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Rabbi Michhael
Stepakoff
TESTIMONY OF: RABBI MICHAEL STEPAKOFF
:
My Background:
I was born in Hartford, Conn., in 1965, the middle child
in a family of three boys. But we moved to Atlanta when I was four, so I really
grew up in Atlanta. Like most Jews, I was raised to think there was
no way Jesus could be the Messiah. My extended family was pretty large,
since my grandparents had many brothers and sisters. Even among my furthest
aunts, uncles and cousins, there were no gentiles married into my family, and
there was nobody who believed in Yeshua. As I understood it, basically,
there were two kinds of people in the world, the gentiles and the Jews. The
gentiles, we thought, believed in a God who hated the Jews, and that was the
reason they tried to kill us off in the holocaust. To us, this was who Jesus
was, a gentile leader who stirred up the whole world against the
Jews.
Atlanta was a very tight-knit Jewish community, where
everyone who was Jewish knew everyone else who was Jewish. When I was about
seven, my parents began sending me to Hebrew school at our conservative
synagogue, and this is how I got my traditional Jewish education.By day I went
to American school, and in the evenings, twice a week I went to Hebrew school,
and once more on Sunday mornings. Mostly, we learned Hebrew language, culture,
and prayers. We did not really study the bible, nor did we learn much about
personal relationship with God. I had no idea that the prayers I learned from
the siddur, actually came from the bible. I didn’t even know that we Jews had a
bible. I thought the bible was a Christian thing. Hebrew school programs were
mainly designed to teach us how to mimick the prayers of our ancestors, and to
continue religious rituals, without regard to whether we had any real
relationship to God.
BAR MITZVAH BOY, GROWING UP IN THE ‘70’S
:
On March 25th, 1978, at
age 13, I fulfilled the ancient Jewish rite, as I was called to the Torah, and
had my bar-mitzvah. I was well-trained, and I’m sure I read well from the
Torah and from the haftorah prophetic reading. I am thankful for this training,
since I still use it today, as I often read from Torah in the messianic
synagogue. However, to be honest, I had no idea what it meant to be a “bar
mitzvah” (son of the commandments), except that my parents were throwing a big
party at the Marriott later that day which would involve me receiving a lot of money from everyone who
came. Yes, I was pretty excited about that. I was trained to read Hebrew
and mimick prayers, not to understand the spiritual significance of any of
it. All I knew was that people were celebrating “me”, and that was cool.
When I was 13, nearly every weekend, I had a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah to
attend, since all my friends were having them, and now it was my turn. The
greatest thing about being a Bar mitzvah was that I no longer had to attend
Hebrew school. Judaism from then on would be social, not
religious.
Like most Jewish kids, I spent Sunday afternoons at the
Jewish Community Center (J.C.C.), and was involved in B’nei B’rith Youth
Organization (BBYO), which was a youth group. There was so much healthy and fun
fellowship with other Jewish youth, it really made Jewish life special as a
youth. Most of us were bored and disinterested with the religious
part of Judaism. BBYO was fun. Also, every summer my two brothers
and I were sent for a month to Jewish summer camp in the mountains of North
Georgia, that was run by the Atlanta J.C.C.. Most of the Jewish kids I knew who
were in B.B.Y.O. and who hung out at the J.C.C. also went. These summers
in the mountains were some of the fondest memories of my life. There,
among the pleasant experiences I had, we were able to experience Judaism in a
natural setting that was apart from the synagogue. At Jewish summer camp,
we learned to sing Israeli folk songs, and there were skits and dances, and all
kinds of creative things going on to help us understand Israel and the Lord in
spontaneous, non-conventional ways. Many of the older kids, who were
hippies in the 70’s, played musical instruments and made songs from traditional
prayers that came from the siddur. I loved the Shabbat services every
Friday, which was odd, because I never enjoyed services otherwise. The
Shabbat services took place in an open air chapel on a lake. Everyone wore
white clothes, and usually included fun songs, dances, skits, and there was such
an atmosphere of love and understanding, and comradery with other Jewish
kids. We really had a sense of what it meant to be one people, with a
common God, and a common national heritage. We also learned a lot about
Israel in those days. I got a true taste of the pioneering
Jewish spirit that built the modern State of Israel. The Jewish summer
camp was where I discovered Jewish spirituality, something I otherwise
didn’t know existed. It wasn't my grandparents religion. It wasn't
eastern Europe. It was something having to do with God, that was apart
from the religious establishment of the synagogue and the Hebrew
school. I was beginning to be drawn to spiritual
things.
HIGH SCHOOL AND
COLLEGE: BOB DYLAN AND THE GRATEFUL
DEAD
Beginning in high school, and throughout college in
the 80’s, it was the Reagan years. Most young people were business
majors, fraternity members, ultra-conservative, right wing, Repulicans, and
everything that was the opposite of the preceding 10-15 years. A popular
TV show called “Family Ties” pretty well characterized the age. Michael J.
Fox played a college age kid who was ultra conservative, and his parents were
hippies. However, all the Jewish kids I knew were still drawn to the
hippie movement of the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. We never went for the
whole Young Republican thing. That was for people who were o.k.
with Pat Robertson running for President, it was for fundamentalist Christians
as far as we were concerned. A Jewish young Republican, in those days,
could only be a traitor of some kind. America had become some weird
evangelical christian nation in the 80's, and it scared us.
