I feel the most Jewish at Christmastime. Gold tinsel, store-bought imitation trees, Star Trek ornaments, electric lights strung along suburban rooftops, disturb my peace and spiritual equilibrium. Surprisingly, it is not the underlying materialism that shatters my connection to the larger American society. Materialism knows no boundaries in the post-modern culture; December might be its brightest month, but as both a philosophy and a way of life it lives on throughout the year in changing disguises. Hallmark has a card for every holiday, both secular and sacred, and new holidays are born each year.
No, it is not the crass commercialism surrounding the celebration of the birth of Christ that sets my soul on a course toward despondency and deeper reflection (I think best when I feel blue). Nor is it the physical impact of the season on the human psyche. Whereas others experience depression because of the advance of night over the daylight, I actually enjoy the whites and blacks of winter, and invite the retreat which falling temperatures bring upon my lifestyle. After all, one best enjoys a cup of hot chocolate after being out in the snow, and not in the heat of July. The winter night is the most beautiful as far as constellation gazing is concerned; life would be impoverished without brawny Orion hunting over us as Gemini arcs across the sky and the Pleiades sparkle only for those who have eyes to see.
No, it is the Christmas observance itself that promotes the ironic juxtaposition of darkness and light, sadness and joy, oppression and liberation, within my soul. It is the words of Matthew and Luke which make me feel alienated from others, and alien to the Christian church. It is the story’s narrative which unfailingly reminds me that I am Jewish, and taunts me with the awful truth that no matter how long I live among gentiles, I will forever be Jewish.
When I read of the engagement drama of Joseph and Mary, the years of waiting for the prophet Simeon to behold the Messiah in an existential way, the drivenness of the Persian astrologers to discover the meaning of a star which might unlock some valuable wisdom, the pained longing of Zechariah and Elizabeth as they wonder why their faithfulness has not brought them an heir, I feel the weight of their forlorn shoulders, the burden of hopes deferred, and wishes expressed only in secret to a God who hears the yearnings of humanity. But beyond their individual misery, I connect with (as they surely did) the collective journey of a people living under oppression, for as benevolent as the Romans could be, they nevertheless were imperialistic dominators of conquered people.
The stories of Jesus’ birth make no sense outside the context of Roman hegemony and might, and the resultant Jewish humility and periodic defiance. Matthew, a Jew writing about Jesus to Jewish Christians, records a dark story of Herod’s curiosity that leads to the catastrophic slaughter of young Jewish boys. Jesus was not only a Jew who died, but from the beginning of his life Jews died because of him even though they did not deserve such a fate. Every sympathetic character in Luke’s birth narrative expresses a yearning for God’s deliverance and salvation in light of the Jewish nation’s lack of freedom. The birth of Jesus represents God’s response to such pained pleas, just as the cries of the Jewish slaves caused Yahweh to reveal himself to Moses, and anoint him to deliver them from a gentile Pharaoh’s grip. Rather than symbolizing God’s turning his back on Jews, the Christmas story reaffirms the Lord’s steadfast solidarity with a nation and people He chose. He has not forgotten how to respond to their prayers. Though the night seems dark, God’s light still leaves heaven and journeys to earth to impart judgment upon the nations, and mercy upon a powerless people.
When Advent arrives and churches read the stories of the birth of Jesus, Matthew and Luke are not allowed to speak on their own terms. Their perspective is whitewashed or ignored. In place of elderly people doubting God’s abiding presence as they watch their grandchildren meet their destiny at the edge of a Roman spear, we stage elaborate pageants filled with cute children who fumble onstage and cause audiences of relatives to laugh. An antiseptic homeliness replaces the struggle of a people to survive while the odds are stacked against them. Jesus is adored as a baby (we like our gods to be cute and non-threatening), but the Jewish babies who prematurely suffer death soon after the Savior is born receive scarcely any attention – when was the last time you heard a preacher use Matthew 2:13-18 as an Advent season sermon text? These guileless innocents are sacrificed so that the Savior may live (in modern military prose, they are collateral civilian damage). Rather than laughing with children, the Christmas story urges us to cry with the mothers, the daughters of Rachel.
