, "Child, it is God calling you!" One of them opened the Bible and read Mark 1:15—exactly the words I heard in my dreams! So I joined these believers, and I sincerely received Jesus as my Lord and asked him into my heart. It was in 1952, when I was twenty years old. I have been serving the Lord ever since.

A photo of Zinaida
after repentance
When you read the Gospels, listened to sermons about Jesus, did you ever feel hindered by the fact that you were Jewish?
It never hindered me! But I faced other obstacles. I refused to join Komsomol (the Communist Union of Youth). For that, I was almost kicked out of the dormitory I was living in. But God enabled me to stand firm in my faith. One of my supervisors at work was Kovalzon, a Jewish man. He was ordered to influence me so that I would leave the faith. So I explained to him: if the Lord saved me, why should I deny him? Kovalzon caused me a lot of trouble, but later he asked me for a Bible, in strict secret. "I want to see what your truth really means," he told me. "Can I have a Bible for a few days? I swear as a Communist that I will give it back!" I gave him a Bible and then fasted and prayed for him for three days.

How did you read the Bible? Did you understand it, since it is a Jewish book?
Somebody once told me that a house is painted from the top, so it is better to read the Bible from the "top," that is, from the Gospels. Then I read the whole Bible. I did have a lot of questions. For example, I used to ask why Solomon had 700 wives. Wasn't it a sin?!

HowdidGod continue to sustain you?

Zinaida with her husband
God blessed me, and I married a believer eight years after I gave my life to Jesus. There was a very difficult time in our lives when we had nothing to eat. I could only rely on God. When my children asked for food, I told them to kneel and to pray that God would send what we ask for. One time as we were praying for food, another believer dropped by with some food. She said, "I kept hearing this whisper: 'go to Zina, go to Zina!'" Oh, how we thanked the Lord then!

I could feel all my life how God has kept me safe and helped me. I have no doubt that Jesus is the Son of God and that a believer in Jesus has eternal life. Jesus said, "Come to me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest; learn from me, for I am humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:28-29)

TheNazis killed your family members,whileyousurvivedandcametobelieveinJesus. How would you encourage thoseJewishpeoplewhoalsolosttheirrelativesin the Holocaust and because of this are angry with God or do not even want to think about him?
I would encourage them to fully turn to the Lord. Many Jews—not just me—found the Messiah Jesus during and after those terrible times.

Did any of your Jewish friends come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah as well?
My friend Toibeh Weizmann returned from evacuation as a believer as well! And in 1977, I found my sister Sarah through a radio program that helped find lost relatives. She had also survived and come to trust in Jesus as her Savior!

Sarah praying before being baptized in water Zinaida's friend Toibeh
ManyJewishpeoplehave come to know the Lord and follow him with joy. But there are those who receive Jesus and later get afraid. They seem to keep believing, but secretly. What would you say to them?
Jesus (Y'shua), Messiah, Son of God is of our people! We should believe in him and love him. God will certainly accept the Jews who will return to him through Jesus! God is going to the Jewish people now as to his firstborn son. And people should love the Jews—it is a big sin and trouble for those who despise the Jews. Such people will be punished, just as it is written in the Bible, "Those who touch you touch the apple of his eye" (Zechariah 2:8).

How does your church treat the Jewish people?
Wherever I go, our churches have great love for the Jewish people. I remember only one woman throughout my years in church who spoke against the Jews, but she was excommunicated. And everywhere I went, I felt love towards me as a Jewish person.

One Easter something interesting happened. We got together to eat with other believers but when I came closer to the table, my heart missed a beat and my face must have shown it: there was lard on the table! And I have never eaten lard in my life, not then, not now. My fellow believers saw my reaction and immediately said, "Oh, Zinaida, come over here! You have something in your headscarf, let us fix it." After they "fixed" my scarf and I returned to the table, I could see fish instead of lard there! On that day, all the believers refused to eat lard because of me, the only Jewish person among them!

What about your children—have they come to believe in Jesus?