The
hippie movement, a decade earlier, seemed to be all about walking in love and
doing things right, throwing off the yoke of the established norms and
institutions of society. This was a message that struck home with me and
my Jewish friends. In fact the music of the hippie era appealed to me, and
to my Jewish friends, as a kind of new religion. We quoted song lyrics
from Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, etc. like some people quote from the
bible. I was definitely affected by Bob Dylan’s public confession of Jesus
as the Messiah in 1979. I was stunned when he put out two albums
about Jesus. However, though I was mad at him,, I also listened
to his songs about Jesus, and I really liked them. I was pleased
when Robert Zimmerman, a/k/a Bob Dylan finally stopped singing about Jesus in
the 80’s. But I never forgot those songs, and I never stopped wondering
why an intelligent and famous Jew like Bob Dylan would become one of those
annoying evangelicals. Why would my hero ever sing a song that says: “I’ve
been saved by the blood of the Lamb”?
I have no idea
whether or not Dylan still believes, that’s between him and God. But I
have to say, his songs about Jesus made a huge impact on me – and still
do. In my college and high school days, I had never read anything from the
New Testament. It was like a book that would curse me, I supposed, if I
even looked at it. I did not know that Yeshua himself was an
anti-establishment Jew, rejected by the religious rulers. I did not know
Yeshua was accepted as the Messiah by thousands of Jews who saw the hypocrisy in
the Rabbis and in religion. But what little I knew about
Yeshua, I knew through Dylan. I now know that Yeshua’s early Jewish
followers were a lot like me. They were Jews, looking for spiritual
things, and they identified with the simple truth of the gospel: Love God with
all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. This was what I
was looking for, but I had no idea I would later find it in Yeshua. God
was actually laying a foundation in my life to understand and receive the
gospel, as he did with thousands of Jews in the 70’s who came out of the hippie
movement and were transformed into the movement which we now know as messianic
Judaism.
In college, at Florida State University,
I was searching for spiritual things. I began to explore Kabbala,
Jewish mysticsm. When I was saved I was completely delivered from
kabbala. I don’t recommend kabbala to anyone, it is very dangerous and
weird. But it had a place in my life at the time. In
college I had the opportunity to study in Florence, Italy for two
semesters. While living in Italy, I traveled extensively throughout
Europe. Something about seeing Europe, where millions of Jews perished in
the holocaust, re-ignited a desire in me to experience and identify with
traditional Judaism. It was strange because I had pretty much strayed away from
it ever since my bar-mitzvah. However, being in Europe, sparked a passion
in me to re-connect with the religious aspect of Judaism, after seeing how many
of my people suffered in Europe – whether it was the Inquisition, the pogroms,
the holocaust – it was incredible to walk through countries where Jewish
communities once flourished and to think that millions were murdered, even
little children, for no reason other than the fact that they were
Jewish.
ORTHODOXY,
LAW SCHOOL AND LAW PRACTICE:
In 1987, I was
accepted to Stetson college of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida where I graduated
in 1990 and began practicing law in Tampa that same year. I was 25 years old.
During my law school years, and early years of being a single lawyer, having
discovered a renewed passion for Judaism, I faithfully attended a conservative
synagogue in Tampa, where I frequented services. I kept a rabbinically kosher
home, separating milk and meat. I wrapped tefilin and prayed the daily prayers
from the siddur three times a day. I studied Mamonides. I kept all the Jewish
holidays, both the big ones and the little ones. I had become very orthodox. I
was seeking God with all my heart. Yet, despite being active and observant in
Judaism, I still felt very unfulfilled spiritually. I felt a huge vacuum in
terms of my relationship with God, and I needed more. I continued to get deeper
into kabala, believing that mystical studies might give me answers, but there
was nothing Meanwhile, every couple of months, I would hop on an airplane, and
catch a Grateful Dead show, wherever they might be appearing in concert (in
those days Jerry Garcia was still alive). It was amazing to me how such a large
portion of the patrons at the Dead concerts were always young Jewish people. In
fact, both of my brothers, many of my cousins, and most of my Jewish friends
that I grew up with were all “dead-heads”, as we were known. The Dead shows were
not just concerts, but were a kind of religious experience. I believe that the
reason so many Jews could be found in this kind of venue was because we were all
dissatisfied or unfulfilled with our religion and were looking for spiritual
things. Unlike our grandparents who escaped Europe and came to the U.S. with one
thing in mind – survival - Jewish people of my generation were generally
comfortable, from prosperous homes, and not worrying about the Nazis or the
Cossacks anymore, but searching for how to have a personal relationship with
God, outside of the traditional religious mold. In this search, many of us have
gone on some “long strange trips”. But some of us have been able to see that no
matter what we do, or where we may go, we all arrive at the same conclusion –
man cannot embrace God alone, because of the fact that we are all sinners. Sin
distances mankind from God, and no man is without sin. If we are blessed to know
this fundamental truth, then it leads us, as it did me, to the only conclusion –
we can’t be near to God unless we have an atonement for our sins. Our ancestors
brought animals into the Temple to atone for sin through animal blood. But those
sacrifices were only temporal and imperfect. They did not cover our sins
permanently. The one true God sent His Son, Yeshua, into the world, who made a
perfect atonement in His own blood. Only God Himself could make such a perfect
atonement to give eternal life to the nation of Israel, as well as to all the
gentiles who call upon His name. Thus, through Him, our sins are released and we
can finally embrace the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
There is no other way. God’s son is the way, the truth, and the
life.
