Absolutely not. Do not look into this. Are you crazy? I got the message loud and clear. This Yeshua was not for us. I grew up in a family that was I would say like “conserv-odox”. My mom grew up Orthodox, my dad grew up reformed and they kind of switched places. My dad became more Orthodox and my mom became less. We kept kosher, we did you know, place for milk, place for meat. It was always there, always present. We’re Jewish and I was very happy to be Jewish and I never wanted to be anything else. I used to go to Shul and we’d sit there and we would pray along with everybody and I’d keep up with English because I didn’t always understand the Hebrew. And a lot of the time, I could feel God’s presence there. I just felt like God is here but then I would go and I would pray and I wouldn’t hear back.
You know I liked synagogue. I loved the liturgy. I loved the tradition. I liked even keeping Shabbat, which you know isn’t always popular but I liked it. But there’s a certain emptiness that was there. It’s like you know there wasn’t power. We always talked about God theoretically but not personally. And I was so hungry for that because that’s what you see in the Tanakh. There came a point after my Bat Mitzvah where it was just so clear that I kept praying all the prayers and I wasn’t hearing. And I started to ask God why. Why is that? And that summer a cousin of mine came to visit. She had just become a believer in Yeshua and then she started talking to us about, you know Yeshua, could he’d actually be the Messiah? Really? I mean what? Jesus is Yeshua? Jesus could possibly be the Messiah? It just seemed so, what? Something went off in my brain, like well we’re waiting for the Messiah, what if he is? How can I find out if he is?
I went to church with her once just because I was curious and it was crazy. I was surrounded by people that were running around, that were worshiping God. They had their hands up, they were jumping. There were some people my age. There were some people older. And I thought they were all insane. And I was not at all interested in what was going on. But I felt something different. And then my dad found out where we had been. All hell broke loose. My dad freaked out and nearly kicked my cousin out of the house. And she was staying with us. He did not speak to us for two weeks. I talked with my sister, my brother cuz you know we had all been together. What do you think? Could he be the Messiah? And my sister was horrified. It was like I just asked the most horrible thing ever. And I could feel this wall come up like absolutely not. Do not look into this. Are you crazy? She said to me “Go and look into our own religion. You don’t even know enough yet to even think about this.”
So I started on a path to become Orthodox because I figured that was the way to know God. So I started to look into the prophecies. I wanted to find out who is the Messiah. What is the Messiah’s supposed to do? What do people say about the Messiah? As I read, the one that stood out to me the most was “a prophet like Moses, a prophet like Mosheh” and that everything that he spoke we would be responsible for doing. And I just kept thinking like who is a prophet like Mosheh, who did miracles like that, somebody on that level. And there never been anyone like that really except for Yeshua.
So my sister went away for a year to kind of find herself and when she got back I knew that something had changed inside of her. I noticed such a difference in my sister and when you grow up with somebody you can really tell when they’re faking it or when they’re not. And I could see that something so significant happened in her life. She had a deep anchor and I needed it. She ended up becoming a believer in Yeshua. I wanted that dream, I wanted that vision, I wanted that lightning experience for God to prove that he’s real to me. And finally I heard a clear voice in my heart saying “You’ve heard enough, you’ve seen enough. It’s time to just believe.”
I couldn’t deny that Yeshua was real but I was faced with this dilemma of my dad, my friends. What’s gonna happen? It was such a big struggle in my heart. Do you go with the truth or do you go with what’s comfortable? But at the end I just couldn’t say no. I knew he was real. I knew he was true. And it was like “Okay I’m doing it. It’s happening.” My dad was like Mount Vesuvius erupting. He was so hurt. You know, he took it very personally like “Why are you betraying me? What did I do wrong? Your grandparents would be rolling over in their graves if they could hear this. You know it would have been better if I was a drug addict than believe in Yeshua. Anything except Yeshua. Whatever the cost was, I figured it’s worth it. I love my family more than anything and I want them to accept me. But sometimes when you say or you choose a side, you have to choose it and you stand on it. I mean to have a close relationship with God, the truth is worth it. Life with Yeshua would be worth it.