Growing up I had never heard of a Jewish believer in Jesus. More importantly in my traditional Jewish household, we never spoke about Yeshua and if and when we sparsely did, I look back now to see a clear misunderstanding of our Messiah. In my head and in my heart the only truth was that Jews simply do not believe in Jesus. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Yeshua is Jewish and so were all His disciples? Not to mention that they were practicing Jews. Much unlike myself for most of my life.
The Truth Behind Our Resistance
Psychologically, I see this rhetoric and established narrative within our community in two ways. One way is that it comes from hurt and defensiveness. I see this in the eyes of my Jewish brothers and sisters at simply the mention of Jesus. Please pardon our reaction, as we are protective of our faith, of our people and of our nation due to the trauma of being persecuted since our existence. It is a knee jerk reaction when you feel that someone is trying to strip you of what makes you, you and of the reason you have been killed and hunted down throughout all of history. It’s a feeling I can relate to and that I will never stop relating to. I feel it when I am sitting in class at my university and am faced with riots outside the window stating that Jewish people are white colonizers? I cannot fathom the arrival of that conclusion, let alone the shouting of it. When a fellow Jewish brother or sister tells me I am not Jewish now because of my belief in Yeshua, I feel the same way. The reality is no one can take our Judaism from us. It is in our blood, our skin, in our past and in our future. It is written down, the word of Hashem. To really open ourselves to this, we must lay down our arms and first trust we are Jewish until we die and there is nothing, we can do, or that someone else can do to change that.
The other way I see this, is more theological but still psychological in the way that as a people we have been characterized throughout the Torah and the Tanakh as a rebellious people. A people who don’t trust in God’s word, who struggle to understand His divine plan for us, who reject our prophets, and the commandments God gave us. I often have the vision from Exodus in my head. Moses coming down from Mount Sinai to deliver the ten commandments, only to see his fellow Jewish brothers and sisters worshipping a golden calf. The pain and anger he felt.
Our rebellious spirit defines us. And theologically this was all part of God’s plan. Yes, we have free will, but we are still characters in His story. So, when I see this rejection, this knee jerk reaction to rebel, I know it is not even on the individual, but a mechanism passed down to all of us from every single generation. Still, there are exceptions, that ones we read about in our books, and the ones we see today who have taken the leap to question everything they know and really study the story of their people, ultimately putting their faith in God’s promise to us, His son, our messiah.
My Story
I spent most of my life seeking God. Attempting to understand what it meant to be Jewish and what I did or didn’t believe in. I went to orthodox synagogues for the high holidays, attended Hebrew school, had a bat mitzvah, ate shabbat dinner on Friday nights with my family, and yet as a teenager I totally rebelled against the idea that God was even real.
To this my Jewish, Hispanic mother had a visceral reaction, although it was nothing compared to the reaction following the discovery I attended a church, I must add. I spent most of my teenage years as a self-proclaimed atheist. This all changed in my first year of college, battling a toxic relationship pattern, anxiety and fear, I felt the undeniable presence of God in my life. As I broke free from these patterns slowly but surely, I developed a sense of spirituality. I knew there had been divine intervention in my life. I found the presence of God in nature, in deep connection and love for my friends, in breathing slowly, in looking into the mystery of life itself. At that point I knew I believed in something bigger than myself, in something powerful and omniscient.
”Believing in Yeshua and knowing that God sent His son to save us, to fulfill the Torah, fills me with boundless gratitude.”
Not once did it cross my mind to read the Torah. Instead, I settled for books on Buddhism, astrology, and for the mysticism of Carl Jung’s psychology. I began journeying into the symbolism and archetypes of Tarot and what it meant to be in tune with the spiritual world. I felt I had found the truth, although messy and unconcise, it felt like I had arrived somewhere. But within that experience I always needed more. Peace was short lived. I’d be stuck in some pattern, some feeling and because these spiritual doctrines are based on self-reliance and becoming a powerful being, there was always another level to get to. Another reading that would finally have the revelation I was yearning for. I never got that, but I kept searching, I kept going.
My life has been defined by my relationships and the most I have discovered about myself has been through my relationships. Historically, they have been tumultuous, co-dependent, delusional, and unstable. You might chuckle at this, and I often do (at this point) but it is an incredibly defining part of my story and what brings me into faith, into this deep search for something bigger than whatever pain I was feeling and whatever God I was unconsciously worshiping.
At the age of 23 years old I finally landed in a relationship that produced no anxiety, no deep uncertainty of myself or my feelings for the other person and instead provided me a deep sense of safety and comfort and a realization of how deeply I desired to be a wife and a mother. When this relationship ended painfully and abruptly, I found myself in a frenzy. I found myself with chest-deep grief and this sense of responsibility that I could never allow myself to experience this again.
Something had to change within me and the way I was living my life because how is it that I ended up in this circumstance once more, having given myself to someone who ultimately chose to run away. Why did I keep choosing this? In my grief and confusion, I turned to God. On my knees in prayer. I turned to some of my Christian friends and found such a reflection of peace, what I now know of as shalom, and of sound advice and grace. I couldn’t understand where it came from.
I was so distraught I left my home for a week to be away from any reminder of that person and when I returned, a friend of mine invited me to come to church with her. I decided to go. To my surprise as I was hearing people sing and worship God, I began to cry uncontrollably. I felt the presence of God, not just anybody’s version of god, but of the God of Israel. Deep in my heart I knew that there was hope for me in all this anguish. That no matter how much pain I was feeling, it didn’t matter because God loved me. I had turned from Him and His ways, but I was no longer bound by my failure, instead by His grace and compassion. I am not exaggerating when I say that I spent that whole day crying. Staring up at the sky in awe of what was happening. It was my first round of submission to the Lord and His will, and it was the first time I had felt the presence of Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) around me.
The next day I picked up a copy of Genesis with a commentary by Dennis Prager, astonished at myself for being a Jew who had never read the Torah. I was determined to change that. And I did. It has been a discovery of the story of my people, of the mercy and grace that God has for us, of the way He wants us to live our lives and of being thrust into this shalom that I have had in my spirit ever since that day.
I feel more Jewish now than I have ever felt. And it is something that perplexes my fellow Jewish brothers and sisters, and often lights up the eyes of Christian brothers and sisters. Being Jewish is defined by our struggle with God, after all that is what Israel means. Believing in Yeshua and knowing that God sent His son to save us, to fulfill the Torah, fills me with boundless gratitude. Lighting the Shabbat candles is an act of admiration and love for my Lord. Being united to all people in the world no matter race or location through the God of Israel is a feeling I could never sufficiently describe to you, but one you must feel for yourself.
If you’ve come across this as a gentile believer, a Jewish believer, or neither, I want you to know that God has a plan for you. It is in my prayers that you understand, if you want to change someone’s mind about the existence of God and of our messiah, know that it is God who changes hearts. Pray to learn how to do God’s will, just as King David did, and know that we can plant seeds wherever we go, but we must submit to the Lord and His will to do anything at all. Know that you are forgiven and remember that nothing is more important than loving the Lord your God with everything you have and loving others. Amen.