I was able to discover the truth about atonement when I was
26 years old, and one year out of law school. I had become involved in
some major legal battles in which people I was battling against were involved
the use of occult. I felt I needed some spiritual help or guidance to deal
with this, a kind of help that was clearly beyond anything I could get from the
Rabbi. Thus, I went to seek the advice of a fortune teller.
A Gypsy woman. Little did I know, my life would never be the
same. And my spiritual walk was about to go in a direction
I never would have thought possible.
WENT TO SEE THE GYPSY
WOMAN:
Bob Dylan published a song called "Went
to See the Gypsy", but he was really singing about Elvis. Well, my
Gypsy was real. She was a woman from a family of
Gypsies. However, as it turned out, the Gypsy woman I went to
see was a born-again Christian. Not what I expected. Now I
know it sounds strange. Why would a christian read palms, tell
fortunes, tarot cards, etc.? The bible speaks against those
things. I do not know. But, I only know that God
dealt with me at that time in a way that I could accept. After that,
I moved on. As it was, over a period of months, the Gypsy woman and I
became friends. She read my palm, read her cards, then when I was
satisfied, she talked to me about Jesus. Looking back, I think maybe
the palms reading and tarot cards was just an act. Anyway, this woman
was not forceful at all with me about believing in Jesus. Instead, this
Gypsy woman and other members of her family began praying for me constantly and
interceding for my needs. Whatever my needs were, not just spiritual
needs, but material things also, they were praying and God was answering. There
were also many prophetic words that she received for me, and which turned out to
be exactly true. As my needs continued to be fulfilled through the prayer
and intercession of these gypsies, I began slowly to be convinced that maybe
there was something true about Jesus that I was missing. The Gypsies
rarely spoke to me about Jesus. They just prayed for whatever I asked, and
told me they were praying for me. I slowly became convinced as I saw
prayers answered in my life, time and time again. I finally asked if I could
attend some Gypsy prayer and bible study meetings, and, though I felt out of
place, I was impressed how these Christian gypsies, who happened to be very
poor, nearly illiterate, and completely uneducated, still had a certain wisdom
about God and about the bible, that I felt I lacked despite my Torah observance,
my doctorate degree, and my background in Judaism.
BREAKING DOWN THE WALLS OF
UNBELIEF:
After about six months, I began to accept and
realize that I was a sinner, and a hypocrite, no matter how observant I might
be, I really did not know God and I certainly was not righteous in His eyes. I
began to understand that this is the condition of all men, we are all sinners by
nature, no matter how observant we may be, we still come short of perfection.
Thus, the idea that Jesus might just be who these Gypsies think He is, the
saviour of mankind, began to seem more and more plausible. At least, I
decided to actually look at the new Testament, a book which I never had read,
though I was so sure it was untrue. (It is amazing how many “intellectuals” have
read every book under the sun, but have never read the one book that has
influenced human history more than any other – the bible). At first glance
I was shocked to discover that Jesus was actually the Son of King David. I
discovered also that Jesus was a Jew, who was perfect in keeping the Torah,
circumcised on the 8th day. Bar mitzvah at 12. Kept Passover
and Sukkot. Prayed in synagogues. The whole
megilla. I learned his real name was "Yeshua", which I knew meant
“salvation”. I never before realized the simple fact that Jesus is Jewish,
and all these people who followed Him and believed in Him were also
Jewish. Even Mary, who Catholics worshipped as a kind of goddess, was
actually just a Jewish girl named Miriam who became Yeshua’s mother.
Wow.
Secondly, my Gypsy friend suggested to me to read about the
“armor of God” in Ephesians 6:10-18. This made a huge impact: “We wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly
places . . . so put on the armor of God that you may be able to withstand . . .”
My experience against spiritual warfare in the courts lead me to realize that no
victory could ever be realized through the use of occult, nor through might, nor
power of any kind, but rather, the greatest power is through simple faith in
Adon Olam, the Lord of the World – Yeshua the Messiah.
ACCEPTING YESHUA AS
THE MESSIAH:
At the age of 26 in the spring of 1992
I accepted Yeshua as Messiah in the home of the Gypsy woman. It was just me and
her present, no altar calls or anything like that. This all happened outside the
walls of any church. It was just a person who did three things: 1) developed a
relationship with me; 2) demonstrated God’s power to me by committing to pray
for me, and at times telling me she was praying for me; and 3) when the time was
right, finally asked me if I’d like to receive the Lord into my heart. Just one
week after accepting Yeshua as my Savior, God not only gave me eternal life in
His Kingdom, but He responded with my first and biggest earthly blessing - I met
a sweet college girl in a hippie skirt, who smelled of patchouli; with rings on
her fingers and bells on her shoes, she was my other half, my “besherta”, which
is Hebrew for “soul mate”. Her name was “Tara”, and as we grew together in the
Lord, she became my wife and the mother of my four children – Ruth, Joseph,
David, and Rachel. Tara had a mixed background. She had Christians in her
family. She also had a Jewish grandparent (her mother’s father) and she and her
mother had gone through conversion with the Reform synagogue when Tara was 16.