Zinaida's son, Victor, with a
Jews for Jesus banner
My son is a believer. One of my daughters is also a believer, another is not. I'm still praying for her. My granddaughter is also a believer. My son and my granddaughter are volunteers with Jews for Jesus.

What is the main thing that the Lord has taught you in your life?
He has taught me faith! A living faith in God. He revealed himself to me and I realized he is there. I told myself, "I have nothing in this life. But God, my Father, he is rich. He will bless me!" And he has never left me; he has been leading us up to this moment.

Only faith can save a person, nothing else. We come to God only through our faith in Jesus the Messiah.

Zinaida Abramovna A Daughter of Abraham - Jews for Jesus

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

A Chronological Look at How Jesus Spent his Last Week Leading up to Passover

Saturday and Sunday
Jesus drew near to Jerusalem,1 arriving at Bethany six days before Passover,2 on Saturday. Jesus was anointed at Simon the leper's house.3 On Sunday, a great crowd came to Bethany to see Jesus.4

Monday
The next day5 Jesus entered Jerusalem,6 visited the temple7 and returned to Bethany. It was Nisan 10, when the Passover lambs were selected. Likewise, the entry into Jerusalem was the day when Jesus presented himself as Israel's Paschal Lamb.

Tuesday
On the way from Bethany to Jerusalem, Jesus cursed the fig tree,8 and in Jerusalem he challenged the temple practice of selling on the premises.9 Some religious leaders began to plot ways to kill him. That evening Jesus left Jerusalem, presumably returning to Bethany.10

Wednesday
On the way to Jerusalem, the disciples saw the withered fig tree.11 At the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus' authority and wisdom was questioned by some religious leaders.12 That afternoon Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and delivered his discourse to those assembled.13 Two additional things occurred on that day: (1) Jesus predicted that in two days he would be crucified at the time of the Passover;14 and (2) Judas planned the betrayal of Jesus with some religious leaders.15

Thursday
Jesus and his disciples prepared the Passover lamb,16 and they had their seder meal together.17 Jesus shared heartfelt words with his disciples and offered an intercessory prayer in their behalf.18 They arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus suffered in agony awaiting what was to come.19 Later that night Jesus was betrayed and arrested.20 He was tried first by Annas and later by Caiaphas and other religious leaders.21

Friday
Early in the morning, Jesus was tried by the Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod Antipas, and Pilate again.22 He was led to the cross and crucified at 9 a.m. and died at 3 p.m. and was buried later that day.23 Jesus died at the time when the Passover lambs were being sacrificed.

Saturday
Jesus' body was in the tomb during the Sabbath, and the Pharisees hired Roman guards to keep watch of the tomb.24

Sunday
Christ was resurrected from the dead.25 His was the first of many resurrections to come, in which it was a type of first fruits offering. (First fruit offerings were made on the day after the Sabbath.)26

END NOTES

1. John 11:55
2. John 12:1
3. Matthew 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9; John 12:1–8
4. John 12:9–11
5. John 12:12
6. Matthew 21:1–9; Mark 11:1–10; Luke 19:28–40; John 12:12–19
7. Matthew 21:10–11; Mark 11:11
8. Matthew 21:18–19; Mark 11:12–14
9. Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46
10. Mark 11:18–19; Luke 19:47–48
11. Matthew 21:20–22; Mark 11:20–26
12. Matthew 21:23–23:39; Mark 11:27–12:44; Luke 20:1–21:4
13. Matthew 24:1–25:46; Mark 13:1–27; Luke 21:5–36
14. Matthew 26:1–5; Mark 14:1–2; Luke 22:1–2
15. Matthew 26:14–16; Mark 14:10–11; Luke 22:3–6
16. Matthew 26:17–19; Mark 14:12–16; Luke 22:7–13
17. Matthew 26:20–30; Mark 14:17–26; Luke 22:14–30
18. Matthew 26:30–35; Mark 14:26–31; Luke 22:31–39; John 15:1–18:1
19. Matthew 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42; Luke 22:39–46; John 18:1
20. Matthew 26:46–56; Mark 14:43–52; Luke 22:47–53; John 18:2–12
21. Matthew 26:57–75; Mark 14:53–72; Luke 22:54–65; John 18:13–27
22. Matthew 27:1–30; Mark 15:1–19; Luke 22:66–23:25; John 18:28–19:16
23. Matthew 27:31–60; Mark 15:20–46; Luke 23:26–54; John 19:16–42
24. Matthew 27:61–66; Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55–56
25. Matthew 28:1–15; Mark 16:1–13; Luke 24:1–35
26. Leviticus 23:9–14; 1 Corinthians 15:23

