From Jews for Jesus
Dr. Richard Ganz - The Revival of a Rebel Jew
Dr. Richard Ganz
Then one cold, clear midwinter night my life was shattered. My father had a heart attack and I ran for comfort and hope to the one place I thought I would find it—the synagogue. The doors were locked and as I hammered on them I looked up into the New York night sky, cold, crystal-clear and filled with stars, and I cursed God. "I am through with you!" I said. But that night, as I turned away from the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, little did I realize that he was far from through with me.
The next twelve years of my life were not lived in the synagogue. In my rebellion I went so far as to renounce the covenant name given at my circumcision—Elkanah. I modified it a little, so that I was no longer Elkanah but Kanah.
In the Bible there is nothing accidental about names. Abram means, "Exalted father" and Abraham means, "Father of a multitude." When he was 99 years old and Sarah was 89 and they were promised a son, they laughed at God. But God said he would give them a son, and they named him Isaac, which means, "laughter."
When Jacob and Esau were born and Jacob pulled at the heel of his brother he was named for that action; the name Jacob means, "the grasper" and all his life he grasped. He grasped after the blessing and the birthright. He lived up to that name and when he met God and wrestled with him he said, I want your blessing. God said, What is your name? You want a blessing, grasper? No longer is your name "Grasper"; you have grasped with God and you have prevailed. Your name is, Israel—he who has wrestled with God and prevailed.
The Hebrew name Elkanah means, "Possessed by God" but I changed it to Kanah, translated Cain in English versions of the Bible. Cain means, "Possessed," and for the next twelve years of my life I was possessed with the world and with what it offered; I was possessed with getting ahead in life; I was possessed with Rich Ganz. I led what appeared to be a very laudable life. I moved ahead in what I desired to do. I went through university and graduate school, from which I graduated top of the class. Following my internship and a year of post-doctoral study, I was teaching at a medical center at a major university.
The Twilight Zone
During my year of post-doctoral studies, the realization hit me one day at a staff meeting that psychoanalysis—the area I thought provided the answer to life—was nonsense. Until that point I had been searching for some form of therapy—individual therapy, group therapy, hypnotherapy or some other kind of therapy through which I could discover the meaning of life: what we were all about and why we're here. Instead, I discovered that it was all rubbish. But instead of looking for the answer to life elsewhere, I cynically told myself that although psychoanalysis was meaningless I was going to become very rich practicing it. If life was meaningless at least I could have fun by being wealthy in a meaningless life. All I had to do was sit in a chair listening to my patients, nod my head every few minutes, and charge $75 an hour.
To celebrate my selection from 212 applicants to that position at the university medical center, my wife and I took a trip to Europe, into a series of unbelievable situations. We had tickets for Athens scheduled, but the night before we picked them up my wife suddenly sat bolt upright up in bed saying, "We can't get out of Athens! We can't get out of Athens!" The next day when arriving to pick up our student-rate tickets we were told that the tickets would get us into Athens but not out!
Nancy became terrified. She thought she was in the Twilight Zone; something supernatural had happened and the only interpretation she could place on it was that it was something evil. We changed our plans and found ourselves being drawn inexplicably and inextricably in a direction totally contrary to our agenda.
We ended up in a little Dutch town looking for somewhere to stay. No one knew of any hotel or inn. Night was falling, we were on the banks of the Rhine, it was getting a chilly and my wife was frightened. She then did something she hadn't done since she was a child—she prayed. It was a very simple prayer: "God, if you are there, please find us a place to stay." At that moment, out of the darkness of an alley walked a man of average height, very pale, with long blond hair and blue eyes. "Ask him", she said.
Tell Them Buck Sent You
He told us to go three blocks down, turn right, walk another three blocks and we would see exactly where we were supposed to stay: "Just tell them Buck sent you", he said. It seemed bizarre but we followed his directions until we came to a co-operative for the students of the last gold-and silver-making school in Europe. During the next two weeks we saw all the people who had told us there was no place to stay. They were all friends with the young people who lived in this house but there was one person we didn't meet again; for two weeks we searched for Buck. No one in the town had ever heard of him or recognized our description of him. A year later I was receiving letters from students who were still trying to find him.
On the last day, as we were leaving, someone handed me a slip of paper with an address and told me there were "some really beautiful people" there. I knew I was being drawn in a certain direction and it seemed as though every step was being taken for me and it was predestined.
We arrived at L'Abri at about five on a Saturday afternoon. I had prepared a careful explanation as to why we were suddenly turning up on their doorstep. However, before I could say anything, the door opened and we were greeted: "You've arrived! Welcome."
Anyone at the Cross Could Have Written That!
The next few days were interesting. They were full of religious discussion. But as a man with no sense of God, seeing myself as a chance accumulation of molecules in an absurd and meaningless world, I listened and talked to these people, questioning and mocking their beliefs. Then one day a man asked me if he could read something from the Bible to me. I consented, and this is what he read.
Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; so shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider.
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
I'd heard that expression "Man of sorrows" and "acquainted with grief" before, though I wasn't sure where. But at that point I suddenly understood what was happening: they were reading to me about Jesus. I thought, Do they know what they are doing, reading this Christian stuff to a Jew? But I told myself to be patient.
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions...
Images of Renaissance paintings leapt to my mind. I wasn't an ordinary Jewish guy; I had a doctorate; I was cultured; I'd seen paintings with crosses; I knew that their guy had been pierced. They were trying to read me stories about Jesus and I felt the anger rising in me.
He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all...
Jesus just bore your sins! I couldn't stand it. That was just a cheap way out of long term psychoanalysis. What they were telling me was "the Catholic way." From the age of seven, when I had walked into a Catholic church, I thought Jesus was a Catholic; Scandinavian, perhaps, very delicate, tall, thin—slightly anorexic—with long silken blond hair and piercing blue eyes. I had got as far as the vestibule of the church, looked at one of the statues and thought that the ground was going to open up and swallow me; that I was unalterably damned for having done that, and I ran eight blocks home to get away from what I considered an unpardonable sin.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgement, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—but with the rich at His death…
I remembered pictures of Jesus on the cross and the two thieves, one on either side of him. Three crosses—I knew that stuff; they weren't going to fool me with their rhetoric.
but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days...
There was the myth about the resurrection. They get it into all their literature, don't they. They can't accept the fact that once a person is dead, he's dead. Grow up! Put away your infantile neuroses and realize that when you're dead, you're dead; that's it.
He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
When he finished reading, he looked at me and said, "What do you think?"
I was, of course, keen to give the benefit of my insights. They were obviously quoting to me from their New Testament and I responded without a moment's hesitation: "Anyone who was there at that cross could have written that stuff! What does that prove?"
He handed me the Bible and in a millisecond of receiving it, my life was changed. The name that I saw at the top of the page was Isaiah! They had been reading from my Bible, my Hebrew Scriptures, and I felt as though someone had taken a sword and cut me to pieces. When the man who read it told me it was written 700 years before Jesus was born, I felt dead. Why couldn't it be Krishna? Why couldn't it be Buddha? Why does it have to be him? I knew at that instant that if Jesus wrote history about himself in my Bible—if the Gentile God was the Jewish God and he was truly God—then I had to submit everything to him for the rest of my life.
A Bird's Eye View of the Bible
During our stay at L'Abri, someone gave my wife Nancy a tape by Edith Schaeffer called, A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible, an overview of the Scriptures from Genesis through to Revelation in 40 minutes, dealing with the theme of the Lamb of God. From her earliest days until her confirmation, she had been familiar with the phrase, "Behold the Lamb of God," and always wondered why Jesus was given that name. Just as I had learned from Isaiah that Messiah was to be a sacrifice for sin, Nancy discovered the same truth from that title given to Jesus. After listening to the tape she went out to the apple orchard at L'Abri and surrendered her life to Jesus Christ.
Four Little Words
When we returned to the United States, I was given a patient at the medical centre who hadn't spoken an intelligent word in four and a half years. My assignment was, get Immanuel to speak four or five words coherently. He came into my group therapy session, sat down and began to hyperventilate and writhe around. He said, "I'm Jesus Christ!" I pulled out a Gideon New Testament and read from the 24th chapter of Matthew's Gospel: "Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!' do not believe it … For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."
Silence.
"Where did you read that?"
I threw the Bible to him, "In the Gospel of Matthew. Read it."
And for a month he was silent, then he came to my office: "Dr. Ganz [I was impressed], I want to become a Christian."
I took Immanuel into my office, shared the Good News of Jesus with him and, with tears, he received Christ. The next day the director of my department called me into his office. "Rich," he said, "I have been here 31 years and I've just heard the craziest story. Immanuel has been running around the ward telling everyone who will listen that he's saved."
I interrupted at that point: "How many words did it take him to say it?" I was hoping they'd realize what great success this was.
"And that's not the worst of it, Rich," he said, "he's attributing it to you. Many people wanted your job, Rich, and I'll tell you what we'll do. If you promise never to do this again—do it after work if you must—but if from nine till four you leave Jesus out, we'll forget this ever happened."