Tara identified Israel as her people, and Yeshua as her Messiah. She also was
heavily into the Grateful Dead. It was a match.
NEW LIFE IN MESSIAH
:
I could stop have stopped here, and would have been perfectly content,
but God has heaped upon me so many blessings and has multiplied such peace in my
heart and in my household, since I received Yeshua, that I continue to see His
blessings each day. After receiving Yeshua into my heart, my immediate
response, was not to run off to the nearest church to be baptized. In fact, I
didn’t know what to do. One thing for certain in my mind was that I could not
and would not leave off from being a Jew. I had no idea where to go and live out
this new faith of mine. In a church? Not for me. It wouldn’t work. I therefore
remained in the conservative synagogue. The problems with that was, if I told
the Rabbi what I believed about Messiah, I might have been kicked out. So, I
continued for about 18 months as a secret believer in the conservative shul.
Then, eventually, I heard about Messianic Jews and messianic synagogues. I found
one in Tampa, and I affiliated there. When I heard the music of the messianic
group “Lamb”, I immediately connected with this, especially the early Lamb
music. Something about that sound, really spoke to me. To me, this was the
very same music I had always been into, except that Joel Chernoff was singing
about Yeshua. Early Lamb could have easily been mistaken for pop music
from the early ‘70’s, except for the lyrics. In the messianic synagogue,
the music and the worship was spiritual, not religious. Yes, there were
clear signs of Torah observance and Jewish culture. But the dancing and
the praising going on was not something you could do in a mainstream rabbinic
synagogue. It is the kind of worship, which was the signature of King
David in his day, and which was bringing Jews back into intimacy with
God. This spirituality was really what I was trying to find at Dead
shows, except I found it in holiness and in reverence to God. Moreover, it
was not a religious charade, involving a lot of chanting and extensive readings
from a book of prayers. It was real. It was simple and pure.
Messianic worship was what my heart had always yearned for.
Had it
not been for the messianic Jewish movement, I don’t think I could have done it
any other way. We met many other wonderful people who were either Jewish
believers or gentiles who identified with Zionism and had a big heart for
Israel. Tara and I fell right into place in the Messianic Jewish movement,
and it is easy for me to understand how important messianic synagogues are for
the thousands of Jews today who believe in Yeshua. Without a messianic
synagogue, I would still be hiding out in the conservative shul, or God only
knows what. In 1998, HaShem called me into ministry, which was about the
last thing in the world that I ever would have thought I would be doing. I
had a good secular career in law, while Tara and I were pretty content making
children as well. We had no reason to pursue a career in messianic Jewish
ministry. Yet, the call upon our life was clear, and we were obedient to
the Lord. The road has been long and strange at times, not always
easy, but filled with much reward along the way in the form of seeing so many
precious souls saved and blessed. Beginning in August, 1998, Tara and I
founded and opened a messianic synagogue in Tampa called “Mt. Sinai”. In 2001,
the Lord led us across the Tampa Bay to Dunedin, where we re-named the synagogue
- "New Jerusalem". Our ministry has always been affiliated with the
Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (MJAA), through its congregational branch,
the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues
(IAMCS). The MJAA is the oldest and largest messianic Jewish organization
in the world, linking us to messianic congregations all over the
world. I have had the special blessing to have Joel
Chernoff as my personal mentor since 1998. Joel has helped me, as a young
Rabbi, just 33 yrs. old, raising 4 kids, in enormous ways.
A few things
worth mentioning: In the spring of 2000 I was on an airplane coming home
from a ski trip in Colorado, and I said to Tara, “I am going to learn how to
play the piano”. A month later, I was doing it, and God has since given me
literally hundreds of original songs. One of my favorite recording
artists, and good friend, Ted Pearce, has co-written and recorded about 25 of my
original songs, and made them available on his CD's, distributed internationally
through Integrity Music. I’ve also been privileged to see many of my songs
recorded by other artists such as my good friend, Jonathan Settel, Kol Simcha,
Debbie Klein, Baruch HaShem Messianic Synagogue of Dallas, and the list grows
each and every day. In 2008, Tara and I completed production on a
90-minute feature film, written and directed by me. “Short of the Glory”
premiered on March 1st, 2008 at the Royalty Theatre, Clearwater, Florida.
Today New Jerusalem meets in Dunedin, in the part of Tampa Bay which has
the heaviest concentration of Jewish people. We draw both Jewish and non-Jewish
people from all over the Tampa Bay area. We are making a profound impact as a
witness to the Jewish community and as a light unto the gentiles. I am thankful
to God for revealing to me the truth concerning His Son Yeshua, and for calling
me into Messianic Jewish ministry because I do love the many people who we have
had the chance to help and bless over the years. God has given me an interesting
life. Baruch HaShem.