In contrast to the gentile custom of giving one another presents, in the original Jewish telling of Christmas, there is no gift giving, with the exception of the offerings brought to Jesus by the pagan astrologers. Today, we use God to meet one another’s desires, while in the first Christmas, only Jesus receives something material. Mary and Joseph, and Zechariah and Elizabeth, receive sons, while others receive spiritual consolation.
All the Jews in the narratives respond to Jesus’ birth with words, not material possessions. These words recount God’s deeds. They tell of dreams and visions received (and as Joel’s prophecy tells us, dreams and visions are symbolic of God’s communication with his people). God is still in touch and revealing himself in the midst of the misery of first century Jewish life. Their words also affirm hope; the messianic expectations represent an abiding confidence in a God who works through the journey of the Jewish people. Whatever celebration there is in the narrative – and there is not that much, angst and uncertainty are just as prominent – focuses on such spiritual concerns as forgiveness of sins and God’s blessing of the poor. Jewish faith and patience, not green wreaths and red bows, adorn the story with color and beauty.
I have no recollection of ever hearing the Christmas story as a child. In place of Santa Claus, we were nurtured on the miraculous story of Chanukah. How ironic it seems to me that this Jewish tale of God’s miraculous deliverance and miracle working power is closer in meaning to the Biblical Christmas than our modern substitutes (such as Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which is really the spirit behind the Christmas most Westerners know).
My family was not orthodox, but our circle of friends was fairly constricted. When we moved from New York City to Farmingdale, Long Island in 1963 (when I was 7 years old), we were surrounded by gentile neighbors for the first time; only one other Jewish family lived on our block. None of these neighbors had any positive impact on my evolving spiritual consciousness (in the sense of teaching me about the Christian faith); in fact, quite the opposite was true.
The only childhood Christmas lesson my neighborhood provided me with was the fact that being Jewish meant that I was an outsider. This is, of course, implicit in the original Biblical presentation, but in that story, the Romans, and not Christians, are the teachers. That lesson was taught one Chanukah celebration, without the use of words. The instructional aid was a milk carton, filled with mud, which was strategically balanced on top of our front screen door and the side of our house. Responding to the ringing of our bell, I just missed being hit on the head by the milk carton and its brown contents. In the blackness outside, I heard children laughing.
During the daytime, no doubt some, if not all, of these youngsters acted as if they were my playmates. I learned early on that anti-semitism is often expressed not only by one’s enemies, but also by one’s friends. The majority culture wants minorities (both racial and religious) to know their place, and that place is not in the inner circle, no matter how one is treated superficially or in public. Most anti-semites know better than to express their prejudice to a Jew’s face; most people prefer more indirect ways to make their point.
My public school experience in Farmingdale also served to reinforce this lesson of being on the outside. I don’t recall enduring classroom prayer as a child, but I do remember my childhood anger when the school concert featured songs that were explicitly Christian. No doubt the intent was to affirm the religious nature of Christmas and to instill positive values, but I came away feeling disenfranchised and excluded. The conclusion I drew was that American society tolerated the presence of Jews, but that being fully Jewish and American at the same time was problematic, if not impossible.
Like David, Jeremiah and John the Baptist, I cannot remember a time when I lacked faith in the God of the Jews. It is not that I responded to teachings with a positive spirit, for I never attended Hebrew school and visited the synagogue with family on the rarest of occasions. My family did not belong to the temple (my father explained that we could not afford the membership fee). My older brother took elementary Hebrew lessons for a short time, and I remember looking at his simple book with jealousy and affection. But his lessons did not last long, and I had to wait until my seminary days to study the language of my own people. My faith in God functioned more like a presupposition; it was always there and embraced without question.
Two influences encouraged and supported the growth of this faith: books and the existence of Israel as an independent, fledgling nation.