Adapted from Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ by Harold W. Hoehner. Copyright 1977 by The Zondervan Corporation; 1973, 1974 by Dallas Theological Seminary. Used by permission of The Zondervan Corporation.

A Chronological Look at How Jesus Spent his Last Week Leading up to Passover - Jews for Jesus

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

 

[HaShev]

By Christopher Orev, a Conservative male

I gave serious consideration to becoming Jewish on the very day that I learned such a personal, psychological passage was possible. At the time, I attributed my desire to be Jewish to three factors: a terrific, loving relationship with a Jewish woman; a philo-Semitic that developed in childhood; and, more mystically, a Jewish neshamah, inherited from my Jewish great-grandfather (via the gilgul neshamot). But do 1/8 Jewish genetic makeup (whatever that really means!), a general affection for Jewry, and a profound love for a wonderful Jewish woman warrant conversion? As I see it, neither the genetic factor nor my philo-Semitism warrant such a profound identity transformation and I generally take issue with pro forma conversions motivated only by the desire to elude the intermarriage boogeyman. In combination, however, the three motivations may be deemed legitimate impetus, but my decision to convert was above all impelled by the sense that I was already Jewish, that giyur would be a homecoming. Nonetheless, even after I made up my mind to convert in late 2008, it wasn't until I began to adopt Jewish practices that I realized how very "right" the identity felt. Intellectually and emotionally, Jewish thought and life strengthen and sustained me, both before and after my official conversion, in 2011. This sense of identity, irrational though it may be, is shaped by forces outside of my purview. The mystic in me is perfectly content to call that G-d's will even as the rationalist winks away the metaphor.

I am an artist and a writer, but I also work in the sciences; on the whole, neither the arts nor the sciences are particularly accommodating of faith practice, and many of my Jewish friends are deeply skeptical of anything "spiritual" and especially anything "religious." Typically, these friends find my more practical or 'rational' reason for converting (i.e., marrying a Jewish woman) to be the more acceptable. By contrast, Jewish professionals and many of the older Jews I know, through shul, family, and other connections, are more inspired by my 'irrational' reasons; me, too.

Over time, my enthusiasm for Judaism and Jewish practice has rubbed off on some of those close to me. My wife, for example, has remarked that my Jewish identity and knowledge base has allowed her to reconnect with Judaism and to reexamine her Jewish identity; she now feels more Jewishly connected, she says, than she did when we met. Likewise, some of my Jewish friends who were initially skeptical or disinterested in Judaism (and who found my conversion bemusing) are now more open to participating in Shabbat dinners or even joining me at shul. As you observed, too many Jewish kids cross the bar or bat mitzvah finish line and flee the field/tribe. Sometimes, a sincere and dedicated ger can introduce them to an adult engagement with Judaism, one they might even be attracted to.

I do see converts who have a lackadaisical approach to their Jewish identity; typically, these converts converted for marriage. I used to resent them, feeling that their sense of Jewish identity was literally nominal, a piece of paper they stored in a fireproof safe and nothing more. In a time when being an interfaith couple is quite possible in the Jewish community, it doesn't make sense to me to convert solely as the result of familial pressure. I feel strongly that one should convert because they are compelled to through and through. Yet I no longer resent the lackadaisical gerim. Sure, they frustrate me at times, but rather than criticize them, I see them as just another disconnected Jew; that is, a Jew who might one day find value in wrestling with the complexities of Jewish identity.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

 

[HaShev]

By Chaya, a Reform female
This is the story she wrote to her rabbi, the essay required to show why she wanted to convert to Judaism.