Donate to Messianic Synagogue, Temple New
Jerusalem
TESTIMONY OF: RABBI MICHAEL STEPAKOFF
:
My Background:
I was born in Hartford, Conn., in 1965, the middle child
in a family of three boys. But we moved to Atlanta when I was four, so I really
grew up in Atlanta. Like most Jews, I was raised to think there was
no way Jesus could be the Messiah. My extended family was pretty large,
since my grandparents had many brothers and sisters. Even among my furthest
aunts, uncles and cousins, there were no gentiles married into my family, and
there was nobody who believed in Yeshua. As I understood it, basically,
there were two kinds of people in the world, the gentiles and the Jews. The
gentiles, we thought, believed in a God who hated the Jews, and that was the
reason they tried to kill us off in the holocaust. To us, this was who Jesus
was, a gentile leader who stirred up the whole world against the
Jews.
Atlanta was a very tight-knit Jewish community, where
everyone who was Jewish knew everyone else who was Jewish. When I was about
seven, my parents began sending me to Hebrew school at our conservative
synagogue, and this is how I got my traditional Jewish education.By day I went
to American school, and in the evenings, twice a week I went to Hebrew school,
and once more on Sunday mornings. Mostly, we learned Hebrew language, culture,
and prayers. We did not really study the bible, nor did we learn much about
personal relationship with God. I had no idea that the prayers I learned from
the siddur, actually came from the bible. I didn’t even know that we Jews had a
bible. I thought the bible was a Christian thing. Hebrew school programs were
mainly designed to teach us how to mimick the prayers of our ancestors, and to
continue religious rituals, without regard to whether we had any real
relationship to God.
BAR MITZVAH BOY, GROWING UP IN THE ‘70’S
:
On March 25th, 1978, at
age 13, I fulfilled the ancient Jewish rite, as I was called to the Torah, and
had my bar-mitzvah. I was well-trained, and I’m sure I read well from the
Torah and from the haftorah prophetic reading. I am thankful for this training,
since I still use it today, as I often read from Torah in the messianic
synagogue. However, to be honest, I had no idea what it meant to be a “bar
mitzvah” (son of the commandments), except that my parents were throwing a big
party at the Marriott later that day which would involve me receiving a lot of money from everyone who
came. Yes, I was pretty excited about that. I was trained to read Hebrew
and mimick prayers, not to understand the spiritual significance of any of
it. All I knew was that people were celebrating “me”, and that was cool.
When I was 13, nearly every weekend, I had a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah to
attend, since all my friends were having them, and now it was my turn. The
greatest thing about being a Bar mitzvah was that I no longer had to attend
Hebrew school. Judaism from then on would be social, not
religious.
Like most Jewish kids, I spent Sunday afternoons at the
Jewish Community Center (J.C.C.), and was involved in B’nei B’rith Youth
Organization (BBYO), which was a youth group. There was so much healthy and fun
fellowship with other Jewish youth, it really made Jewish life special as a
youth. Most of us were bored and disinterested with the religious
part of Judaism. BBYO was fun. Also, every summer my two brothers
and I were sent for a month to Jewish summer camp in the mountains of North
Georgia, that was run by the Atlanta J.C.C.. Most of the Jewish kids I knew who
were in B.B.Y.O. and who hung out at the J.C.C. also went. These summers
in the mountains were some of the fondest memories of my life. There,
among the pleasant experiences I had, we were able to experience Judaism in a
natural setting that was apart from the synagogue. At Jewish summer camp,
we learned to sing Israeli folk songs, and there were skits and dances, and all
kinds of creative things going on to help us understand Israel and the Lord in
spontaneous, non-conventional ways. Many of the older kids, who were
hippies in the 70’s, played musical instruments and made songs from traditional
prayers that came from the siddur. I loved the Shabbat services every
Friday, which was odd, because I never enjoyed services otherwise. The
Shabbat services took place in an open air chapel on a lake. Everyone wore
white clothes, and usually included fun songs, dances, skits, and there was such
an atmosphere of love and understanding, and comradery with other Jewish
kids. We really had a sense of what it meant to be one people, with a
common God, and a common national heritage. We also learned a lot about
Israel in those days. I got a true taste of the pioneering
Jewish spirit that built the modern State of Israel. The Jewish summer
camp was where I discovered Jewish spirituality, something I otherwise
didn’t know existed. It wasn't my grandparents religion. It wasn't
eastern Europe. It was something having to do with God, that was apart
from the religious establishment of the synagogue and the Hebrew
school. I was beginning to be drawn to spiritual
things.
HIGH SCHOOL AND
COLLEGE: BOB DYLAN AND THE GRATEFUL
DEAD
Beginning in high school, and throughout college in
the 80’s, it was the Reagan years. Most young people were business
majors, fraternity members, ultra-conservative, right wing, Repulicans, and
everything that was the opposite of the preceding 10-15 years. A popular
TV show called “Family Ties” pretty well characterized the age. Michael J.
Fox played a college age kid who was ultra conservative, and his parents were
hippies. However, all the Jewish kids I knew were still drawn to the
hippie movement of the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. We never went for the
whole Young Republican thing. That was for people who were o.k.
with Pat Robertson running for President, it was for fundamentalist Christians
as far as we were concerned. A Jewish young Republican, in those days,
could only be a traitor of some kind. America had become some weird
evangelical christian nation in the 80's, and it scared us.