Elie Wiesel recounts the key role the love of reading played in his childhood and ties this love to Jewish culture:
My father had books in his grocery store. While waiting for customers, he would open one and read - and smile. I shall never forget his smile. He was not alone in living with such passion for books; most Jews in my town, and in all Jewish towns, shared that passion. Idleness was the greatest of sins. You have nothing to do? A father would admonish his son: take a book - any book ... If I had to describe hell, it would be a place without books. What would life be without their appeal to our fantasy, without their power to change things simply by revealing their hidden message? (Kingdom of Memory, pages 40, 44-46)
If I’ve inherited anything from my father, it is the love of books – both owning them and reading them. During childhood the library was my playground. My taste was indiscriminate and wide-ranging, as long as the book was non-fiction. History, geography, every kind of science, philosophy, biography and psychology books piqued my interest the most. Books were literally my windows to the world, since my family never traveled outside of New York. I dreamed of traveling to distant places as I peeked at pictures of the Kremlin, the Eiffel Tower, Mt. Fuji, and the Egyptian pyramids. I tried to rise above my intellectual limits by tackling physics books replete with formulas that made no sense. Einstein was a hero, even if his math was incomprehensible! Plato and Aristotle, with their rival philosophies, battled for my allegiance, and taught me to never be satisfied with the first answer that comes to one’s mind. The physical universe and the human soul do not reveal their structure and essence without a fight; the lazy of mind do not ask either the right questions or guess the right answers to life’s mysteries. The explorer must search, the researcher must probe, and the wise must prove to lady wisdom that he is a worthy groom. I came to the conviction that the only intellectual failure a student of knowledge, or a seeker of wisdom, can make is to refuse to push past the cover of a book.
Of all the hundreds of books I devoured as a pre-adolescent, the astronomy texts held a near sacred place in my heart. It took me almost twenty years to complete my pilgrimage to Mt. Palomar from the time I first read about its huge mirror that held the power to see into the depths of space, but I fantasized about receiving the privilege to guide that awesome telescope toward unknown mysteries. The night sky mystified me. Its beauty dazzled my imagination. I knew the constellations were mere human projections from ancient cultures, but I could not help but be attracted to the mythological tales that accompanied the patterns found in each astronomical work. My love for discerning patterns in life stems from this childhood fascination with identifying constellations referred to in the star guides.
Staring at the night sky was akin to praying. Long after my peers were asleep in their homes, I would remain outside by myself and stare for hours at the slow movement of the white points of distant light. Their slow trek across the dark expanse spoke to me. I may be a small part of the universe, but as long as I perceive the flow, life would be profoundly meaningful. As a Jew, I never once gave credence to the pantheistic notion that nature is divine; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had to be more than helium! But as the creator all of all things, the heavens demonstrated the mastery of God’s artistry; the beauty of the sky above my head invited me into a form of mysticism sanctioned by Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge.”
The point of this mystical experience is succinctly stated by Paul, who rightly condemns idolatry – the worshipping of creation or its parts instead of the creator God who stands behind it all: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
The mystic in me combined forces with the historian and lover of books. The God who in Genesis claims credit for creation is none other than the God who chooses the Jewish people in Exodus. The cosmic God is the God of human history, who manifests his character and power on behalf of an enslaved race. Furthermore, he is the author of a sacred book which records his ongoing concern for his people, which is expressed in the form of a covenant. The covenant calls for faithfulness and devotion from the chosen people, the Jews. In brief, this was the state of my Judaic understanding as a youth.
The historical and prophetic portions of the Old Testament defined the outlines of my conscious faith. The historical books provided me with a confidence in the ability of the Jewish God to defend his people from oppression and assimilation. This confidence expressed itself in a Zionist manner, especially in light of the six day war between Israel and its Arab neighbors in 1967. I initially learned of the outbreak of the war as I tinkered with an old tube short-wave radio. Fear filled my soul as I tuned into Radio Moscow and heard the newscast that announced the beginnings of conflict. Anxiety turned to pride as the war ended as quickly as it had begun, with Israel handing a stunning defeat to an enemy with superior numbers. In my youthful mind, there was no doubt that the God who delivered Israel from Pharaoh had pulled off a similar miracle in the modern age.