In the midst of my Jewish studies, my friend Pam asked me a serious question. She said, "All of a sudden, you're religious. I've never seen you religious before. I think we're usually honest with each other about what's happening in our lives. But I don't understand this. What brought this on?" I smiled, and internally told myself she wouldn't understand. I didn't answer.

Three months later, she again posed the same question. The answer lay in emotions I had trouble expressing. I wasn't ready then, the first or second time she asked. But I'm ready now. This is my answer.

I have to go back a few years and relate what has happened to me chronologically. My answer isn't a simple one, but blocks building upon each other.

I have to start with work. My job was as a federal law enforcement officer for the past three decades. I was very happy in my work for the longest time. I approached it with such a ferocity, a fire that usually burned itself out as I approached home every night, exhausted, but stoked the next morning as I went back to the work site. I worked 60- to 80-hour workweeks, standing on my feet for many of those hours, facing angry and sometimes dangerous people, trying to complete a mission that I truly believed in. I knew that I was contributing positively to the world; putting drug smugglers away was a good thing even if doing it was becoming painful.

The last 21 years of my career I was a first-line supervisor. Not only did I face angry people as I interrupted their lives trying to find the bad ones among them, but I dealt with employees on a minute-to-minute basis. Employees who often did not want to be there. Employees who were sometimes ill-suited for their jobs. I also had a nice share of devoted and superbly competent employees who had the same fire I did, a desire to the job and do it right.


Each of these employees, good and bad, took a piece of me from myself. The physical nature of the job, the two-hour commute in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, and the politics within a government job, left me with flat feet, a bad back, daily headaches and raw emotions. And those were the good days.

The bad days started in 2002, when I began having severe stomach cramps. I continued to work during those days, as I didn't want to leave my chief, who is still a dear friend, without help, and because it seemed that I would rather be miserable at work achieving something than miserable at home doing nothing and feeling guilty for missing work.

After several months of extreme pain, taking pain pills and breaking up meals into about 10 a day so that my stomach could cope, my doctor figured out what was going on and sent me for the right tests. The biopsy during the colonoscopy she ordered came back positive. I had colon cancer. Type 2B cancer, where the tumor exceeded the colon wall. They operated on me within two weeks. My best friend stopped her studies in Israel and flew out to California for two days to see me as I came out of the operation, not sure I'd live through it. I did. In fact, I recovered quickly enough that I could visit her in November that year and spend Thanksgiving with her fellow HUC students in Jerusalem.

I was convinced at that point that, while work may not have caused the cancer, the toll it had taken had surely exacerbated my condition. The stress was eating me alive. I became eligible for retirement a year later, and, stumbling through a labored 12 months to get to that goal (thanks to my friend, the Chief), I finally reached it and put away the badge and gun for good.

As I walked away from the job, I was both sad and exhilarated. I was cancer-free (at least for now), sure that I had escaped the bullet, however short-lived that may be.

But all of a sudden I had no plan. No way to fill an empty life. My work had acted as my work life, my social life, almost my religion -- it was certainly something I believed in and had no problem giving my all to it. Now what did I have?

I took a full year to decompress and look around to see what I might do. I might write a book. I might do some volunteer work. All of a sudden I looked around and realized it had been three years since I retired, and I still had this big hole in my life.

I suddenly fell in love again. When you're faced with death and you don't know how many years you've got left, it's easier to find your courage and express your feelings. Around the same time I started to note that several of my friends were Jewish. Susan, who has almost discovered a new way of loving Judaism in recent years. Dawn, who has such enthusiasm for All Things Jewish that she speaks in exclamation points! And others. I was able to find inspiration in them and their stories. I started to learn.