The
hippie movement, a decade earlier, seemed to be all about walking in love and
doing things right, throwing off the yoke of the established norms and
institutions of society. This was a message that struck home with me and
my Jewish friends. In fact the music of the hippie era appealed to me, and
to my Jewish friends, as a kind of new religion. We quoted song lyrics
from Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, etc. like some people quote from the
bible. I was definitely affected by Bob Dylan’s public confession of Jesus
as the Messiah in 1979. I was stunned when he put out two albums
about Jesus. However, though I was mad at him,, I also listened
to his songs about Jesus, and I really liked them. I was pleased
when Robert Zimmerman, a/k/a Bob Dylan finally stopped singing about Jesus in
the 80’s. But I never forgot those songs, and I never stopped wondering
why an intelligent and famous Jew like Bob Dylan would become one of those
annoying evangelicals. Why would my hero ever sing a song that says: “I’ve
been saved by the blood of the Lamb”?
I have no idea
whether or not Dylan still believes, that’s between him and God. But I
have to say, his songs about Jesus made a huge impact on me – and still
do. In my college and high school days, I had never read anything from the
New Testament. It was like a book that would curse me, I supposed, if I
even looked at it. I did not know that Yeshua himself was an
anti-establishment Jew, rejected by the religious rulers. I did not know
Yeshua was accepted as the Messiah by thousands of Jews who saw the hypocrisy in
the Rabbis and in religion. But what little I knew about
Yeshua, I knew through Dylan. I now know that Yeshua’s early Jewish
followers were a lot like me. They were Jews, looking for spiritual
things, and they identified with the simple truth of the gospel: Love God with
all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. This was what I
was looking for, but I had no idea I would later find it in Yeshua. God
was actually laying a foundation in my life to understand and receive the
gospel, as he did with thousands of Jews in the 70’s who came out of the hippie
movement and were transformed into the movement which we now know as messianic
Judaism.
In college, at Florida State University,
I was searching for spiritual things. I began to explore Kabbala,
Jewish mysticsm. When I was saved I was completely delivered from
kabbala. I don’t recommend kabbala to anyone, it is very dangerous and
weird. But it had a place in my life at the time. In
college I had the opportunity to study in Florence, Italy for two
semesters. While living in Italy, I traveled extensively throughout
Europe. Something about seeing Europe, where millions of Jews perished in
the holocaust, re-ignited a desire in me to experience and identify with
traditional Judaism. It was strange because I had pretty much strayed away from
it ever since my bar-mitzvah. However, being in Europe, sparked a passion
in me to re-connect with the religious aspect of Judaism, after seeing how many
of my people suffered in Europe – whether it was the Inquisition, the pogroms,
the holocaust – it was incredible to walk through countries where Jewish
communities once flourished and to think that millions were murdered, even
little children, for no reason other than the fact that they were
Jewish.
ORTHODOXY,
LAW SCHOOL AND LAW PRACTICE:
In 1987, I was
accepted to Stetson college of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida where I graduated
in 1990 and began practicing law in Tampa that same year. I was 25 years old.
During my law school years, and early years of being a single lawyer, having
discovered a renewed passion for Judaism, I faithfully attended a conservative
synagogue in Tampa, where I frequented services. I kept a rabbinically kosher
home, separating milk and meat. I wrapped tefilin and prayed the daily prayers
from the siddur three times a day. I studied Mamonides. I kept all the Jewish
holidays, both the big ones and the little ones. I had become very orthodox. I
was seeking God with all my heart. Yet, despite being active and observant in
Judaism, I still felt very unfulfilled spiritually. I felt a huge vacuum in
terms of my relationship with God, and I needed more. I continued to get deeper
into kabala, believing that mystical studies might give me answers, but there
was nothing Meanwhile, every couple of months, I would hop on an airplane, and
catch a Grateful Dead show, wherever they might be appearing in concert (in
those days Jerry Garcia was still alive). It was amazing to me how such a large
portion of the patrons at the Dead concerts were always young Jewish people. In
fact, both of my brothers, many of my cousins, and most of my Jewish friends
that I grew up with were all “dead-heads”, as we were known. The Dead shows were
not just concerts, but were a kind of religious experience. I believe that the
reason so many Jews could be found in this kind of venue was because we were all
dissatisfied or unfulfilled with our religion and were looking for spiritual
things. Unlike our grandparents who escaped Europe and came to the U.S. with one
thing in mind – survival - Jewish people of my generation were generally
comfortable, from prosperous homes, and not worrying about the Nazis or the
Cossacks anymore, but searching for how to have a personal relationship with
God, outside of the traditional religious mold. In this search, many of us have
gone on some “long strange trips”. But some of us have been able to see that no
matter what we do, or where we may go, we all arrive at the same conclusion –
man cannot embrace God alone, because of the fact that we are all sinners. Sin
distances mankind from God, and no man is without sin. If we are blessed to know
this fundamental truth, then it leads us, as it did me, to the only conclusion –
we can’t be near to God unless we have an atonement for our sins. Our ancestors
brought animals into the Temple to atone for sin through animal blood. But those
sacrifices were only temporal and imperfect. They did not cover our sins
permanently. The one true God sent His Son, Yeshua, into the world, who made a
perfect atonement in His own blood. Only God Himself could make such a perfect
atonement to give eternal life to the nation of Israel, as well as to all the
gentiles who call upon His name. Thus, through Him, our sins are released and we
can finally embrace the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
There is no other way. God’s son is the way, the truth, and the
life.
