I was born in Miami, Florida where I was raised by two loving Jewish parents. I received three years of religious training which ended with my bar-mitzvah. For those not familiar with what a bar-mitzvah is, it’s a ceremony publicly recognizing the spiritual and legal maturity of a Jewish boy at age thirteen. After my bar-mitzvah I had no real desire to continue learning about Judaism and no longer attended synagogue.

     As I grew up and went on to college, I found myself wanting to know more about spiritual things. As a little boy I had been curious about life, so I guess you can say I was on a journey towards God. Having already experimented with drugs, I became involved with self-actualization, meditation, yoga, and different Eastern philosophies. I even changed my diet thinking I could be healthier and become more spiritually in tune!

     When I came home from college I made my living as a professional musician. It was during this time that I had the opportunity to see if the claims Yeshua (Jesus) had made about being the Messiah of Israel, my personal Savior, had any validity. You see, I had been told before that I needed to trust Yeshua as my Redeemer from eternal condemnation to eternal life, but never paid much attention to that fact until this time in my life.

     A friend, sensing my spiritual need, encouraged me to pray to the God of Israel. I figured, “I’ve tried about everything so why not give this a try”.So with faith smaller than a mustard seed, I prayed. “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, If you are real I want to see it in the T’nach (Hebrew scriptures). If You really became a man in the person of Yeshua, then show me in my Jewish Bible”.

     After I prayed that prayer I felt no change. I even felt stupid. But I had a strong desire to check out the Bible. So not too long after that time I found the Bible I had in my bottom drawer, which had been given to me by the sisterhood at my temple ten years prior, and dusting it off, I proceeded to read from cover to cover looking for Messiah.

     I discovered that there were promises of a land and a heritage for the Jewish people and Messianic prophecies which led like a road map to only one person in history, Jesus of Nazareth. I also learned as my desire to read increased, that many rabbis living before and after Yeshua became an issue believed in a Mashiach (Messiah) who would be a person. Some even saw two Messiahs; one who would suffer called the son of Joseph, and one who would reign as a King, the son of David.

     After nine months of intense study, which included the “suffering servant” in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and reading how the Hebrew prophecies were fulfilled in the Brit Chadashah (New Covenant), I placed my hope and trust in Yeshua as my personal Savior and Lord.

     As I think back to the Israelites long ago in Egypt, and how they were freed by God from the bondage of slavery, I too have been set free from the bondage of sin and death. I enjoy the assurance of knowing that my name is inscribed in the Lamb’s Book of Everlasting Life through faith in Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus, God’s anointed One.