The prophets inspired hope. I believed in the future painted by Isaiah and Ezekiel. Israel would stand as an independent nation under God, and the nations of the world would realize that the Jewish God is also the universal sovereign. Ezekiel’s prophecies concerning the resurrection of the valley of dry bones (chapter 37) and God’s defeat of Israel’s enemies (chapters 38-39) were my personal favorites. Not only did Ezekiel introduce me to a new form of mysticism, but he also provided me with a messianic consciousness to go along with my Zionist political perspective.
Ezekiel’s mysticism is introduced as early as chapter one, which became the basis for a school of Jewish mysticism centered on discovering the glory of God. This heavenly throne mysticism is called Merkabah. Ezekiel picks up this theme again in chapters 40-48. In chapter 37, Ezekiel speaks of a mystical trip into “the middle of a valley” which enables him to participate in God’s redemptive activity. I took the chapter to refer to Israel’s re-emergence as a nation in 1948. I further understood verses 24-25 to refer to the hoped for Jewish messiah, whose identity was still unrevealed:
“My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.”
The promised messianic age would be preceded by one last display of God’s power against Israel’s arrogant enemies (chapters 38-39): “And so I will show my greatness and holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD” (38:23).
All of this came alive for me in a mystical way when I was about seven years old. I had a dream, no doubt inspired by my reading of Ezekiel’s vision. In the dream, I am transported to Israel, and stand on the mountains described in chapters 38-39. I vividly recall seeing the antagonist armies of the gentile nations – thousands upon thousands of men. Looking up toward the sky, I am amazed to see a man riding on a white war horse! Behind him are hosts of other angelic combatants who are following him earthward. I point to the one in front, and shout, “That’s my messiah!” The dream ended at that moment.
Most children have imaginative dreams that flow from the normal course of childhood experiences, but there was something about this dream that convinced me to view it as a spiritual communication. It felt sacred, numinous, and mystical. The dream transcended the ordinary in its intensity and authenticity. Instinctively, I decided not to tell anyone about it, and considered it a secret present from God.
Ezekiel’s vision of the restoration of Israel contained within it a problem that resonated with another side of my personal journey – the problem of sin and forgiveness. In the vision of the two sticks united together (Ezekiel 37:15-28), God declares, “I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.” Similarly, after the climactic battle described in the following two chapters, God judges Israel’s journey in rather startling terms: “And the nations will know that the people of Israel went into exile for their sin, because they were unfaithful to me” (Ezekiel 39:23).
A secret war waged in my soul as I made my way through elementary school and into junior high. My intellectual precociousness and sharp tongue convinced most peers to refrain from arguing with me, and so I turned my critical gaze to intellectual controversies (I spent hours debating both sides of issues as I walked through my neighborhood) and toward my own shortcomings. I was too young to be involved in what most people would call sinful behavior (drug and alcohol use, stealing, etc.), and honestly such activities held little interest for me. Even as a teenager, the most rebellious activity I embraced was growing my hair long! Gazing at issues energized me, but examining my shortcomings became quietly devastating. My personal standard was perfection, and nothing less was acceptable for me. If I received a 100% grade on a test, but missed the extra credit question, I considered the effort a complete failure. This competition was internal (the reality of my performance versus my assumed potential), and was not usually directed against others. By fifth grade, this purely self-imposed pressure (my parents never applied such unrealistic expectations) produced symptoms which made the doctor suspect I was developing a stomach ulcer. He told me to stop worrying, and I tried as hard as I could to be more relaxed about my grades (I never really succeeded).
There was a deeper worry connected to my perfectionism that was more spiritual in nature. I was acutely concerned about Ezekiel’s doctrine of sin, for both myself and for Israel. My personal sinfulness was manifest to me because I knew I was not perfect. If I could not be perfect, how then would God forgive my shortcomings? How could I forgive myself and be delivered from the perfectionist trap?