I asked for a day to think and pray about it and the next day I said, "Howard, I'm going to share with you what I believe," and I summed up by saying that I must obey God and could not keep Jesus from my patients. I was fired and Immanuel left the hospital with me and went to Bible College where he prepared for missionary work.
I couldn't believe what had happened. Psychoanalysis was all I knew; I couldn't do anything else with my life. If I went to another hospital or another university the same thing would happen. I thought everything was over.
Someone suggested that I go to Westminster Theological Seminary where Dr. Jay E. Adams, the author of a number of books on counseling, was a professor. I spent the next four years studying at Westminster and working with Dr. Adams at the Christian Counseling Center. Through this, God led us in a very unusual way into something I never would have chosen to do or to be involved in—pastoral ministry. The years have not seen me smiling and happy all the time. Daily breaking and humbling by God has been excruciating in some ways. God had called me to preach his Son and, as Paul of Tarsus put it: "Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel."
Through my story I have tried to preach the gospel to you so that you might believe in Jesus the Messiah.
From Generation to Generation - A Jewish Family Finds Their Way Home
My name is Steven Peter Wertheim. I was born August 3, 1951 in the Bronx, New York — but our family actually lived in the upper west side of Manhattan, where it seemed like everyone was either Jewish or Catholic. Regular fights broke out between us neighborhood kids. As things heated up, invariably "one of them" would call "one of us" "Christ killer." I had no idea what "Christ killer" meant, but I knew it meant a fight was imminent.
I asked my parents why those kids were so mean to us. They explained that many Christians hated Jews simply because we were Jews, and reminded me of history, especially the Holocaust.
During Kristallnacht my grandfather's business was stolen from him along with everything he owned. Then the Nazis took him away and my dad, his sisters and their mother thought they would never see him again.
Mom and Dad frequently told me about the cruelty they suffered from "the Christians." As a child, I knew that I had to defend myself for being Jewish. The Hanukkah story always meant a lot to us, because we knew what it was like to have to fight. It was very satisfying to celebrate our people's victory over those who had tried to assimilate or exterminate us.
When I was eight years old I started going to Hebrew school three times a week and attending synagogue in preparation for my bar mitzvah. If you had asked me, "Do you believe in God?" I probably would have said yes. But I never thought much about what he might expect of me, or vice versa.
My bar mitzvah service was held in a synagogue in Queens, as we had recently moved there from Manhattan. My mother had labored for many months to make sure everything was perfect. I felt embarrassed by all the attention, though I appreciated all the effort and expense.
After my bar mitzvah, my life seemed to take a radical turn. For one thing, having "become a man" made me responsible in new ways. I took on a series of part-time jobs when I was 14. I liked having my own money, but there wasn't a lot of time for playing or doing "kid" things.
I missed my friends from Manhattan and, as a teenager, I did not find it easy to make new friends. My self-esteem plummeted and what little belief I'd had in God disintegrated as I saw no evidence that he cared.
My relationship with my family grew intolerable. There was constant fighting—a lot of yelling alternated with angry silences. Much of that was probably due to normal generation gap issues, but in addition, we were so close that friction was inevitable. Whereas many families have problems with a lack of communication, I felt like we had more than enough. Everything was a family decision; I was brought into every conversation and expected to participate as an adult.
In retrospect, I'm sure my parents were expressing respect for my adulthood, but in fact I still was, and wanted to be, a kid. My brother, who was seven years younger than I, was even more a kid than I was, and with that age difference came a huge gap in our experience and interests. Yet my parents seemed to expect me to be Rob's closest companion, an expectation I was not prepared to fulfill.
My parents' experiences in Germany affected our family dynamic. Many Holocaust survivors were robbed of their childhood, and have a limited idea of what it should be. Plus, knowing so many people who died or lost family members caused those who were more fortunate to be extremely focused on their loved ones. I didn't appreciate what might be behind the tight grip my family had on me. I just knew that I wanted some distance from all that closeness. I couldn't wait to be out of school so I could move away.
I was accepted into a school in New Hampshire. After a year, I transferred to C.W. Post College, which is part of Long Island University. I earned my college degree in History and Education. However, I hated being in debt, and decided that paying off my student loan was more important than pursuing my profession.
I worked in the post office alongside my father to pay off that student loan. And then I only wanted one thing: to escape from New York City. My grandfather, a gentle and generous man, laid out a good sum of money enabling me to buy my first car—an orange Volkswagen Beetle—during the summer of 1974.
That September I packed my bags, and my father and I drove west to Southern California—as far away as I could get. We arrived there a week or so later and checked into a motel, where we stayed for about a week while I went job and apartment hunting.
I quickly got a job as a bank teller. My next task was to find a place to live. My father and I happened upon a building with an apartment for rent on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. I looked at the studio and wasn't overly impressed. The managers, Lily and Burt, were a friendly, middle-aged British couple. Lily and my father established an immediate rapport. Dad confided that he was nervous about my being so far away. Lily assured him that she would "keep an eye out" for me. He obviously enjoyed her and after we left, encouraged me to take the place. I wasn't too keen on this particular apartment, but I gave in.
I took Dad to the airport the next day, knowing that it would be some time before I saw him or any other family member again.
Within a few weeks, Lily and Burt invited me to their apartment. They also invited a couple about my age who had just moved to Los Angeles. The husband was Jewish and originally from New York. Lily and Burt thought we might have some things in common.
I'm an inquisitive person and when I meet new people I normally ask lots of questions. But when I met Baruch and Marcia Goldstein, for some reason I refrained from asking these nice people what they did for a living.
A few weeks later Baruch called and invited me to their home for dinner. When we sat down to eat, Baruch said he hoped I wouldn't mind, but it was their tradition to pray at mealtimes. I didn't care if they prayed, but at the close of their prayer I heard three words that shook me up: "IN JESUS' NAME."
Afterwards, I asked them to explain that prayer. They told me that they were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. In fact, Baruch and Marcia were working with Jews for Jesus. I blurted out, "You can't be Jewish and believe in Jesus!" We had a heated discussion at the dinner table. Still, I thought I should be somewhat tolerant for just one evening. They mentioned that they were beginning a Bible study on Friday nights. I turned down the invitation.
But the truth was, if it weren't for their belief in Jesus, I would like to have been friends with these people. After a while I asked myself, what was the worst that could happen if I went to one of their Bible studies? So one evening in October of 1974 I accepted the invitation. I met a half a dozen or so other people, mostly university students or recent graduates. Some were clean-shaven and conservatively dressed while others were more of the "hippie" genre.
On my way home I couldn't help thinking that these were nice people, although misguided. I started attending regularly. I found my belief in God resurfacing as I heard these people describe what he had done in their lives. I began to look forward to the Bible study.
I let my parents know I was studying the Bible with a Jewish group. They were quite astonished since I had previously made it clear that I had given up on God and all things religious. Nevertheless, they were pleased that my new friends were Jewish and that I had become interested in God. I didn't tell them that these people believed in Jesus. How could I explain it to them when I didn't quite understand it myself?
About three months into the Bible studies, a conflict began growing inside me. Things these Jews for Jesus believed were starting to make sense. Being able to discuss the Bible with others who saw its value and who cared about God—and who were Jewish—meant a lot to me. No one had pressured me about my beliefs, yet I found the Bible to be very convincing.
And that scared me.
All I could think was that my parents would never understand if I came to believe that Jesus was Messiah. I remembered every detail of all the things that, as far as my parents were concerned, had been done to us by "the Christians." I felt I could not afford to think any further about Jesus.
So, in January of 1975, I started absenting myself from the people I had become close to. But after a few weeks, I found it difficult to stay away from the Bible studies. It wasn't just the quality of the people, but what they believed that drew me into a relationship, not only with them but with a God I had never really known before. I began to feel that perhaps I couldn't afford to NOT think any further about Jesus.
I returned to the Bible studies. I remember one Friday night—March 7—I told a friend, "I feel like God is standing at my door, knocking as though he wants to come in and be with me. It seems like all I need to do is let him in, but I don't know if I'm ready."
By this time I had gotten into the habit of praying. I asked God to help me be certain if Jesus was true, and to give me the courage to live according to what was right and real, even if it had painful consequences.
After a restless night I was still experiencing tremendous turmoil. I got in the car with no particular plan and found myself near the beach. It was a rare overcast day in March.
I parked and walked around for awhile. Water, sand, sky…all seemed grey, and it fit my mood. When I left the beach I drove to Baruch and Marcia's house.
I told Baruch I was torn. I knew that Jesus was the Messiah but I wasn't prepared for what would happen if I believed in Him. I couldn't give up my family. At the same time I said that I didn't know what I needed to do in order to follow through on this new belief. He responded that if I really believed Jesus was the Messiah, it would be good if I would confirm that before God through prayer.
I prayed with Baruch, asking God to forgive my sins on the basis of Jesus' atoning death. And I asked God to help me to follow Y'shua (Jesus) and live a life that would please God. Afterwards, I felt a peace that I had not experienced before. But before long the uppermost thought in my mind was that I had to tell my parents.
