She had started attending the Messianic congregation quietly, sitting in the back where no one would recognize her.

She had heard me teach there a few times.

She had listened to my story, our story, from my perspective.

and she had started praying, not the wrote prayers of the liturgy, but real prayers, asking God if Yeshua was really who he claimed to be.

She paused and looked at me with tears in her eyes.

She said, “I think you were right.

I think he is the Messiah”.

I sat there stunned.

I had prayed for this.

I I had begged God for this, but I had stopped believing it would actually happen.

The next few months were complicated.

Rachel couldn’t just announce her belief in Yeshua to the Orthodox community.

She would face the same ostracism I had faced.

We had to move slowly.

But she started coming to services at the Messianic congregation openly.

She started studying with the women there.

And gradually, carefully, we started rebuilding our relationship.

Not as husband and wife.

That ship had sailed and we both knew it.

But as friends, as co-parents, as two people who had walked through fire and come out believing the same truth.

The children’s reaction was mixed.

Sarah, now 19 and in college, was furious with both of us.

She accused us of brainwashing each other, of abandoning our heritage.

She stopped taking my calls.

But Benjamin, I now 16, started asking questions.

He came with me to the Messianic congregation once, then twice, then regularly.

He started reading the prophecies for himself.

And one day, sitting in my small apartment, he told me that he believed too, that he wanted to follow Yeshua.

I wept.

I held my son and I wept.

Miriam, the youngest, was still too young to fully understand, but she saw that her mother and I were talking again, that the family wasn’t completely destroyed, that maybe there was hope.

I started getting invitations to speak at churches, small churches at first, then larger ones.

They wanted to hear from a former rabbi.

They wanted to understand the Jewish roots of Christianity.

They wanted to know how to share the gospel with Jewish people.

I traveled and spoke and told my story over and over.

And each time I told it, I I met people who were impacted by it.

Jews who were searching and found courage in my journey.

Christians who gained a deeper appreciation for the Jewish foundation of their faith.

Pastors who learned how to minister to Jewish people with sensitivity and respect.

I wrote a book.

It was called Finding Messiah, a rabbi’s journey from Moses to Yeshua.

It detailed my discovery of the prophecies, my struggle with the implications, my decision to follow truth at any cost.

The book got published by a Christian publishing house and gained some traction.

Not enough to make me rich, but enough to make a difference.

enough that I started hearing from people all over the world, Jews in Israel, Russia, Argentina, South Africa, who were on their own journeys and found my story encouraging.

Some Orthodox rabbis reached out to me privately.

They wouldn’t do it publicly.

They couldn’t risk their positions, but they had questions.

They had been reading Isaiah 53 and couldn’t shake the feeling that the traditional interpretation didn’t quite fit.

They had been studying Daniel 9, and the timeline bothered them.

I answered their questions as best I could.

Some disappeared back into their lives, and I never heard from them again.

But a few kept studying.

A few eventually came to the same conclusion I had.

A few lost everything just like I did and found everything they had been looking for in Yeshua.

5 years after leaving my synagogue, I started a ministry specifically to help Jewish people discover their Messiah.

We created resources, books, videos, websites explaining the messianic prophecies.

So, we trained Christians on how to share the gospel with Jewish people without being offensive or dismissive of Jewish culture.

We connected Jewish believers with Messianic congregations in their areas so they wouldn’t have to walk this road alone.

The ministry grew slowly but steadily.

We started getting letters from people who had come to faith in Yeshua because of our resources.

former atheist Jews, former Orthodox Jews, former rabbis.

Each story unique, but with the same basic thread.

They had discovered that Yeshua was the one their ancestors had been waiting for.

My relationship with my children continued to heal, though not without pain.

Sarah eventually softened, though she never believed.

She married a secular Jew and moved to California.

We talk occasionally.

It’s not what I would want, but it’s better than nothing.

And Benjamin went to a Bible college and is now working in ministry himself, helping other Jews discover Yeshua.

Watching him teach, seeing his passion for both Torah and for Jesus, fills me with pride and gratitude.

Miriam, now an adult, is still exploring.

She attends both a Messianic congregation and occasionally a traditional synagogue.

She’s caught between two worlds, but she knows her father loves her, and she knows Yeshua loves her, and I trust God to complete what he started in her.

