Rabbi’s Life Story

CHILDHOOD YEARS

As a child, I was raised in Beachwood, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, in the heart of the Jewish community. Cleveland is one of the strongest Jewish populations in the country, although it isn’t as big as New York City or Los Angeles. When I was growing up, Beachwood was approximately 90-95% Jewish; consequently, all my friends were Jewish. It wasn’t that I sought to be friends only with Jewish people; it’s just that we tend to gravitate toward those who are like ourselves.

Both my parents are Jewish, and they exposed me to the Jewish culture as a child. In Judaism, boys have a bar mitzvah at the age of 13, which is considered the age of accountability. They go through a ceremony at the Temple in which they read from the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). The word bar means son, and mitzvah means commandment. So when a boy reaches the age of 13, he accepts the responsibility to become a son of the commandments.

Most Jewish people today are secular; for them, Judaism is not so much a religion as it is an identity, culture, and way of life. It’s like being Italian or Catholic for some people. Although they identify themselves with the culture, it doesn’t necessarily define their beliefs. With many Jewish people, it is very important to be identified with the Jewish culture, but it doesn’t necessarily define their belief in God.

Even though most Jewish men go through a bar mitzvah, oftentimes, afterwards they stop attending synagogue on a regular basis. You may hear a Jewish person say, “I’m Jewish from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet,” but to them, being Jewish doesn’t mean having a relationship with God. It’s just a cultural identity and a connection to the Jewish community.

My bar mitzvah, at the age of 13, was in a conservative Temple. In preparation for my bar mitzvah, I attended Hebrew school three times a week. The focus of my training was memorization of prayers, learning traditions, and reading Hebrew. I was never taught that I could have a personal relationship with God. My experience is not unique. Many temples do not teach the Jewish people that they can have a personal relationship with God. Their focus, basically, is tradition and reading Hebrew. Over the years it is not uncommon for Jewish people to drift into cults because their hunger for God often isn’t satisfied through traditional Jewish education

Not long ago, one of my family members attended Temple, and as she spoke from the pulpit about having a relationship with God, she was rebuked by the Rabbi, who told her that Jews cannot intimately know God; they can only follow His commandments. As a result of this Jewish mindset, my Hebrew school experience was devoid of nurturing a personal relationship with God.

TEENAGE YEARS

Growing up, I knew nothing about Jesus. I had received no Christian testimony or witness whatsoever in my life. When I was in seventh grade, my family moved to a very wealthy area of Cleveland called Pepper Pike that had a large Jewish population, but it wasn’t entirely Jewish. Again, all my close friends were Jews, except for one Italian friend. He wore a big cross around his neck. Now, you might think he must have been the person that God used to bring the Gospel message to me, but that isn’t what happened. He wore the cross around his neck, not because he was a Christian, but because the cross was an important symbol to him as an Italian. He was one of the toughest boys in school, and I used to follow him around just to watch him beat up other kids.

At the age of 13, I decided to get involved in the sport of wrestling. I had a cousin who wrestled, and I admired him. When you’re 5’6”, like me, you don’t have aspirations of becoming a great basketball or football star. By the time I reached ninth grade, I was a pretty good wrestler. Wrestling became my identity. I was known as Kirt Schneider, the wrestler. Around my neck, I wore a necklace with an image of a wrestler. I defined myself as a wrestler, and my goal was to become the Ohio State high school wrestling champion in my weight class.

Wrestling became so important to me that every night, as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I would turn the record player on and listen to the song Southern Man by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. As I would lie in bed listening to the music, I would envision myself with my hand raised as state champion. As I did that, chills would go through my body. In my young mind, becoming state champion would be like conquering the world. I believed, once I had won, I would spend the rest of my life basking in the sunshine of my victory. I would celebrate the glory of it, and the rest of my life would be a piece of cake.

Up to this point in my life, I truly never thought of life beyond wrestling. All I thought about was becoming state champion, but when I walked off the wrestling mat after my last match as a high school senior, it was as if my world had been pulled out instantaneously from under my feet. Suddenly, I realized I would be entering a world that was much bigger than people who wrestled 119 pounds and that wrestling didn’t mean much in the real world. I lost my identity and purpose in life, and I went from believing that I was on top of the world, to feeling very small. I was completely lost, and it was absolutely terrifying.