It was nearly Passover and my brother Rob, sixteen at the time, came to visit me and accompanied me to a seder at Baruch and Marcia's home. We got to the third cup of wine after dinner, along with the Afikomen. Baruch told how Jesus had taken this cup and the matzo that traditionally point to the Passover Lamb, and used them to point to his body and blood. Baruch explained that those who believe that Jesus' sacrifice was an atonement for sin now use the bread and cup to remember what he did for us.
On the drive back to my apartment, Rob asked me if I believed in Jesus as the Messiah. I told him that I did, but that I had not yet told our parents. And I asked him to not tell them either. I explained that I wanted to do that myself.
The next time I spoke with my parents, I felt a strain in our conversation. I asked my parents if Rob had "told them." My mother asked, "Told us what?" I said, "About my believing in Jesus," My mother said that she didn't know what I was talking about. What I perceived as a strain was simply my own feelings of guilt for not telling them what I believed. We didn't talk much more at the time. But that didn't mean the subject was closed.
Two weeks later we had an hour-long fight over the phone. The accusation that I was no longer Jewish alternated with cries of, "Where did we go wrong?" I later found out that following the phone call, my parents wrote me a letter, which basically said that they wanted nothing more to do with me and that they preferred that I not contact them until I came to my senses and stopped the narishkeit of believing in Jesus. Even though they never sent the letter the relationship was stressed at best.
That summer, Baruch and Marcia Goldstein were going to be in New York and they offered to meet my parents. I mentioned this to Mom and Dad, and at first the offer was refused. Later they reluctantly acquiesced. My father told me prior to their coming that he wanted to "throw Baruch off the terrace."
The evening came and the four of them actually had a pleasant evening together. My family even called to let me know how much they enjoyed the Goldsteins' visit.
Within a few weeks my parents and Rob came to visit me in California. We were together for three weeks. It became quite evident to my family that I took my belief in Jesus seriously. They allowed me to tell them what I believed and why I believed it.
During our last week together, my family joined me at the Bible study. After everyone else had left, we sat having coffee with Baruch and Marcia. My father suddenly turned to my mother and said, "Laura, what would you do if I believed in Jesus?" After a moment of contemplation my mother responded, "I'd probably leave you." The discussion didn't last much longer, and neither did our visit. My parents and Rob returned to New York.
By this time, unknown to the family, Rob had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. However, he didn't feel he could voice his decision without risking being thrown out of my parents' home.
In 1975 Jews for Jesus opened its branch office in New York City. In September my family was invited to Bible studies in Manhattan. My father was eager to go and my brother went with him. My mother was not interested but went because of my father.
Eventually, Dad told Mom that he believed in Jesus. Mom did not leave him, but tensions began to heat up. Now that my father believed, Rob no longer feared the consequences of his own faith and confessed that he, too, believed in Jesus.
Up until this point my mother had endured the Bible studies and the "Jesus talk." Now that the whole family had "turned," she let us all know that she didn't want to hear anything more about Jesus.
One Tuesday night my father planned to meet my mother after work, to take her to dinner before Bible study. My mother informed him that she would make her own way home. She went to the subway only to find that the trains were indefinitely delayed. She went back upstairs to take alternate means of transportation home and found that it would be impossible to get home in a reasonable amount of time. She then called my dad, had him pick her up and they proceeded with the original plan for the evening.
That night my mother saw a film about Corrie ten Boom, a Christian who hid Jews during the Holocaust, and it deeply touched her. She realized that her reasons for holding out from what the rest of the family believed didn't have so much to do with who Jesus was as who she thought Christians were. The film helped her to see that people who truly love Jesus also love the Jewish people. Within a couple of weeks, my mother embraced Jesus as Messiah.
Who would have believed that our entire family would be reunited as Jews who all believe in Jesus? Or that I would one day meet and marry another Jewish believer in Jesus?
One day a friend of mine was sent an audition tape from a young woman on the East Coast who was applying to Jews for Jesus. He played the tape for me and I thought, "That's the best voice I've heard since Joni Mitchell. I've got to meet this girl..."
I Escaped from Hitler Twice - The Fred Wertheim Story
When a Jew comes to believe in Jesus, it not only affects his life but the lives of those closest to him—his family. This was certainly the case when Steve Wertheim, the son of a Jewish immigrant, came to believe in Jesus.
Steve's father, Fred, was born in Germany in 1925. The son of a baker, he lived in a small village of 2,000 people. The town had very few Jews, ten families to be exact. Fred, as a young boy, had to look among the non-Jews for playmates because the only other Jewish children were his two older sisters and an older Jewish girl. It didn't bother him to have gentile friends, but it started bothering them to have a Jewish one.
By the time Fred was eight, the Aryan philosophy of Hitler was well on its way to acceptance by most Germans. Fred's best friends did not want to play with him anymore. His parents, who were prospering in the bakery business, held to the illusion that Hitler would lose his popularity and that things would get better once again for the Jews. Instead they got worse.
The Wertheim family finally decided to leave Germany for America. However, wanting to leave and getting out of the country were two different things. Because of immigration quotas, they needed to apply to the Consulate for clearance. The family had no papers prepared by a United States citizen for them, and that made emigration difficult. They were given a number—a very high one—48,878, which represented the number of people allowed to come from Germany before them. It would be a while until they could expect to go.
Meanwhile, on July 2, 1938 Fred became bar mitzvah. He was to be the last Jewish boy to undergo the ceremony in his district. Four months later came Kristallnacht. His synagogue, along with hundreds of others was destroyed. Six days later, it was ordered that Jewish children be expelled from the schools. At the same time, Jewish males that were thirteen or older were being conscripted for "labor camps." Fred was small for his age and because of his size was overlooked. Before long, entire Jewish families were being deported to the death camps. Yet, for some mysterious reason, his family was spared. Their immigration number came up, and in May of 1941 the Wertheims left what had become Hitler's Germany. They traveled by way of France, Spain and Portugal and arrived on the shores of what they saw to be heaven on earth—America.
Fred learned the English language quickly and after having been in the States only two years, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. The eighteen-year-old went through basic training and was shipped out to England. He was then given additional training and assigned to the First Infantry Division as part of the combat engineers. This was a front-line unit that was trained to remove mines or build emergency bridges so others could advance. Front-line units like Fred's had dangerous duty and high casualties.
Fred took part in the invasion of Europe on D-Day. He fought his way through France and across the Rhine River, ironically, into his native Germany. Then Fred and some of his fellow Army soldiers were captured there. Says Fred,
I remember they had us lined up. The Germans were talking among themselves, loud enough for me to hear. Since I understood what they were saying, my body started to shake. Some of my buddies started asking me, "What's happening? How come you're ready to pass out?" I told them, "This is the way it's going to be. They don't know what to do with us and so they're going to shoot us."
Yet, for some reason they changed their minds and took the group to a prisoner of war camp near Hanover—Stalag 11B. Fred was spared again.
Most of the prisoners at Stalag 11B had been there throughout most of the war and were very weak. Some couldn't even stand up. No work was assigned to the prisoners, for it would have probably killed most of them who were in a state of physical debilitation. Each morning, Fred and the others answered a roll call and then spent the rest of the day wandering within the boundaries of the high wire fences.
The conditions in the camp were not up to Geneva Convention standards. The clothes of the prisoners were burned regularly because they were lice infested. Many had their hair shorn very short to minimize the infestation. Their breakfast and lunch was combined into one "meal" which consisted of a tin can filled with black coffee. In the late afternoon they were given a stew which contained vegetables and occasionally a few strings of horsemeat. Fred remembers,
It smelled so rotten that I literally held my nose while I was eating. Once in a while, very late at night, some Germans from outside the camp would throw food over the fence and run away." It proved that not all Germans were Hitlerites.
Meanwhile, back in the States, Fred's family had gotten a telegram delivered by a woman dressed in black. It was from the War Department saying that Fred was missing in action. Germany didn't turn over names of prisoners, so his family had no way of knowing if he was alive.
Eventually the Allied Forces conquered Germany and General Montgomery's Ninth Division liberated Stalag 11B. Fred first had to recuperate from tapeworm and other maladies received as a result of his imprisonment. Then, around Mother's Day of 1945, he was sent home.
The convoy I was in was the first batch of American POW's to get back to New York City and we got a tremendous welcome—fireboats and everything. The following Saturday I got a big reception in the synagogue from the rabbi and the entire congregation.
Fred felt very grateful to be back in a safe place. He couldn't forget, however, the horrors of war or the miracle of his preservation. "God has done so many good things for me. He brought my immediate family out of Germany. He kept me alive in a prisoner of war camp. And there was the time that I was in a German halftrack that turned over on top of me. Two Germans lay dead next to me. The halftrack was so heavy with equipment that I couldn't move. Then water started to come up as we were pressed down in a field. I thought my life was over. I said the Sh'ma and I spoke to God pleading for His help. At that moment, several of my German captors were able to lift the halftrack and slide me out from under it. I was safe once again."
First I escaped from Hitler as a Jewish refugee. Then I was liberated as an American prisoner of war. But I was never free until Messiah saved and rescued me.