I sought for an answer from Torah. Reading the Law in a simplistic manner and without adult guidance, I came to see that Israel’s sin (both on personal and national levels) required sacrificial offerings to be forgiven:
“If the whole Israelite community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’s commands, even though the community is unaware of the matter, they are guilty. When they become aware of the sin they committed, the assembly must bring a young bull as a sin offering and present it before the Tent of Meeting ... If a member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’s commands, he is guilty. When he is made aware of the sin he committed, he must bring as his offering for the sin a female goat without defect ... In this way the priest will make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven.”
(Leviticus 4:13-14, 27-28, 31)
Surprisingly, the answer to my spiritual uneasiness was rather simple. The Jewish solution to guilt and sin involves sacrificing perfect (unblemished) animals to God as a sign of inner contrition and remorse. If I couldn’t personally be perfect, God could communicate his sympathetic understanding of my predicament through such a ceremonial activity. Although all of the references to bloodletting seemed gory to me, I was willing to accept the solution at face value. I was particularly impressed by the Biblical passages regarding the Day of Atonement, because I was aware of that special day each fall:
This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work – whether native-born or alien living among you – because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the LORD, you will be clean from all your sins. It is a sabbath of rest, and you must deny yourselves; it is a lasting ordinance. The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement ... This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites.”
(Leviticus 16:29-32,34)
I remember how our family observed Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when I was a little child – during the period when we lived in Far Rockaway. We did not have regular Sabbath observances, but on Yom Kippur, life was different. I could not play with the other children, and I had to wear stiff shoes instead of my more comfortable P.F. Flyers. The shoes indicated that the day was a form of mild torture for an active child; restraint overtook natural joy, and quiet replaced laughter. However, only the memory of this observance survived our move to Long Island. By the time I encountered Leviticus, such cursory acknowledgments of the Day of Atonement had been abandoned, and at best it was memorable because the Jews of Farmingdale were allowed to take the day off from school as a holiday. There were some advantages to being Jewish, even in a gentile world!
Yom Kippur troubled me. Leviticus asserts its ongoing validity for Israel’s spiritual sanctity, but its modern day observance, from my vantage point, seemed to mock its true meaning. Where were the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar where the unblemished animals could atone for my imperfections? Gone. Where was the Temple conceived by David and built by Solomon (and then rebuilt following the exile)? Gone. Where was my sacrifice for sins? Gone. Where was forgiveness? Gone.
Relatives were of little use as I considered a vexing problem that increasingly appeared to be irresolvable. Since none of them were aware of my inner conflicts, they understood my questions concerning the Day of Atonement and the lack of animal sacrifices as curious but insignificant. I was always asking questions about every conceivable subject, and so I can imagine from their perspective that the Yom Kippur inquiries were just more of the same. This was not true.
The lack of a literal re-playing of the Day of Atonement rituals in contemporary Judaism destroyed my faith in its validity. At the age of ten, I felt cut off from the Biblical past and its promises. I never doubted the truthfulness of the Bible, nor its claim over my life, but I lost confidence in modern Judaism to convey its blessings and fulfill its promises. I remained a Zionist, I identified myself as a Jew (since I already had such a jaundiced view of gentiles), but the synagogue was no place for me. Fortunately, it was never offered as an option, and no outward rebellion was necessary.
My “bar mitzvah” at the age of thirteen was a sham and a shame. Since our family did not belong to the temple, I received no religious or language preparation for it. There was no service, no reading of sacred scrolls, and no authenticity to the day. As the time approached for the bar mitzvah party, I gingerly asked my parents about how they were going to explain away the absence of the religious service. How can one have a bar mitzvah party without a bar mitzvah? They assured me that people were told that the service was private, but this made no sense to me and I felt like a fraud. How could I take my place as a man in the Jewish community on such a basis? The only saving grace of the day was that enough cash gifts were given to enable me to buy a six-inch reflector telescope – a dream I had longed to fulfill since third grade and was told could become a reality on my thirteenth birthday. It arrived in June of that year.