COLLEGE YEARS

Although I never became state champion, I did receive a small college wrestling scholarship to the University of Tampa. My grades were okay, but I still continued to suffer and struggle with my loss of identity and purpose. I spent as much time as possible sleeping just to escape the mental and emotional pain. Nothing excited me anymore. I longed for that feeling of contentment, the sense of power and control, and the identity and purpose that wrestling had given me during my high school years.

As I contemplated my future, I considered becoming a doctor, but I knew I didn’t possess the needed aptitude. I also considered becoming a lawyer, because I had good communication skills. I thought to myself, “I could be Kirt Schneider, the lawyer,” but then I considered, “What would happen if I became a successful lawyer and the time came when I would have to retire? Would I feel as lost as I did when wrestling ended?” I couldn’t get excited about becoming a lawyer, because I knew my life would be built on something, once again, that would eventually end, and I didn’t want that to happen. I needed something in my life that would be permanent.

I needed something in my life I could count on, but I had no idea what it would be or where I would find it. I hadn’t thought of God as the answer, because my experience growing up in the synagogue didn’t nurture or teach me about having a personal relationship with Him.

During this phase of my life, I believed if I became financially successful, it would help ease my pain and make me feel better about myself. Frankly, I knew wealth wasn’t the answer. After all, I had grown up in an affluent neighborhood, and I observed that wealthy people still had problems like anyone else. They may not have had the same problems, but they still had problems. Even though I knew money didn’t guarantee happiness and wouldn’t solve my problems, I didn’t know what else to do, so I dropped out of college in my second year to pursue the goal of becoming financially successful by opening a discotheque.

EARLY ADULT YEARS

It was 1978, and discos were really hot. Some may remember John Travolta dancing in Saturday Night Fever under the crystal disco ball. People stood in lines a quarter mile long in Cleveland to get into a discotheque. I figured if I could start a disco in a fairly large community that didn’t already have one, they would line up at the doors to get in.

To open the discotheque, I would need financing, and my plan was to obtain the necessary finances through friends of our family, who lived in the neighborhood. Once the finances were obtained, I would be part owner and be in charge of running the business. The main obstacle I encountered was securing investors. No one would invest in the disco, because they said I didn’t have a solid business plan.

I then got a job selling encyclopedias door-to-door, simply to make money, so I could travel throughout the Midwest, finding the perfect location for my discotheque. I knew finding the right location would be the key to having a solid business plan.

I did fairly well selling encyclopedias; at the same time, I continued researching my disco venture. As I continued researching, I came to the realization that I lacked the necessary business knowledge and savvy to be successful at starting a discotheque, so I continued selling encyclopedias as I contemplated my future.

Eventually, I was promoted to sales manager and was given a team of people to train. One evening, I went to a meeting where six sales managers were to be in attendance. When I arrived, there was only one other sales manager there. As he and I waited for the others to arrive, he began to tell me about a book he had been reading called Autobiography of a Yogi. It sounded fascinating to me! He told me there was a yogi from India that could beat up tigers with his bare hands. I was so intrigued by the fantastic feats he said the yogi performed, that I went and bought the book. It was the first book I ever bought with my own money.

As I read the book, I was fascinated with all the miraculous and supernatural things this yogi claimed to do. There were pictures of him, supposedly levitating supernaturally off the ground. I didn’t know if the pictures were done with trick photography or whether he really was levitating off the ground.

As I continued to be in awe of the pictures, I said, “God, if this is real, if he can really levitate off the ground; this is what I want to do with the rest of my life.” Even though I did not have a faith that was established by any specific set of doctrines, I still had a strong faith that there was a God, even from childhood. I said to myself, “I will spend the rest of my life doing whatever I need to do, so I can get to the place where I can levitate off the ground. This will be my new wrestling.” I knew if I could just levitate off the ground, I would have tremendous bliss in my life. This now became the focus of my life and a higher reality than making money.