Fred Wertheim believed in God and felt that God had preserved him for a purpose. He didn't know what it was, but reasoned that he should just go on living, that God would show him some day. Fred married a nice Jewish girl from his synagogue and he and Laura settled down in the Bronx. They raised two sons and things were going fine until he got a phone call from his oldest son Steve. Steve had moved to California after graduating from college. Fred could not believe his ears, but Steve's words were clear: "Dad, Mom, I've come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah."
Fred took the news very hard: "After all I had been through, here I saw my own flesh and blood had turned against me." Fred worked as a mail carrier, and for weeks after the phone call, he would just suddenly start crying on his route. People asked him what was wrong, but he couldn't tell them. He was ashamed to let them know that his son had become a Christian.
Steve tried to explain to his father that his decision to believe in Jesus was not intended to hurt Fred. It was a decision based on conviction—the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. Steve told his father about a Mr. Goldstein who had originally told him about Jesus. Mr. Goldstein was a Jew for Jesus who Steve had met and through whose Bible study meeting Steve became more and more convinced of his spiritual needs and of Jesus' sufficiency.
Fred, while depressed over Steve's decision, became angry with Mr. Goldstein. When Steve told him that Goldstein was coming to New York and wanted to visit with him, Fred agreed. He said to his son, "I want to meet the man who did this to you and I want to kill him. I'm going to throw him off of our terrace!"
Goldstein and his wife visited the Wertheims and instead of a violent or angry interchange, the two couples discussed things over coffee and a danish pastry ring.
Says Mrs. Wertheim, "We asked them many questions. After a while, Mr. Goldstein pointed out prophecies in the Jewish Bible. I was a little shocked to see that my husband was very curious to know more."
Fred Wertheim's curiosity continued past that evening. He started attending Bible study meetings in New York:
I became a very conscientious student. Each week we were asked to prepare for the next lesson by reading a particular passage from the Scriptures. One week the assignment was to read the first letter of John (in the New Testament), but I read the Gospel of John by mistake. I couldn't put it down. Then, on the morning of September 29, 1975, I woke up at four o'clock. I saw what was the outline of a figure standing in the doorway of my bedroom. I couldn't see a face, but I knew it was Jesus. I was convinced that he was real and that I wanted him in my life. I knew he was my Messiah. For me to become a believer, it took a supernatural event like this one. I know it's not that way for everybody who believes in Jesus, but that's how it happened to me. I didn't tell my wife until later in the day.
Laura Wertheim was upset about the news. First her son and now her husband too! To compound things, their youngest son Robbie, announced that he too was a believer. He didn't want to say anything until his father came to believe because he was afraid that it would be too traumatic an experience for Fred. In Robbie's words, "I didn't think he could take another one."
But could Laura Wertheim take another family member believing in Jesus? Says Mrs. Wertheim,
I was very stubborn. While I felt surrounded by believers, I kept reminding myself that so many people were killed in the Holocaust. So many Jews were killed. I couldn't betray my upbringing.
Then the Wertheim family went to see a movie called "The Hiding Place." Laura watched this true story about a Christian woman and her family in Holland during the war. Says Laura,
It showed the suffering this woman went through, yet she kept her faith in God. It made me see that God was working during the Holocaust—through people like this dear woman. Because she believed in Jesus, she helped Jews—she had real reason to hope. I just sat there and wept and sobbed through the entire picture.
The next week, she too accepted Jesus as her Messiah. Four years later, Fred and Laura Wertheim renewed their marriage vows. Portions of the ceremony follow:
Love and commitment have come to have a diminished meaning in today's world. Yet, we can see the true meaning of love and commitment as we behold Fred and Laura Wertheim, a couple united in God, showing forth His faithfulness. In a world where promises are seldom kept and faithfulness is scorned, they stand here to declare and reaffirm their love for one another.
In Jewish tradition, it is considered a blessing and privilege to be an invited guest at a wedding. To be able to rejoice with a bridegroom and his bride as they begin a new life together is something that brings joy to the heart. How much more, then, can we rejoice with Fred and Laura as we witness the profession of their continued love. Thirty years ago on the 22nd day of October of 1949, Fred and Laura were joined under the chupah.
Today, they reaffirm their vows in our presence. They rededicate their lives to one another with a new dimension and depth—that they are joined to God Almighty. He is the center of their union with one another. Their children have always been able to recognize the mutual devotion and deep respect that Fred and Laura have had for each other throughout their marriage. Yet, when the Wertheims met Jesus their Messiah, their relationship truly blossomed. The faith that they came to four years ago has made a good relationship far sweeter. Their relationship with Jesus increased their capacity to love each other in the everyday practicalities of their life together. Their relationship with Jesus increased their capacity to love others.
Because God has been so faithful to them, they desire to publicly declare and demonstrate that faithfulness and have come today to dedicate their lives afresh in serving Him.
Fred and Laura, God has given both of you much, and the Scriptures say, 'From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.' However, when God gives us a responsibility, He also promises to supply what we need to fulfill that which he requires. We have the great promises of God to rely upon as we live our lives in Messiah. 'Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Messiah Jesus' (Philippians 1:6).
...As they stand before you, the Wertheims wish to reaffirm their commitment to one another in Jesus and their desire to reflect God's image together.
Fred: 'As the days seemed short to Jacob in serving for Rachel, so have the years seemed that we have shared. Laura, my wife, I promise you, as a child of God, that I will continue to love and respect you, honor and uphold you, and give of all that I have to you. As we continue to walk together in the love of Messiah Jesus, I pray that we will become a true reflection of the love and faithfulness Jesus has for the Holy Congregation.'
Laura: 'Fred, throughout our marriage you have been both my beloved and my friend, the one whom I can fully trust with all that I am. As a child of God, I promise you, my husband, that I will continue to love and respect you, honor and uphold you, and give of all that I have to you. I will faithfully stand with you and help inspire you, that God's will might be the focus of our lives.'
May God's love surround you, Fred and Laura, as the mountains surround Jerusalem; and may that love emanate forth to all who you touch with your lives. May your next thirty years together increase your joy and gladness as Messiah reigns in your lives."
Jack Sternberg - A Jewish Oncologist's Story
If the condition spread to my left eye, I would be blind. My medical career would be over, and life as I knew it would cease. I was afraid-afraid and angry. I cursed God, figuring if he existed, he deserved it. I informed him-or was it the air?-that I would never believe in him until I understood his ways. "Who are you? What are you like? Why are you doing this when so many people you have allowed to have cancer depend on me? You must not exist!" I never imagined that God would answer my angry questions. But then, I didn't realize that in my anger, I had actually uttered a prayer.
My parents were not "religious" although my mother spoke to God spontaneously, even personally. She spoke as though he heard regardless of where she was or whether she prayed from the siddur (prayer book). My father did not appear to believe in God and had little patience for religious institutions. In fact, he told me how much he disliked going to synagogue services when he was a boy.
Nevertheless, when the High Holy Days came around, we donned new suits and ties, put on new shoes and walked the mile or so to the local Conservative synagogue. We didn't go because we were religious; we went because we were Jews. Those September days in New York City were sunny and hot, and the new shoes pinched. I particularly remember the Yom Kippur services -- by the time we arrived, my stomach was growling from the fast. I told myself that when I grew up, I would not suffer through these rituals.
My favorite tradition was our weekly family get-togethers. Every Sunday we gathered at a restaurant with the aunts, uncles and cousins from my mother's family. We'd spend the afternoon together and enjoy a big meal— usually Chinese, though occasionally it was Italian. I remember the laughter and how we loved being together, everyone telling the same stories over and over.
Regarding my Jewish identity, a couple of things happened when I was nine. I saw The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston. Suddenly, I was impressed with my heritage. Moses was one of our guys, and he had an amazing relationship with God. I thought I'd try going to the synagogue to see what it was all about. However, as with the High Holy Days, most of the service was in Hebrew, and I could not understand what was said and done. That spark of excitement about God quickly died.
About that time my parents attempted to enroll me in Hebrew school. To their dismay, they could not afford the bar mitzvah training. We had been members of a congregation for three years. Yet when my parents disclosed their financial situation, all they received was a suggestion to defer my lessons until such time as they could pay. Incensed, my parents never sent me back to that synagogue, nor did we ever attend holiday services there again.
Religious or not, when I was twelve I began anticipating my bar mitzvah. My father's business was doing better, and my parents hired a tutor to help me memorize and learn to sing my Haf Torah portion. He arranged for me to be bar mitzvah at a Conservative synagogue that I had never been to before nor have I attended since. I did not know the rabbi. I could not translate Hebrew to English. But I knew how to pronounce the words well enough to sing in Hebrew for some forty minutes. Other than the cracking of my puberty-stricken voice, I sounded good. And because I sounded good, everyone congratulated me and told me how proud I'd made them.
I did not know how to respond to all the admiration that was heaped on me that day. I'd felt my performance was hollow. Didn't anyone care that I did not know the meaning of the words or the importance of the book from which I'd read? I didn't understand why people were proud of me. Yet I understood that I was Jewish, and I was proud of that.