What I discovered in the last year of studying with the rabbi and taking classes is that Judaism is the complete world. It sounds trite to say that, perhaps, but it's true. I have found that I love learning: the history of the Jewish people, how Torah fills our lives, songs that sound so familiar when I first hear them and which won't go away in my mind when I'm trying to sleep. The Jewish world is all about doing rather than just thinking about it, a brilliant idea, which fits in with how I want to live my life

I find that I'm always looking to see what my synagogue is up to these days. What are the services this week? Shall I go to Torah study, Shabbat services, learn how to build a sukkah or create a Passover dinner. It's learning and being and doing.

But even more than all of that, it's about using the years I have left for good, in a good structure full of good people. Using these repressed emotions I never wanted to feel by giving them a creative outlet.

So, you see, Pam, I wanted to do good things, learn interesting things with people who share my value system. In a structure of year-long events that I can follow and share with my new friends. And I want to cry shamelessly when I hear those wonderful songs, happy that I'm in this community and happy that I'm still alive to experience[BOLD] *this wholeness.**[/BOLD]

Hineni. It's a word I learned this Yom Kippur from my rabbis, my second high holy days but the first I really understood. A word that instantly brought tears streaming down my face as I recognized myself in the sound of the word. Here I am. Send me. I'm ready.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

I wasn't looking for Jesus or God or anything ontological. I kept my nose to the grindstone. My goal in life was nothing big: I wanted to earn a good living and be able to afford a middle-class lifestyle. But even if I wasn't looking for Jesus, He was looking for me.

My Jewishness is something that I took for granted. I grew up in Denver, Colorado in a neighborhood where most of the people were Jewish. If you walked into the grocery store or the shoemaker, or the barber, you expected to hear Yiddish.

In Denver, most people who followed the Jewish religion had few choices: most of us were Orthodox. There was one Conservative Congregation, and one Reformed Temple, but these were for upper-class people. So Orthodoxy was the way that most of us went, even though we didn't particularly follow doctrines. We didn't particularly work at being observant.

I was a Depression baby, and not much in Denver changed during my childhood. Most of the boys and girls that I went to grammar school with were the same ones I knew in high school. There was little upward mobility, as we went from the Depression Era to the World War Two Era.

During those years, it was a rare thing for any Jewish family to move to Denver, or to move from Denver. The neighborhood was unchanged, so when Celia Starr moved into my block, and she'd come from Boston, there was a lot of curiosity about this immigrant." That was what we called people who came from other cities.

Everybody loved to hear her talk because of her accent. Boys would tease her and say, "Tell us that we should park the car." And in the beginning, being innocent, she would say, "Pahk the cah." We would giggle among ourselves, because that's not the way that real people talked. After a while, she wouldn't talk to any of us. Though she was the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, she got the reputation of being stuck up, when she was only shy.

None of the guys stood a chance of making an impression with her. I worked out a strategy: I made friends with her mother, and sure enough, I got to talk to Ceil. I didn't make fun of her accent, and she didn't remind me of my reputation of being a rough neck. We were sweethearts in high school.

She had a better knowledge of the Jewish religion than me. Her parents were "frum," or strictly observant. When it came time for us to be married, we were married in an Orthodox synagogue. But by then, I was an agnostic and she was a self-proclaimed atheist. God didn't have a place in our lives. Prayer meant talking to yourself, and miracles were like magic fairy tales.

But it didn't stay that way long. When Ceil was pregnant with our first child, she began to wonder about God. She realized that much of her "atheism" had been a reaction to her upbringing. She knew there had to be more out there. She had been impressed by singing Christmas carols in high school, particularly "Oh Come, Oh Come Immanuel and ransom captive Israel." What did Jesus have to do with Israel? Why did Israel need to be ransomed?

And as she puzzled, she fell back into a habit of her childhood: she prayed. She had stopped praying when she was five years old: her Mickey Mouse balloon popped, and she prayed and prayed that God would fix it, but the balloon was still popped. So now, except for the formal prayers said in the synagogue, she didn't ask God for anything.