OVERCOMING SPIRITUAL DARKNESS

One summer night in 1978, the LORD put a stop to my searching for the miraculous and supernatural in Autobiography of a Yogi. As I slept in my bed that night on Bremerton Road in Pepper Pike, Ohio, the LORD awoke me from my sleep. Even though my eyes were closed, I was aware I wasn’t sleeping. I was in a state of conscious awareness, and it was as if I was being translated into another realm. I had not been taking drugs nor was I drunk.

In an instant, Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMashiach) appeared on the cross. The terrain was in color, and there were people in the distance looking at Him. Suddenly, a ray of red light from the sky beamed straight down on His head. I knew it was coming from God, since it was coming from above.

I had never experienced a vision before and never even thought about what a vision was, but I knew, somehow, that God had just revealed Himself to me and had shown me that Jesus (Yeshua) was the way to Him. No one had ever witnessed to me about Jesus, and I had never read the New Testament. As a Jew, I had been taught that Jesus was not for Jews, but as an American, I knew enough to know the person on the cross was Jesus.

When the vision ended, I got out of bed and looked at my clock radio. It was 3:30 in the morning. Again, I had never considered what a vision was, but I somehow knew I had just experienced a vision. Even though it only lasted a few seconds, I was so excited. I was 20 years old and had been so lost, searching for meaning and purpose in my life and trying to escape my fears. Now God had revealed Himself to me, showing me the answer!

As time went on, I came to realize that God had literally translated me 2,000 years back in time to visibly witness Yeshua being crucified. I came to this understanding while reading Luke 23:49, which describes the people who were watching Him being crucified from “a distance.” In my vision, I specifically saw, not only the color of the terrain in which the cross was staked, but also the people who were watching His crucifixion from “a distance.”

But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. ~Luke 23:49 NIV

Since I had never been exposed to faith in Jesus, I didn’t understand how He was the way to God, but eventually God would show me. In my excitement, I started telling everyone about the vision. Later, someone told me I should buy a New Testament. I did, and I started devouring it. It was like fire to me. As I read it, I realized the teaching was different from the book, Autobiography of a Yogi, so I threw away the Autobiography of a Yogi and continued reading the New Testament. Praise God!

I realized the victory I had sought in life through wrestling is found in Yeshua. I started overcoming the spiritual darkness in my life, and as I pressed on in Him, I was continually strengthened. I began to ascend out of the darkness and into the light. I still have a long way to go, but He became my source of life, a river of living water in me.

INITIAL REJECTION

On the morning I received the vision of Yeshua, I was so excited that God had revealed Himself to me that I started telling my entire family about the vision. Aside from my mom and dad, I have a brother who is one year younger and a sister who is four years younger. In my initial excitement and naivety, I believed they would be as excited as I was. I couldn’t perceive Yeshua from any other point of view but my own.

My parents had faced anti-Semitism growing up, something I had never encountered. For this reason, I had no concept of what I would experience when I began to tell them about Jesus. At first, they didn’t react much. They probably figured it was only a dream and my excitement would subside in a couple of days. Instead, I started telling everyone about Jesus. I started pointing out certain Bible verses to my dad. Again, in my ignorance, I thought he would be as excited as I was.
I was so eager and hungry to learn more about Jesus that I began attending churches throughout the city
of Cleveland.

My parents were stricken with panic. In their minds, it was a shameful and terrible thing to have their son running all over the place talking about Jesus. Although Yeshua proclaimed that all men will know His followers by their love, what the Jewish people have experienced from the Christian community is hatred and persecution, not love. Now their Jewish son was walking around their Jewish neighborhood telling all the neighbors about Jesus. I was a traitor to the Jewish community, a shameful and hard thing for my family to bear.

DEPROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE

When my parents realized how serious I was about Yeshua and that it wasn’t a passing phase, they hired
the most famous deprogrammer in the country to kidnap and deprogram me. One day my dad invited
me to go with him to a hotel to talk to a gentleman about opening a restaurant. My dad said, “Maybe we’ll be in business together. Come with me to discuss opening a restaurant.”

That Sunday we drove to a hotel in the Beachwood area of Cleveland. As we walked into the hotel room, there were three people in the room. There was a short, distinguished-looking gentleman dressed in a three-piece suit, who was in his 50s, and there were two other men, both over six feet tall and 200 pounds.