As a teen, I began to question the existence of God. It wasn't a pressing question; it's just that I hadn't seen much (in my young estimation) to indicate he was real. When I was sixteen, my uncle was quite ill, and I asked God to let him live. Soon after, my uncle died. It struck me that the only time I spoke to God was to ask for something. I was embarrassed by my selfishness, but I didn't know how else to regard God. I didn't know who God was or even if God was. I reasoned that it was hypocritical to continue petitioning him and silly to expect an answer. So at the age of sixteen, I stopped communicating with a God I didn't know or trust.
I was seventeen when I left NYC to be a pre-med student at the State University of New York at Buffalo. I'd wanted to be a dentist from as early as I can remember and was accepted into dental school when I was a college junior. Yet when the door opened, I changed my mind.
Somewhere along the line, I decided what I really wanted was to save lives. To me, that meant being a doctor. I got work as a hospital orderly to make sure that I really wanted to enter the field — and I was hooked.
I lived in Buffalo for eight years. During college and medical school, I more or less floated in a sea of agnosticism. The more I saw, the less I believed in God. The question of suffering -- specifically, why bad things happen to good people -- distressed me. According to Reform Judaism, death (I was told) ended our existence. There was no heaven, no hell, no judgment. I began to wonder about the meaning of life in general, but I especially wondered why it was supposed to be such a blessing to be born Jewish. What could it mean if nothing awaited us beyond the pain and persecution we endured simply for being Jews?
"Religious" answers made no sense to me. Rabbis exhorted me to be proud of being Jewish but never gave concrete reasons or explanations of what that meant. I was told that we suffered persecution because the goyim (non-Jews) were jealous of us. They were jealous because we tended to strive more and achieve more, and (the rabbis hinted) we had higher standards. I found these answers unacceptable and flatly rejected the Jewish religion. Paradoxically, I was still proud to be a Jew and clung to my Jewish identity in a cultural sense.
After graduating from medical school, I went to Cleveland, Ohio for three years and completed my internship, residency and chief residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital. I also met and married Marilyn Meckler. Marilyn, also Jewish, was like me -- we had similar values but were not religious.
Following my chief residency we moved to Houston, Texas, where I did my medical oncology fellowship at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The two years in Houston affected me radically. I had seen enough suffering to wonder about God before, but specializing in cancer was even more intense. The hospital where I worked had 300 beds -- every one of them occupied by a cancer patient.
At one point I decided to empty myself of as much emotion as possible — both professionally and personally. I joked about emulating Spock, a fictional character from the old Star Trek television series. Like him, I exalted logic and deemed emotions a hindrance to clear thinking. I resented feelings as an impediment to my ability to cope. I thought if I could feel only when and what I chose to feel, I would attain a sense of calmness and control.
Ridiculous as that might sound, you must understand what was happening. The same skills that enabled me to help save lives forced me to watch other lives slip away. The work that enabled me to provide so well for my family was a constant reminder of those patients and families for whom I could do nothing. I did not want to be at the mercy of those painful feelings. I longed to feel in control -- even if it was just an illusion.
I saw an opportunity to switch gears, to go into private practice, and I seized it. Soon after I gave notice at the hospital, the new job fell through. Before I even had a moment to despair, I ran into a doctor from Little Rock, Arkansas. He informed me that Little Rock needed a cancer specialist. Would I consider the move? After a quick trip to check things out, Marilyn and I decided that we would make Little Rock our home.
We decided we would take advantage of the move to purchase the kind of home we'd dreamed of having. It was little more than a skeleton of two-by-fours when we first saw it, but it was on a beautiful lot with more than seventy-five trees. We quickly bought the house and made changes to suit our taste (150 in all). When the house was done, it truly was our dream home. We would soon have a swimming pool in the backyard and two new cars in the garage. Our marriage was good, and we had two beautiful children a girl and a boy.
Marilyn and I had our concerns about how we would fare in a city that probably only had 1,200 Jews at most. The answer turned out to be, "very well." We soon felt accepted and appreciated in our social circle. Our "success story" seemed complete. All the hard work had paid off, and we were as happy as any couple we knew. So why did we keep asking each other, "Is this all there is?" We could not explain why we were not completely happy, nor could we imagine what could possibly be missing. We only knew we would be forever restless without it, whatever "it" was.
We understood that material things alone would not satisfy us, so we involved ourselves in the social life of the medical community. We joined the Little Rock Medical Society and found friends who felt as we did: that despite every appearance of success, something was missing. For lack of a better word, we called it happiness. Our friends seemed to feel that they would "get happy" by having more fun. They invited us to join them drinking, disco dancing, and in pursuit of "kicks."
Marilyn and I (always eager to do well at whatever we tried!) took dancing lessons and jumped right into the world of disco along with its associated night life. Several months later we tired of the distraction -- for that's all it was -- and felt emptier than ever.
That's when it occurred to us to "try something spiritual." We decided to get back to our Jewish roots, reasoning that we might be missing a sense of identity, of belonging to our own people. Marilyn threw herself into volunteer work with the Jewish community, the preschool, the day school -- wherever she was needed. She was very active in Hadassah (a Jewish women's organization).
We joined the Reform temple, but the plethora of organizations and activities had us bouncing back and forth between the Reform and the Conservative synagogue. There was the men's Sunday brunch, Hadassah, Ati Day Y'Isroel preschools, and many other activities.
These organizations were very cause oriented and seemed to do a lot of good, but frankly, I found they left me empty and unsatisfied. It bothered me that people I met considered themselves good Jews because of what they did. Somehow, I knew (and I don't know how I knew) that a good Jew ought to be defined by a relationship with the God of Judaism rather than a position in the Jewish community. It was certainly admirable to do good deeds. But one could do good deeds, tzedacka, without even believing in God.
Most of the activities fell to my wife as I was busy building the practice. Nevertheless, I attended all the fund-raising events, and Marilyn prevailed upon me to attend services at least twice a year. These were no more meaningful to me as an adult than they had been in my childhood. Marilyn had to nudge me occasionally, as I tended to fall asleep. To my annoyance, the only thing our rabbi communicated to me outside of the pulpit was how much I owed for either the building fund or monthly dues. This irritated me to the point that I eventually wrote a letter to the rabbi stating, "We hereby drop our temple membership because it has not met our spiritual needs."
In fairness to that rabbi, I did not really understand my own complaint. I did not know what my needs were, much less what he could or couldn't do about them. Frankly, he could not have made Jewish traditions meaningful to me because I felt hypocritical practicing the religion. I didn't know who or what God was -- and could not even say with certainty that he existed. I don't know what kind of spiritual benefit I expected to receive when I doubted the very source of all things spiritual. My doubt occasionally gave way to resentment; that is, I couldn't say whether God existed, but if he did, I was angry with him.
I had seen too much pain, suffering and death. I felt elated over each life we helped save, but that elation quickly gave way to depression as I watched other patients suffer and die. I could do nothing to save them, and I had no comfort or hope to offer. I often worked twelve to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. I was forever making life-changing decisions. Exhausted and drained, I was furious with God for allowing cancer to inflict so much pain, suffering and death.
I was about to take my subspecialty boards in medical oncology when I developed pain behind my right eye. I thought it was sinusitis and treated myself accordingly. Four days after the boards, I was walking down a hospital corridor when I realized the vision in my right eye was blurred. It turned out to be optic neuritis. I lost most of the vision in my right eye overnight. The pain persisted for months.
If the condition spread to my left eye, I would be blind. My medical career would be over, and life as I knew it would cease. I was afraid -- afraid and angry. I cursed God, figuring if he existed, he deserved it. I informed him -- or was it the air? -- that I would never believe in him until I understood his ways. "Who are you? What are you like? Why are you doing this when so many people you have allowed to have cancer depend on me? You must not exist!"
I never imagined that God would answer my angry questions. But then, I didn't realize that in my anger I had actually uttered a prayer: Who are you?
Life and health stabilized. I did not regain the vision in my right eye, but my left eye remained sound.
As I continued my practice, several patients tried to tell me about Jesus Christ. I simply explained that I was Jewish and that Jews do not believe in Jesus. Most reluctantly accepted that as the end of the conversation. If they didn't, my immediate reaction was to take offense. I found that quite effective because most Christians seemed to think it was a sin to offend. However, in a few special cases, I felt I had to take out the hard artillery.
I once asked a well-meaning, persistent patient, "Let's see if I understand Christianity. Do you Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and he is the Jewish Messiah?" The person replied in the affirmative and I continued, "Then if he was the Son of God, or God himself, and if he was the Jewish Messiah, why didn't he simply get off the cross and bring in the messianic Kingdom?" That person was unable to answer me. She was not accustomed to having to explain her faith -- especially to someone whose tone was as hostile as mine.
The head nurse of the oncology unit in one of my major hospitals was also a Christian. I later learned that she had specifically taken that job because she felt that God wanted her to tell me, a Jew, about Jesus. I was surrounded!
I knew how to stop a conversation, and I intimidated more than one person into silence. No one knew it was just bluster. I didn't know anything about Jesus except that I wasn't supposed to believe in him. But although I could stop a conversation, I could not stop the love others had for Jesus. And that love seemed somehow to extend to me. I could see that their hearts were pure and that they wished only the best for me, no matter how I rejected their overtures. I couldn't ignore that love. Nor could I ignore the difference in the way that my Jesus-believing patients handled life's tragedies.
