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Shalom in Yeshua, I am Rabbi Michael Stepakoff. I was born in 1965 into a conservative Jewish family. In my
family, everyone was Jewish and nobody believed that Yeshua could be the Messiah. My 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.
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. I was born in Hartford, Conn., 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. Atlanta was a very tight-knit Jewish community, where
everyone who was Jewish knew everyone else who was Jewish.
family, everyone was Jewish and nobody believed that Yeshua could be the Messiah. My 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.
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. I was born in Hartford, Conn., 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. 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.
GROWING UP IN THE ‘70’S
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, despite the fact that
nearly all of us were bored and disinterested with the religious part of Judaism. 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 and I also got a real taste of the pioneering Jewish spirit that built the modern State of Israel. Furthermore, Jewish summer camp
was where I discovered Jewish spirituality, something I otherwise didn’t know existed. It was something having to do with God, that was apart from the
religious establishment of the synagogue and the Hebrew school.
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.
GROWING UP IN THE ‘70’S
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, despite the fact that
nearly all of us were bored and disinterested with the religious part of Judaism. 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 and I also got a real taste of the pioneering Jewish spirit that built the modern State of Israel. Furthermore, Jewish summer camp
was where I discovered Jewish spirituality, something I otherwise didn’t know existed. It was something having to do with God, that was apart from the
religious establishment of the synagogue and the Hebrew school.
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