I was able to discover the truth about atonement when I was
26 years old, and one year out of law school. I had become involved in
some major legal battles in which people I was battling against were involved
the use of occult. I felt I needed some spiritual help or guidance to deal
with this, a kind of help that was clearly beyond anything I could get from the
Rabbi. Thus, I went to seek the advice of a fortune teller.
A Gypsy woman. Little did I know, my life would never be the
same. And my spiritual walk was about to go in a direction
I never would have thought possible.
WENT TO SEE THE GYPSY
WOMAN:
Bob Dylan published a song called "Went
to See the Gypsy", but he was really singing about Elvis. Well, my
Gypsy was real. She was a woman from a family of
Gypsies. However, as it turned out, the Gypsy woman I went to
see was a born-again Christian. Not what I expected. Now I
know it sounds strange. Why would a christian read palms, tell
fortunes, tarot cards, etc.? The bible speaks against those
things. I do not know. But, I only know that God
dealt with me at that time in a way that I could accept. After that,
I moved on. As it was, over a period of months, the Gypsy woman and I
became friends. She read my palm, read her cards, then when I was
satisfied, she talked to me about Jesus. Looking back, I think maybe
the palms reading and tarot cards was just an act. Anyway, this woman
was not forceful at all with me about believing in Jesus. Instead, this
Gypsy woman and other members of her family began praying for me constantly and
interceding for my needs. Whatever my needs were, not just spiritual
needs, but material things also, they were praying and God was answering. There
were also many prophetic words that she received for me, and which turned out to
be exactly true. As my needs continued to be fulfilled through the prayer
and intercession of these gypsies, I began slowly to be convinced that maybe
there was something true about Jesus that I was missing. The Gypsies
rarely spoke to me about Jesus. They just prayed for whatever I asked, and
told me they were praying for me. I slowly became convinced as I saw
prayers answered in my life, time and time again. I finally asked if I could
attend some Gypsy prayer and bible study meetings, and, though I felt out of
place, I was impressed how these Christian gypsies, who happened to be very
poor, nearly illiterate, and completely uneducated, still had a certain wisdom
about God and about the bible, that I felt I lacked despite my Torah observance,
my doctorate degree, and my background in Judaism.
BREAKING DOWN THE WALLS OF
UNBELIEF:
After about six months, I began to accept and
realize that I was a sinner, and a hypocrite, no matter how observant I might
be, I really did not know God and I certainly was not righteous in His eyes. I
began to understand that this is the condition of all men, we are all sinners by
nature, no matter how observant we may be, we still come short of perfection.
Thus, the idea that Jesus might just be who these Gypsies think He is, the
saviour of mankind, began to seem more and more plausible. At least, I
decided to actually look at the new Testament, a book which I never had read,
though I was so sure it was untrue. (It is amazing how many “intellectuals” have
read every book under the sun, but have never read the one book that has
influenced human history more than any other – the bible). At first glance
I was shocked to discover that Jesus was actually the Son of King David. I
discovered also that Jesus was a Jew, who was perfect in keeping the Torah,
circumcised on the 8th day. Bar mitzvah at 12. Kept Passover
and Sukkot. Prayed in synagogues. The whole
megilla. I learned his real name was "Yeshua", which I knew meant
“salvation”. I never before realized the simple fact that Jesus is Jewish,
and all these people who followed Him and believed in Him were also
Jewish. Even Mary, who Catholics worshipped as a kind of goddess, was
actually just a Jewish girl named Miriam who became Yeshua’s mother.
Wow.
Secondly, my Gypsy friend suggested to me to read about the
“armor of God” in Ephesians 6:10-18. This made a huge impact: “We wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly
places . . . so put on the armor of God that you may be able to withstand . . .”
My experience against spiritual warfare in the courts lead me to realize that no
victory could ever be realized through the use of occult, nor through might, nor
power of any kind, but rather, the greatest power is through simple faith in
Adon Olam, the Lord of the World – Yeshua the Messiah.
ACCEPTING YESHUA AS
THE MESSIAH:
At the age of 26 in the spring of 1992
I accepted Yeshua as Messiah in the home of the Gypsy woman. It was just me and
her present, no altar calls or anything like that. This all happened outside the
walls of any church. It was just a person who did three things: 1) developed a
relationship with me; 2) demonstrated God’s power to me by committing to pray
for me, and at times telling me she was praying for me; and 3) when the time was
right, finally asked me if I’d like to receive the Lord into my heart. Just one
week after accepting Yeshua as my Savior, God not only gave me eternal life in
His Kingdom, but He responded with my first and biggest earthly blessing - I met
a sweet college girl in a hippie skirt, who smelled of patchouli; with rings on
her fingers and bells on her shoes, she was my other half, my “besherta”, which
is Hebrew for “soul mate”. Her name was “Tara”, and as we grew together in the
Lord, she became my wife and the mother of my four children – Ruth, Joseph,
David, and Rachel. Tara had a mixed background. She had Christians in her
family. She also had a Jewish grandparent (her mother’s father) and she and her
mother had gone through conversion with the Reform synagogue when Tara was 16.