One woman with terminal breast cancer was in her early thirties -- with a husband and a young child whom she would soon leave widowed and motherless. Yet she seemed more concerned about my spiritual welfare -- in my knowing Jesus Christ -- than the fact that she was dying. She saw my lostness, my separation from God as a greater tragedy than her own illness. She trusted this Jesus, then and for eternity. God had allowed illnesses to ravage her, yet she still loved, worshiped and followed him. She seemed confident about her future and genuinely concerned about mine. That overwhelmed me.
When she and others tried to tell me about Jesus, I told myself their beliefs were ridiculous. Yet, over time, I became envious of their faith. I shrugged off those feelings as irrelevant and told myself that Jesus is not for Jews and therefore he is not for me. Case closed.
I suppose a basic belief in God had survived my years of cynicism and grief. I was disappointed that the God my mother had prayed to during my childhood did not seem real to me, yet I truly wanted to believe in God. I never looked into any other religion because I knew that if there was a God, it was the God of Israel. I was open to knowing the truth about him but never supposed it was my responsibility to seek out that truth. I didn't see how it was possible to understand God. I desperately needed answers but didn't know the right questions to ask.
My wife was going through a similar process, but I was unaware of her struggle. Who ever talked about such things? Who even knew the words to frame a discussion of holy things? It was going to take something a little closer to home to jar us into action.
One Saturday evening, our eleven-year-old, Jennifer, mentioned that her friend Allison had begun attending church with her family. I knew Allison's father. He was a physician — and he was Jewish.
I was outraged. From my perspective, the man had turned his back on Judaism. (By this time my family and I had quit the temple and all Jewish organizations -- still, I considered myself a loyal Jew.) I immediately called to confront Dr. Barg. I had no difficulty finding words for this discussion. Didn't he understand that as a Jew he was obligated to resist the Christians? Didn't he see that we Jews had no business going to churches where we would be swallowed up, assimilated . . . no longer Jews? Didn't he know that when you are in the minority, every family counts? Didn't he feel any kind of responsibility to our people?
Dr. Barg kindly told me that he had found his Jewish identity and the God of Israel at this church. He said that for the first time, he was truly proud and excited to be Jewish. I was shocked but intrigued. I happened to know that when Dr. Barg married, his gentile wife went through religious training, went through the mikvah (ritual immersion necessary for conversion to Orthodox Judaism), became an Orthodox Jew and did her best to keep a kosher home. After all that, he had to go to church to understand what being Jewish was all about?
My curiosity outweighed my anger and I asked if we could attend church with him the following day. He gladly extended an invitation for me to meet him at Fellowship Bible Church. "You better be there," I warned him. "Don't you dare get there late, because I do not intend for us to be the only Jews in that church." I remember that Sunday morning, October 19, 1980, vividly. I remember my discomfort as I walked into the worship service. It was a new church, and they were meeting in a school gymnasium, so it didn't seem as "churchy" as I expected. Charles Barg was as good as his word, and we quickly found each other. Still, I imagined that we would somehow stand out from the crowd — that people would identify us as Jews and would know we did not belong there. As impressed as I'd been with Christians I'd met at work, I suppose deep down I suspected that church somehow made Christians dislike Jews. I was surprised that those who noticed us were delighted that we were visiting.
The service began with a baby dedication. I was startled to hear the words, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." What was the Sh'ma, the holiest of Jewish prayers, doing in a Christian church? When the minister began his sermon, I was even more startled. His text was Psalm 73, which posed the question of why evil seems to triumph over good -- and if it does, why bother to keep God's laws and his ways? The minister explained that a pious Jew, Asaph, was asking God why righteous people suffer while the wicked prosper.
My heart was pounding. How did he know that I wrestled with those very questions? My attention was riveted as the pastor spoke about the seeming paradox. He said that God sees everything from an eternal perspective while we see everything from an immediate, finite viewpoint. He said that those who believe God and put their faith in him will enjoy him for eternity and that knowledge enables them to trust him and to endure present hardships. Those who do not care for God may enjoy whatever they amass for themselves now but will spend eternity without God.
I walked into that church an agnostic/atheist/skeptic and left knowing that God is real, good and worthy to be loved and worshiped. I cannot explain how that happened in the course of one church service. It had to be supernatural.
It was as though a light had been switched on. I knew that God was exactly what Marilyn and I had been missing. Not religion, but God. Marilyn knew it, too. We did not want to be without him any longer, in this life or in the life to come. There was no turning back. I had to discover who God was and what I needed to do to have him in my life.
I finally knew the right questions and could only hope that the answers would not lead to Jesus. I wanted to know God and was determined to follow him no matter where he took me. It would just be so much easier if I didn't have to become a Christian. I wanted desperately to discover that the God I now sought could somehow be found in mainstream Judaism.
After church we spent the next three hours with our Jewish Christian physician friend and his wife. They told us how the Jewish Bible and the "New Testament" fit together. They suggested that if Y'shua (Jesus) fulfilled the Hebrew prophecies concerning the Messiah, then Christians are worshiping the Jewish Messiah.
The Bargs also pointed out a concept we knew nothing about: sin. The only Judaism I knew had long since stopped teaching that sin separates people from God. After all, that's what Christians believe. The Bargs showed us that throughout the Jewish Bible, God was quite intolerant when it came to sin, yet merciful to the sinners who acknowledged that they had offended God's righteousness. They showed us from Scripture how God had provided explicit ways and means to cleanse our people from sin.
Separation from God caused a malignant sickness of the soul and the God-given means of atonement alone could reconcile us to God and make us whole. Judaism had survived the loss of the Temple by evolving into a basically humanistic religion. The emphasis on good deeds was noble, but not a solution to our separation from God. The Bargs believed that the Jewish Bible pointed beyond the sacrificial system to one who would personify God's plan of atonement. They believed that Jesus was that one.
The logic and scriptural basis of Dr. Barg's presentation astounded us. Marilyn and I continued to visit Fellowship Bible Church weekly for the next five weeks. We took an introductory course called "One to One" so that we could understand what Christianity was about.
It all seemed to make sense -- so much sense that I spent three hours at an Orthodox synagogue one Saturday morning trying to counteract what I was learning. I hoped that with my newly acquired belief in God, my eyes would be opened and the service would shed light on my search. I would have been thrilled had that been the case. It was not.
Undaunted, I visited with rabbis, hoping that they could show me the fallacies of the case for Jesus. I went to two local rabbis, one Orthodox and one Reform. Marilyn and I met with each one for hours. Each effort we made to hear something to dissuade us seemed to strengthen the growing belief that Jesus truly was the answer.
I'm not sure if the rabbis we consulted had any particular belief about separation from God or how to be reconciled to him. They did not tell us what they believed. They felt duty bound to prevent us from believing in Jesus without interacting with those beliefs or offering others as superior. They mostly questioned our motives and talked a great deal about Jews who had been persecuted by Christians.
One rabbi opened up a New Testament and poked a finger at the pages, telling me that for every single word in that book there was a Jew who was killed in the name of Christ. I did not doubt the truth of that, but I asked what that had to do with the fact or fallacy of Jesus Christ. I was not looking to minimize the suffering of our people, but I didn't feel that bringing up those sufferings was an appropriate answer to my questions. This so infuriated the wife of one rabbi that she actually started hitting me. Of course I was much bigger than she was, but I didn't feel I could defend myself, and the rabbi had to pull her off. I was stunned by this reaction and amazed that no one addressed the issue of God's plan for the Jewish Messiah and whether it was fulfilled in Jesus.
I knew that I was supposed to feel guilty, and I did feel guilty — but not for the reasons the rabbis had in mind. I felt guilty because I knew that I had sinned and I knew that God was holy. I felt guilty for disappointing my God. I was not going to allow anyone to make me feel guilty for seeking reconciliation. I didn't want to be considered disloyal to my people — but if my questions and determination to find answers made me appear disloyal, then so be it.
When we heard that an ultra-Orthodox rabbi from Memphis, Tennessee was coming to dissuade Dr. Barg from belief in Jesus, Marilyn and I decided we ought to be there as well.
Dr. Barg had been a believer for two or three months when we first started to believe in Jesus, but it had taken a while for him to tell his father. His father's reaction was to send a chauffeured limousine to pick up this rabbi in Memphis and drive him to Little Rock, two and a half hours away.
All four of us (husbands and wives) met with him from 8 at night till 2 in the morning. Most of his arguments centered around guilt and why we should feel ashamed for betraying our people, but we refused this approach. We kept bringing him back to the Bible and asked him not only to dispute Jesus from there but also to explain modern Judaism as it pertains to written Scripture. He became very frustrated because these were not the issues he had come to discuss. In response to some rather direct questions from me, he admitted that he found us all to be sane, intelligent people with good marriages, fine children, and success in business. He went on to add that we were different from other Jewish Christian converts he had met. The irony was that although Marilyn and I had argued the case for Christianity, neither of us had made up our minds yet about Jesus.
Meanwhile, we continued attending the five-week course where we spent many hours with a pastor going through the "Old" and "New" Testaments. We questioned him into the wee hours of the morning, and his answers were always based on what the Bible said.