But now she was asking that God would show Himself to her. No one has ever earnestly prayed that prayer that the Almighty has failed to answer. She had a sudden urge to read the New Testament, a book scorned by Jews as being goyisch, and not for our people. So, quietly, she began to read and discovered that the New Testament was also a Jewish book involving Jewish people, but most of all about the Jewish Messiah. But she couldn't put it all together, so she prayed again that God would help her. And help was on the way in the form of a missionary from the American Board of Missions to the Jews.

Now, I had heard the Gospel earlier. I was just seventeen years old, and someone on a street corner started talking to me. His name was Orville Freestone. He got into the Gospel (this was 1947) and told me to look for Israel to become a state. I was fascinated with what he said. We both took the same bus; we were going the same direction, but we both got off at Federal Boulevard, except he was supposed to go south, and I was supposed to go north. But I became so fascinated with what he was saying, I walked and stood on his front porch for a while, and took it all in. He went in the house and got a New Testament, and asked me to read it.

Well, as I walked home, I started thinking: "What he says makes sense. So that means that I must be one dumbJew, because Jesus couldn't possibly be the Messiah. And I'm not going to read this book, because if I read it, I might believe it. And I don't trust my own judgment. No, I'm not going to have anything to do with this. If the rabbis ever get together and decide that Jesus is the Messiah, maybe I'll go along with them."

But here, four years later, my wife was groping to know how to follow Christ. The Lord answered her prayer. Then I found out how hostile and angry I could be. But, in her new-found faith, she had the patience to endure my anger and hostility.

Up until that time, I thought there was a good case that could be made against believing in Jesus, and that the rabbis had good reason. So I visited the rabbi that had married us, and asked him for the intellectual ammunition that would convince her. He sat down and made explanations to me that seemed no more than a quibbling about the possible variant meanings of Hebrew words. I looked at him and said, "Rabbi Bryks, these things will not convince her, and frankly, they don't even convince me. There's got to be better reasons."

Then he thought for a moment, and smiled. He said, "Well, think on this. It takes two to tango." I replied, "Huh?" Then he explained that when it came to the virgin birth, it was just not a possibility, that there would have had to have been a human father.

What he didn't know was that in that one notion, he completely undermined the case not only for Christianity, but for Judaism and any other kind of theism. If God can't perform miracles, and the basic documents say that He did perform miracles, then the documents must be wrong.

I was cut adrift. But I started reading atheist writers, and I tried those arguments on my wife. Nothing could shake her in her faith, and I couldn't argue with her changed life. I wish I could say that there was some big convincing argument that persuaded me. It didn't' happen that way. It's just that the more I fought against the Gospel, there was something in me that knew that it was true.

One Saturday night, I sat down to read one of the many pamphlets that my wife left around the house. If they were serious, I would throw those pamphlets away. If it was something that I could ridicule, then I read it, and I read it out loud with a "ha, ha" tone of voice so that Ceil would know that I was making fun of it.

This particular pamphlet was titled, "What Is Heaven Like?" As I began to read the hyper-literalist interpretation of Heaven, I didn't read it out loud, I got part way-and in my heart, I said, "Heaven's not like this at all...oops!" The oops was because I didn't believe up until that time that such a thing as Heaven existed, and now, within myself, I had some idea of what it must be like.

So I did some unpacking of my thinking, and discovered that faith was there. I really did believe in Heaven, believed in the Bible, believed in Christ, and was ready to say so.

When I first heard the Gospel, I didn't want to know that it was true, because it would have meant that my family would disown me; my friends would desert me, that if I let myself believe in Jesus, I would be an outcast. What I didn't realize was that I had no choice in the matter, because if I said that Jesus wasn't the promised Messiah or the Bible wasn't true, I would know that I was a liar.

Since that time, God has answered prayer in my life over and over again, and has reassured me of His presence in my life and the lives of others in this world. But then, that's another story.

Moishe Rosen s Testimony - Jews for Jesus