Rachel never remarried.

Neither did I.

We both dedicated our lives to serving Yeshua in different ways.

She works with Jewish women who have lost family and community because of their faith.

I work with former rabbis and Jewish leaders navigating the same journey I walked.

We’re friends.

Sometimes we minister together.

It’s not the marriage we had, but it’s a partnership built on truth rather than tradition.

And there’s something beautiful about that.

I’m older now.

The hair I have left is gray.

My health isn’t what it used to be, but I’ve never been more fulfilled, more at peace, more certain that I’m doing exactly what God created me to do.

Do I regret what I lost?

Yes, of course.

I miss my father every day.

I miss the relationship I could have had with my sisters and brother.

I miss watching my nieces and nephews grow up.

I miss Sarah.

But would I do it again?

Would I make the same choice knowing everything I know now about what it would cost?

Without hesitation a thousand times, yes.

because I found something that was worth more than all of it.

I found truth.

I found the Messiah.

I found the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the person of Yeshua.

I found forgiveness and peace and purpose and life.

I found everything I had been searching for my whole life without even knowing I was searching.

There’s a verse in the New Testament in the letter to the Philippians where Paul himself a former rabbi a Pharisee of Pharisees talks about his journey to faith in Yeshua.

He lists all his credentials, all his accomplishments, everything he had going for him in Judaism.

And then he says, “But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.

I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ.

That’s my story, too.

I lost all things, position, reputation, family, community, financial security, everything.

But I gained Christ.

I I gained Yeshua, and he is worth more than all of it combined.

So, if you’re reading this and you’re Jewish and you’re searching, let me tell you, don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions.

Don’t be afraid to read the prophecies for yourself.

Don’t be afraid to pick up the New Testament and see if what it says is true.

Yes, it might cost you everything.

It cost me everything, but what you gain is infinitely greater than what you lose.

Yeshua is not asking you to stop being Jewish.

He’s asking you to become complete.

He’s asking you to find what Moses and David and Isaiah were all pointing toward.

He’s asking you to recognize that the Messiah your people have been waiting for isn’t coming.

He came and he’s coming back.

And if you’re reading this and you’re a Christian, let me tell you.

Your faith is more Jewish than you probably realize.

Yeshua was Jewish.

His disciples were Jewish.

The early church was Jewish.

The Bible was written almost entirely by Jews.

Your Messiah is the Jewish Messiah.

Love the Jewish people.

Pray for them.

Support them.

And when you share the gospel with them, do it with sensitivity and respect.

Remember that for many of them, accepting Yeshua means losing everything.

It means being cut off from family, from community, from everything they’ve ever known.

Don’t take that lightly.

Don’t be glib about it.

But also don’t give up because there are Jewish people out there right now who are searching, who are reading Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and Daniel 9 and wondering, who are feeling that same emptiness I felt, that sense that something is missing.

And they need to know that what’s missing is Yeshua, their Messiah, their savior of their king.

One day, and I believe this with all my heart, one day all Israel will recognize him.

The blindness will be lifted.

The veil will be removed, and we will mourn for the one we pierced, and we will rejoice in the one who saved us.

Until that day, I will keep telling my story.

I will keep teaching about the prophecies.

I will keep pointing both Jews and Gentiles to the truth that set me free.

My name is Michael.

I was a rabbi for 23 years.

I spent 47 years of my life devoted to Judaism, to Torah, to the traditions of my fathers.

And then I found the Messiah.

His name is Yeshua, Jesus of Nazareth.

He is the son of God, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, the king who will reign forever.

He is alive.

He is real.

and he is waiting for you with open arms.

Whether you’re Jewish or Gentile, a religious or secular, sure of your faith or full of doubts, he’s waiting for you.

Come to him.

Ask him if he’s real.

Read the prophecies.

Read the Gospels.

Don’t take my word for it or anyone else’s word for it.

Search the scriptures for yourself.

And if you do with an honest heart, I believe you’ll find the same thing I found.

The truth.

And the truth will set you free.

This is my testimony.

This is my story.

And I share it with you in the hope that it will bring you closer to the one true God who loved us enough to become one of us, to die for us, and to rise again so that we might live.

May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who revealed himself in Yeshua, the Messiah, bless you and keep you.

May he make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May he turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Amen.

 

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