The more we studied, the more we read and the more we spoke to Christians, the more we wanted the fellowship with God that they had. They told us that what we were seeking was only possible through Jesus Christ. They told us that God had taken the form of a man, Jesus, had lived a perfect life and was therefore able to offer his blood as an atonement for our sin. If we recognized the truth of that, we needed to ask Jesus to be the center of our lives. We needed to ask that he change us, by the power of his spirit, into the men and women he wanted us to be. It meant entrusting our lives to him -- forever.
After much reading, prayer and internal turmoil, I finally came to believe in Jesus as my Jewish Messiah. I was unable to actually articulate my decision until a visit with a very sweet patient by the name of Mildred. Mildred was dying. As I was talking to her during her examination, she suddenly looked up at me and said, "Dr. Sternberg, there is something different about you over the last month. What is it?" Her simple observation brought me face to face with the fact that God had already begun to change me, and I found myself explaining to Mildred that I had become a believer in Jesus Christ as my Jewish Messiah, Lord, and Savior. She simply nodded and said, "I thought so."
In December 1980, Marilyn and I finally (and separately) made our personal decisions to follow Jesus.
News travels fast in the Jewish community of a small city like Little Rock. I won't minimize the pain of being rejected by the community and especially by my fellow Jewish physicians. Nevertheless, I remembered my own outrage on first hearing of Dr. Barg's beliefs, and I understood how others felt. My anger was overcome by a profound desire to understand what he claimed to have discovered. I can only pray that the same might prove true for some of my colleagues.
Nevertheless, the Christian community has accepted us wholeheartedly, and has welcomed opportunities to learn more about the Jewish roots of their faith. Instead of losing my Jewishness in a sea of Christianity, I've met with respect and appreciation for my heritage and my identity as a Jew. Today, I feel more Jewish than ever.
Knowing Jesus has changed every area of our lives, not the least of which is my professional life. I am a full-time private practicing medical oncologist, board certified in both internal medicine and medical oncology. My average day begins at 5:15, which is when I wake up so that I can leave the house at 6:30 and start rounds at the hospital at 7. I arrive at my office at about 10 and see patients until 6 at night, diagnosing their problems and giving them different therapies, including chemotherapy.
When I tried to keep that kind of schedule before, I was continually exhausted -- physically and emotionally -- and felt I had less and less to give to my patients and my family. I had entered the field because I wanted to save lives and help people. The field had shown me my limitations. Knowing that life and death are not in my hands but in the hands of my God, who is entirely trustworthy, has changed everything. It has freed me to be more sensitive, loving and compassionate, which was not part of my basic personality. God is continuing to work on these areas of my life.
My relationship with the living God gives my life meaning and fulfillment. It brings contentment, despite the painful realities of life and death. Faith does not anesthetize me to the pain and suffering I encounter in my practice, but now I can pray for my patients -- even as many prayed for me -- that they will find peace and rest in Jesus.
I am grateful for opportunities to tell cancer patients the good news of Jesus Christ and his offer of eternal life. I can give patients who are willing to hear life-giving hope for eternity when there seems to be no hope for the present. Even my Christian patients have benefited, knowing that their physician believes as they do and can pray with them and for them.
Jesus filled the void that possessions, position and power never could and never would fill. Jesus was the answer, is the answer and always will be the answer to our deepest needs and desires. He is your answer, too. Please don't reject the answer before you ask God the question that he is waiting to hear.
He practices in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Janie Sue's Story
Janie Sue Wertheim
My mother worked in a kosher bakery. She especially loved to bake and decorate birthday cakes. Some of my best early memories are of beautiful birthday creations that Mom made for my younger brother Stuart and me.
Other early memories include celebrating Shabbat. My mother would make a roast beef or chicken with potato kugel, string beans and homemade challah. My dad would come home from work, change into nicer clothes, put on his kipah and do the kiddush in his beautiful, strong voice. I knew that we celebrated Shabbat because we were Jewish, and I knew that Jews were the chosen people.
For synagogue, my dad chose the little shul where my grandpa davened, on Greenfield Street. It was extremely Orthodox. After helping me find the appropriate spot in a shul siddur, my dad would hand it to me and then I found my way to the women, who were set apart behind a translucent screen. My dad explained that this enabled the men to concentrate on being holy, undistracted by the beauty of the women.
The rabbi spoke mostly about how Jews should fulfill the law and do what was right, and he chided the congregation for not doing what they should to honor God. Try as I might to be good, when he talked about wrongdoing and wrongdoers, I felt that he was pointing right at me.
Unlike Shabbat, which filled our home with comfort, the High Holidays brought anxiety. It started with Rosh Hashanah. Part of the tension was due to divided loyalties. My mother went to the little shul at the Jewish home for the aged where my Zaide (her dad) lived. My father went to Greenfield Street with his dad. Often, I felt torn between my parents.
Then there was Yom Kippur. I remember one year when I was nine or ten I went to shul with my father. During a recess he took me out to a restaurant for a snack and stood outside while I ate. Walking back to the shul, I asked my dad, "Why do people fast on Yom Kippur?" "We fast for forgiveness of our sins," he told me. "Why don't children fast?" "Because they are too young." I didn't really understand. I thought that I was plenty old enough. I remember asking, "When you fast, do you know that God has forgiven you?" My dad looked at me and with a sad smile said, "I really hope that he has."
I wondered, "If Dad doesn't know, how will I ever know?" But I tried not to think too much about it.
I imagined God was a lot like my Grandpa Louie. Grandpa took religion very seriously. He'd frown at Stuart and me with disapproval if we were too loud, too restless, or too inquisitive. He seemed unapproachable, and since Grandpa was the most godly person I knew, my impression of him carried over to the Almighty.
My mother's faith was more of the "knock on wood" variety. She was superstitious; whenever she complimented anyone, immediately she would say, "kainahorah!" and then spit to ward off the evil eye. Mom worried about keeping the rules of kashrut but had no problem going out to a Chinese restaurant and eating unkosher food there. I didn't see anyone in my family operating with a consistent faith in God so I did not learn to believe in or trust him.
When I was in the fourth grade Mom became mentally ill. The bottom began to drop out of our family life and religious practices. When we celebrated Passover, Mom couldn't see the dirt and chometz because her reality had become so disordered. We couldn't have a really "kosher" Pesach and that angered Dad. Mom had constant mood swings and sometimes she lashed out at us verbally and physically. My dad began spending more and more time at work. My mother's behavior began to isolate our family. My Aunt Bea told me years later that my mother had had a psychotic break and was schizophrenic.
The cleaning and cooking were neglected, and as the big sister I felt I should fill in the gap. I felt it was my fault that things didn't get done, as if I were responsible for the unhappiness in my home. It wasn't a logical thought—but I could not shake it.
My Dad tried to explain my mom's actions, and in the process would talk with me about things that children are better off not knowing. For example, I was well aware that our financial situation was precarious. I knew that the neighbors complained to Dad that the laundry Mom hung on the clothesline was dirty. Knowing about these things made me worry.
Meanwhile, my cousin Ellen was preparing for her bat mitzvah. She received a copy of the Jewish Bible as a gift, and passed her old one to me. To this day, I'm not even sure why I began to read it—but as I did, I was quickly gripped by the fact that God was involved in people's lives in Bible times. When they called out to him in their trouble, God answered with miracles. As I surveyed the wreckage of my family, I found myself wondering, "Does God still work miracles for his people? Why don't I see them?" I thought back to all the Passover seders where we talked about miracles and thought, "Either these things happened, and God is real, or they didn't—and He isn't." I desperately wanted to know, because things were getting darker and more difficult.
In my freshman year of high school my friend Karen, who wasn't Jewish, watched her parents go through a bitter divorce. She was devastated at first. But I began to notice some differences in Karen. She seemed peaceful—even joyful. I saw that she was carrying a Bible with her schoolbooks and reading it between classes. I asked her what was going on.
"Well, now I am a Christian!"
I didn't get it; I thought she was a Christian already. Karen explained that she had grown up a Methodist because that was the church her family attended. Yet she had only recently heard that Jesus had died for her sins and that if she asked him, he would take away those sins and give her a new start with God.
I told her that was fine for her, but I was Jewish and Jews don't believe in Jesus. She looked at me and said, "I don't see why not. After all the Jewish people are expecting the Messiah." Then she opened her Bible to Isaiah 53. She handed it to me and said, "This is one of the promises from your Bible." I was stunned because what I read sounded so much like Jesus—yet it had been written 750 years earlier.
I was angry and unsettled. I knew that Grandpa Louie left Russia because of horrible things done in the name of Jesus. And Karen was telling me that Jesus was my Messiah—what chutzpah!
And what was all this about sin? I was a good Jewish girl. I knew I wasn't perfect, but I didn't see sin as a problem for me personally.
Karen and I remained friends even though we disagreed. Whenever I mentioned a particular problem, she prayed for me. I wanted that kind of relationship with God, where he would be near and real all the time. So I began asking Karen questions, sometimes challenging her, sometimes genuinely curious. She suggested that I read the New Testament for myself and come to my own conclusion about Jesus.