After years of struggling with heart and other illnesses, my mother passed away in February, 1971, less than a year after I endured the charade of my bar mitzvah. I inherited from her certain characteristics: a fierce sense of independence, a love of the New York Mets and pizza, and a pretty sharp sense of humor. She respected my curiosity and willingness to take intellectual risks, and though she was never at a loss for an opinion, gave me wide latitude in charting my own course. In return, I tried to make her life transcend the physical limitations she coped with. She taught me how to do the laundry, shop for good food bargains, and cook a few standard meals.
Such independence prepared me well for her death. Saying good-bye was sad, but not debilitating. My hunger for learning, my immersion into the solitary world of reading, and my own dreams for my future (would I be an astronomer or a lawyer?) engaged my heart and soul. I was self-sufficient, self-motivated, achievement-oriented and confident. It probably didn’t hurt that I had already begun to take an interest in girls. When the heart begins to imagine what a pretty girl’s embrace would feel like, a hug from one’s mother becomes a little less necessary.
In an age that is so psychologically-oriented, it is only natural to wonder if there was a connection between my mother’s death and my conversion experience at the end of 1971. Did I feel a need to convert because I had lost such a powerful mother figure? Was accepting Jesus a way of filling a void? Such a thought never entered my mind when I was thirteen, and doesn’t ring true almost 30 years later. I missed having a mother to some extent, but the loss faded rather quickly. With or without a mother, my orientation to life came from within. Life’s challenges were only growing more attractive as I gained increased knowledge and studied fresh topics. I felt fully alive and eager for anything that might come, and on a conscious level felt no need to fill any void except for the one created by ignorance. Having come to the previously discussed conclusions regarding Judaism, I spent very little time after my bar mitzvah on specifically religious matters. The telescope needed to be pointed to the heavens, and with a presidential election year looming, I fell in love with political matters. Newsday and the New York Times received far more attention than the Bible.
My conversion experience caught me totally by surprise. No one else who knew me at that time saw it coming either. I didn’t ask for it, and was not searching for new religious input. I didn’t want to convert to an alien religion such as Christianity, and I felt no need to explore other religions. I did not quest for Jesus; Jesus descended to me, and without my assent. He came through a voice, and I encountered divine glory.
When most of the prophets tell of their experience of the kavod (glory) of God, they emphasize what they saw and heard. But not every vision actively engages both senses; sometimes one sees but does not hear the divine voice, while on other occasions God’s voice is heard but no representation of the invisible God is necessary. In my case, I heard a voice, and was reminded of my mystical dream inspired by Ezekiel’s prophecy.
In 1971, December 23 fell on a Thursday. I was by myself in the family’s living room, flipping through channels to find something acceptable to watch on our old black and white television. Although I made it a point never to watch Christmas related programs, that night I made an exception to the rule, out of boredom. A Christmas Carol was on one of the New York City stations, and I watched it with a sarcastic attitude; Scrooge impressed me far more than Tiny Tim and the rest. Following that movie, another version of the story (the English one) aired, and I decided to watch again.
During that movie, I felt a presence in my home. It was all around me, and my body responded to the presence by tingling. The sensation was akin to how one’s leg or arm feels when it “falls asleep.” It didn’t hurt and certainly didn’t feel ticklish. For some reason, I had an intuition that the source of the presence was upstairs, where my brother and I shared a bedroom (the other half of the second floor was an unfinished attic). I had no fear of this unknown intruder, but my curiosity was overwhelming. The mystery had to be solved.
When I entered my bedroom, I immediately turned on all of the lights to see if someone was hiding in the darkness. Seeing no one, I opened up the two closets and discovered nothing but clothes and games. Nevertheless, I knew I was on to something, for the presence and the attendant physical sensations had become much stronger. Whatever I sensed was right there with me in my room – that was for certain!