Tara identified Israel as her people, and Yeshua as her Messiah. She also was
heavily into the Grateful Dead. It was a match.
NEW LIFE IN MESSIAH
:
I could stop have stopped here, and would have been perfectly content,
but God has heaped upon me so many blessings and has multiplied such peace in my
heart and in my household, since I received Yeshua, that I continue to see His
blessings each day. After receiving Yeshua into my heart, my immediate
response, was not to run off to the nearest church to be baptized. In fact, I
didn’t know what to do. One thing for certain in my mind was that I could not
and would not leave off from being a Jew. I had no idea where to go and live out
this new faith of mine. In a church? Not for me. It wouldn’t work. I therefore
remained in the conservative synagogue. The problems with that was, if I told
the Rabbi what I believed about Messiah, I might have been kicked out. So, I
continued for about 18 months as a secret believer in the conservative shul.
Then, eventually, I heard about Messianic Jews and messianic synagogues. I found
one in Tampa, and I affiliated there. When I heard the music of the messianic
group “Lamb”, I immediately connected with this, especially the early Lamb
music. Something about that sound, really spoke to me. To me, this was the
very same music I had always been into, except that Joel Chernoff was singing
about Yeshua. Early Lamb could have easily been mistaken for pop music
from the early ‘70’s, except for the lyrics. In the messianic synagogue,
the music and the worship was spiritual, not religious. Yes, there were
clear signs of Torah observance and Jewish culture. But the dancing and
the praising going on was not something you could do in a mainstream rabbinic
synagogue. It is the kind of worship, which was the signature of King
David in his day, and which was bringing Jews back into intimacy with
God. This spirituality was really what I was trying to find at Dead
shows, except I found it in holiness and in reverence to God. Moreover, it
was not a religious charade, involving a lot of chanting and extensive readings
from a book of prayers. It was real. It was simple and pure.
Messianic worship was what my heart had always yearned for.
Had it
not been for the messianic Jewish movement, I don’t think I could have done it
any other way. We met many other wonderful people who were either Jewish
believers or gentiles who identified with Zionism and had a big heart for
Israel. Tara and I fell right into place in the Messianic Jewish movement,
and it is easy for me to understand how important messianic synagogues are for
the thousands of Jews today who believe in Yeshua. Without a messianic
synagogue, I would still be hiding out in the conservative shul, or God only
knows what. In 1998, HaShem called me into ministry, which was about the
last thing in the world that I ever would have thought I would be doing. I
had a good secular career in law, while Tara and I were pretty content making
children as well. We had no reason to pursue a career in messianic Jewish
ministry. Yet, the call upon our life was clear, and we were obedient to
the Lord. The road has been long and strange at times, not always
easy, but filled with much reward along the way in the form of seeing so many
precious souls saved and blessed. Beginning in August, 1998, Tara and I
founded and opened a messianic synagogue in Tampa called “Mt. Sinai”. In 2001,
the Lord led us across the Tampa Bay to Dunedin, where we re-named the synagogue
- "New Jerusalem". Our ministry has always been affiliated with the
Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (MJAA), through its congregational branch,
the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues
(IAMCS). The MJAA is the oldest and largest messianic Jewish organization
in the world, linking us to messianic congregations all over the
world. I have had the special blessing to have Joel
Chernoff as my personal mentor since 1998. Joel has helped me, as a young
Rabbi, just 33 yrs. old, raising 4 kids, in enormous ways.
A few things
worth mentioning: In the spring of 2000 I was on an airplane coming home
from a ski trip in Colorado, and I said to Tara, “I am going to learn how to
play the piano”. A month later, I was doing it, and God has since given me
literally hundreds of original songs. One of my favorite recording
artists, and good friend, Ted Pearce, has co-written and recorded about 25 of my
original songs, and made them available on his CD's, distributed internationally
through Integrity Music. I’ve also been privileged to see many of my songs
recorded by other artists such as my good friend, Jonathan Settel, Kol Simcha,
Debbie Klein, Baruch HaShem Messianic Synagogue of Dallas, and the list grows
each and every day. In 2008, Tara and I completed production on a
90-minute feature film, written and directed by me. “Short of the Glory”
premiered on March 1st, 2008 at the Royalty Theatre, Clearwater, Florida.
Today New Jerusalem meets in Dunedin, in the part of Tampa Bay which has
the heaviest concentration of Jewish people. We draw both Jewish and non-Jewish
people from all over the Tampa Bay area. We are making a profound impact as a
witness to the Jewish community and as a light unto the gentiles. I am thankful
to God for revealing to me the truth concerning His Son Yeshua, and for calling
me into Messianic Jewish ministry because I do love the many people who we have
had the chance to help and bless over the years. God has given me an interesting
life. Baruch HaShem.
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