As I read, everything Jesus said and did seemed so Jewish. He was loving and compassionate and He did things that only God could do.
As for the Hebrew Scriptures, Isaiah 53 wasn't the only passage that stunned me in terms of Jewish prophecy. Daniel 9 actually gave a time line for the coming of the Messiah, including the fact that Messiah would come before the destruction of the Temple.
I became convinced intellectually that Jesus was the Messiah—but I I still didn't think I was one of those sinners who needed forgiveness. Then one night, I suddenly remembered an event that had occurred years before.
I was in fifth grade, and my brother was in second grade. A few houses down there lived a boy named Tommy who hated us after learning in his catechism class that Jews were "Christ killers." One day, Stuart came in the house, crying and his nose was bleeding. Tommy had hurt him. I ran to Stuart's room, grabbed his baseball bat and ran downstairs. Tommy was standing in front of our house. I swung threateningly. I was so furious and full of hatred that I wanted to beat him with that bat until he was dead.
I never got close enough to hurt Tommy but I screamed, "You touch him again and I swear I will bash your brains out there on the sidewalk!" Tommy never touched my brother again.
I believe it was God who flashed that scene into my mind in the moments that I was considering Y'shua. All at once it hit me—I was a sinner, I had wanted to murder Tommy. I realized that I truly did need Y'shua's forgiveness, because my hatred had offended a holy God. I later realized that we all think, say and do things that offend God, almost daily. But I just needed to be confronted with that one ugly episode to understand my need. I asked Y'shua to take my sin away, and I acknowledged him as my Messiah and Lord.
That was May 3, 1970. I felt a remarkable sense of peace, like a warm blanket covering me. The uncertainty I had as a child about whether God forgave me was gone.
It was no easy thing, being the only one in my family to believe in Jesus. My relationship with my dad became very strained. He barely spoke to me other than to say things like, "Pass the salt" or "What time are you going to be home?" In fact, my dad was thinking of disowning me, but my Aunt Bea said, "Paul, don't be ridiculous, this is your daughter; and anyway, this Jesus stuff is just a phase. She's young, she'll outgrow it." (It's been over thirty years and I think my dad is still hoping I'll outgrow Y'shua.)
Over the next few years I met other Jewish believers in Jesus, and in the autumn of 1977 I was invited to send an audition tape of me singing and playing guitar to the head of the Jews for Jesus music team, who played it for the rest of the team and a certain guy named Steve Wertheim. I guess Steve liked my voice, because he was very eager to meet me. When I moved to L.A., we became very close friends and quickly realized that our friendship was becoming more.
On April 24, 1978, Steve took me out and gave me three roses: one yellow, one pink and one red to tell me he loved me today, tomorrow and always. We went to Santa Monica to watch the sunset. As the sun sank slowly, Steve dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him. Before he could finish asking, I said yes.
We were married November 25, 1978 and have two wonderful kids. Ben was born in 1980 and Rebekah in 1984. Both of them believe in Jesus. Before my mother died, she also came to believe. I know that she is no longer suffering, but filled with truth and joy.
While both of our families were angry about our belief in Jesus at first, three of our four parents and one sibling so far have come to share that faith.
What about you? Have you been wondering about Jesus, but worried what the consequences would be if you were to let him into your life? We can't tell you that it will be easy... but if Jesus is true, turning away from him will not be good for you, or for your family.
Rich Robinson - Coming in Through the Back Door
Rich Robinson
Jewish identity and culture also played a part at the Zionist youth camp which I attended for two summers in upstate New York, sponsored by Hashomer Hatzair. At camp I participated in kibbutz-style work projects and intensive morning study sessions of Israeli Hebrew. Somewhat ironically, my appreciation of what Jewishness meant was broadened when I saw a camp production of the avant-garde play, The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. Obviously being Jewish could mean going beyond the bounds of what was considered traditional! In this way I discovered new facets to my Jewish identity.
Around that same time, I entered Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, one of the better-known "radical" high schools, which for a lot of us meant staging student moratoriums and going on peace marches. (Since then, Stuyvesant has relocated to lower Manhattan, where it served as a triage area following the September 11 attacks.) We were idealists, and we saw Earth Day rallies and anti-Vietnam-war marches as a way to fulfil our idealism. Probably like a lot of others, I was tagging along not so much as a person of deeply held convictions as much as I was along for the ride, enjoying the electricity and the energy of the times. I wasn't really connected to the causes, though at a more or less unconscious level I felt that I needed to make some kind of connection.
Beginning college, the sense of being unconnected continued. Some of it was simply a case of freshman-year blues. But it was more than that. I listened to music by popular mystics and advocates of eastern religions, and for maybe the first time in my life I found myself thinking about spiritual things. Some college students lose their innocence; I lost my agnosticism. In the campus chapel, I would take time out to think about religion and God.
Then summer came, and I became a student of Edgar Cayce. By now he's a largely forgotten clairvoyant, but in his heyday several decades ago he was well-known and there's still an organization that promotes his ideas. I had discovered a book which explained that ill people, unable to be helped by their own doctors, came to see Cayce. In a trance-like state he gave the diagnosis and prescribed the cure, which was sometimes quite strange but which worked. Not unreasonably, I concluded that if Cayce was right about the physical, he must also be right about the spiritual. His "readings" about reincarnation, health foods and Atlantis fascinated me. As it turned out, I found myself listening to what Cayce said about Jesus, which was actually quite a bit.
Sometimes I am asked what Jewish people think about Jesus, and one answer is that Jews don't generally spend much time thinking about him at all beyond learning (usually when we're still children) that Jesus is not for us. Now, however, I was doing a lot of thinking about him. Edgar Cayce's depiction of Jesus was as different from the pictures seen on the walls of many Sunday School classrooms as Brooklyn is from the Bahamas. Cayce's Jesus was a cosmic Christ, a reincarnated person, mystical and Eastern. Ironically, this kind of Jesus was one that was acceptable to me within the parameters of my secular Jewish upbringing. (In today's Jewish community, almost anything goes except for Jesus, including Buddhism and New Age philosophies.) I took in all that Cayce had to say about Jesus, convinced that somehow, this cosmic Christ was the way to knowing God. But I didn't know where to go from there.
That fall, I began life as a transfer student, on a new campus with a new major. I was spiritually restless, and in a bookstore one day I came upon a paperback called A Catalog of Five Hundred Ways People Can Grow. Sitting on the grass, I began to systematically peruse the five hundred ways, starting with Aikido and ending in Zoroastrianism. By the time I reached the letter "Y," I was thinking of paying a visit to a Yoga ashram when somebody walked up to me. I found myself meeting a young man who introduced himself and asked if I'd be interested in taking a religious survey. It turned out that Dan worked with one of the campus Christian organizations. Since by this time I was open to talking about anything religious, I took his survey and then we spoke for some time about the gospel. I already more or less "believed" in a Hindu Christ, which for me meant believing and accepting a non-biblical Jesus without a sense of sin and without an understanding of who Jesus really was. In our conversation, I came to understand the centrality to the gospel of sin and forgiveness.
Though I remember praying to receive Jesus at that time, it was still without much understanding. I was still involved with Edgar Cayce, and spent many hours with Dan, the guy who had approached me, in arguing over whether Cayce was more of an authority than the Bible. Though Cayce's batting record left something to be desired, that didn't faze me. He had predicted that Atlantis would rise in a certain year, and though the newspapers hadn't yet reported this remarkable occurrence, I decided that Atlantis really had risen, only no one had noticed it yet. But neither Cayce nor his reincarnated Christ were bringing me the connectedness that I was seeking. Cayce's best advice seemed to be that eating almonds would prevent cancer. So my quest continued. I invested in a do-it-yourself yoga manual. I visited Hare Krishna meetings and listened, dubiously, to Guru Maharaj Ji, the "14 Year Old Perfect Master" of the universe.
One night at the close of the school year, I was still debating with Dan. I had the sense that I was fighting against God and decided the time had come to stop fighting. That evening in 1973, it must have been late spring, I placed my faith in Jesus as the "Word become flesh" and in his written word, the Bible. The Bible calls it the new birth. For me it was also a new connection. I felt connected with life and in a new way with my Jewishness.
Sometimes when I tell this story I say that it's like coming in through the back door. If someone had just walked up to me out of a church and said that I needed to believe in Jesus, I would have probably said no. Contemporary Jews are open to many things, but Jesus as we understand "the Christians" believe in him is not an option. Buddhism? Secularism? Those are OK. But Jesus? He's the god of the Gentiles—so we are taught. Yet through the convoluted route of Edgar Cayce and Eastern religions, God brought me to an interest in thinking about the real Jesus of the Bible.
Once I reached that place, the question wasn't, "Is believing in Jesus a Jewish thing to do?" That's a question we Jews have mostly answered ahead of time in the negative, as though we were leaving a voice mail for an interviewer who will be calling while we're out. The question for me became, "Is the gospel true?" If it was, then of course it was also Jewish to believe it, because shouldn't Jewish people believe in what's true? I concluded that it is true, and that by believing in Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles can come to know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.