Standing in the small alcove area of the room, and confused about this mysterious intrusion into the normalcy of my night, I asked out loud and to no one in particular, “What should I do now?” To my complete astonishment, I heard a strong voice reply! I have wondered about the nature of that voice ever since. Its authority and spiritual power were undeniable. From my perspective, it did not come from within (like a thought or an interiorized spiritual voice) – I heard it with my ears. Would someone else have heard the voice if they were standing next to me in that room on that night?
At the exact moment the voice revealed itself to me, I was eyeing the corner of my brother’s bookshelf. A book that I did not recognize was lying flat on one of the shelves, and that struck me as odd. I thought it impossible for a book to enter my room without my knowing about it. The voice commanded, “Pick up that book!” – and I obeyed without any hesitation or thought.
Dusting the mysterious book off while sitting down on my bed, I was shocked to discover that it was a Bible containing both the Old and New Testaments. I had never seen a New Testament before, and I couldn’t understand why one would have invaded my room. Processing this strange turn of events as quickly as possible, I repeated my original question – and once again the voice responded! I was actually having a conversation with someone I could not see!
The invisible conversation partner ordered me to action: “Turn to the last pages of this book!” This was certainly a command, and not a suggestion, and I didn’t pause to contest. Paging toward the back of the Bible, my attention fell to this passage in Revelation, a piece of literature I had never heard of or read. I then proceeded to read my first passage from the New Testament:
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
(Revelation 19:11-16)
What an incredible discovery! My mystical secret was not my own private possession; someone else was given the same dream two thousand years earlier. The titles given to the rider on the white horse indicated that the messiah was being described, but I was frustrated by the lack of a personal name. Who was this King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Word of God who is Faithful and True? I sensed the author was using some kind of code to let only the initiated know the true identity of the rider, and I didn’t have the key to the translation of the text. With nothing to lose, I asked my unseen guide, “What should I do next?” What made me believe I would receive an answer?
The answer came immediately, and I knew from an increased sense of the presence that the stakes were high. The voice spoke to me one last time: “Turn to the first page of this New Testament!”
Where was the first page of the New Testament? The youngest children in Sunday school know that the gospel of Matthew begins the Christian revelation, but I was not familiar with either Matthew or anything else in the New Testament. Employing the table of contents in the front of the book, I found what page Matthew began on and turned to it. Experiencing shock and calmness at the same time, I started to read the gospel: “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham . . .” (Matthew 1:1).
How many countless numbers of churchgoers have heard this simple introduction and never thought twice about its astounding claims? Although it is not even a complete sentence, I could read no further, due to my astonishment. Jesus Christ is Jewish? How could that be? In my mind, Jesus was not Jewish; he was a Christian! The god of gentiles was Jewish by birth – this was too amazing to be true! Speed-reading through Matthew’s genealogy, I came to the angelic announcement, for Joseph’s benefit, of Jesus’ birth. In the dream, Joseph hears: “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
My mind raced to make logical connections. Jesus is a Jew. He is the rider on the white horse. He has been empowered to forgive sins. He is the Jewish Messiah. He is the one for whom I’ve been waiting.
Prayer carried my response to this collection of new ideas, which penetrated my heart with surprising ease. Uncharacteristically, I offered no resistance to their implications for my beliefs and life – I simply believed it all and required no further convincing. My prayer acknowledged Jesus as “my master and messiah” and sincerely promised to live out and fulfill his will for the rest of my life – with one spontaneous exception. The early 1970’s witnessed the expansion of the Jesus movement, whose adherents evangelized by handing out pamphlets to strangers. This confrontational style repelled me (as it does most Jews), and I concluded my prayer by making a point that I would not participate in such activities. However, within days I was sharing my new found faith in Christ with friends, fellow students and others (I informed my family of my conversion later). God had completely transformed my heart!
That’s the last thing I remember about that night. I have no memory of seeing family, returning downstairs, or going to sleep. It was as if that part of my life had come to an end, and a new one was just commencing. Christmas had invaded my life.
________
Lee Spitzer is the Senior Regional Pastor of the American Baptist Churches of New Jersey. He grew up in a Jewish family and became a Christian in high school.
Copyright (c) 1999. All rights reserved.