After we walked into the room, the door closed behind us, and the short distinguished-looking man, who I later found out was the head deprogrammer, said to me, “Kirt, we’re going to talk about cults.” Immediately, he turned on a projector that had been set up in the room, and he showed me a video about Hare Krishnas. He pointed to a four-year-old child in the movie and said, “You see that kid? There’s nothing I can do for him. All he’s known is Hare Krishna, and I can’t snap him out of it.”

He said to me, “You’ve been living for 20 years as a normal person, but now you’re constantly talking about Jesus, giving all your money to the church, and reading the most dangerous book in the world, the Bible. I’m going to snap you out of this.” I said to him, “I’m not programmed by anyone; I just believe that Yeshua is the Messiah.” He said, “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.” I asked him, “Can I leave?” One of the big men said, “Sit down!”

I was trapped in the room. They allowed me to go to the bathroom, and I got down on my knees with my face on the floor, and I prayed, “LORD, I don’t know what’s ahead of me or what I’m about to go through, but please keep me as I go through it.”

We eventually left the hotel room, and one of the big men accompanied me to our house. He stayed with me continuously, even sleeping in my bedroom that night, so I couldn’t get away. The next day I was taken to a rehabilitation house in California. I was there for two weeks. At the time, I felt bad for my parents, because I’m sure it cost them a lot of money.

The rehabilitation house was run by the deprogrammer’s son. My rehabilitation consisted of being taken every day to the beach during the day and to the bars at night. After two weeks of this, I was then allowed to go back home. The deprogrammers and my parents had hoped that by getting me away from the environment that they believed was programming me to follow Jesus; I would snap out of it and come back to my senses.

Obviously, my faith in Yeshua was not rooted in someone programming me. It was rooted in a personal, supernatural revelation from the Father, so it couldn’t be shaken.

PSYCHIATRIC WARD EXPERIENCE

When I got back home from the deprogramming experience, I decided I needed to be a little less vocal about my faith. Apparently, I wasn’t less vocal enough, because not long afterwards, my parents hired a psychiatrist to come to the house to evaluate me.

The psychiatrist was a very short, frail, sickly-looking man with balding red hair. My parents and I sat down with him at the dining room table, and he started asking me questions.

I began telling him how Yeshua had appeared to me in a vision. I testified of Yeshua’s greatness and of all the things He had done for me. I also explained what my life would be like if Yeshua hadn’t delivered me. The psychiatrist sat there quietly listening, not saying a word, and after an hour he left.

After he left, I went to see one of my Christian friends. I don’t say this proudly, because I was very young and immature, but I told my friend how I had made mincemeat out of the psychiatrist. I boasted of how I boldly witnessed to him about Yeshua.

Later, I realized the psychiatrist was actually baiting me. He wanted me to tell him about my vision of Yeshua, so he could diagnosis me as delusional and have me committed to a psychiatric ward. This was the reason my parents had hired him. They were hopeful I could be treated by a psychiatrist, come to my senses, and renounce my faith in Yeshua.

The psychiatrist went through the court system and was successful in committing me to a hospital psychiatric ward. Now, here I was, a young man in my twenties, locked up with absolutely no place to go and nothing to do. I woke up every morning full of energy, with no way to release it, and each day became increasingly more difficult to handle. Before this had happened, I had come to a point in my life where I was starting to feel good again. I had started a new life for myself, building it in Yeshua, but now here I was, locked up, basically imprisoned for my belief in Him.

After a few days, I was placed in a group therapy session. There was a lady in this group, who was having a difficult time coping with the loss of her husband, who had recently passed away. She started telling the group how her late husband was the most wonderful man who had ever lived and how he was now in heaven. I asked her if he had known Jesus, and she replied, “No, we’re both Jewish.” I said to her, in a less than tactful manner, “If he didn’t know Jesus, he isn’t in heaven. It’s heaven with Jesus or hell without Him.”

After I told her that, I was told I would be placed on medication to control my behavior, because I was disturbing the equilibrium of the group. I was also informed that if I didn’t voluntarily take the medication, I would be strapped down and injected with it, so I decided to take it “voluntarily.” The medication made me feel very uncomfortable. Because I had so much energy trapped inside me, with no way to release it, every time I sat down in a chair, my legs would continuously bob up and down.

At the time, there was a state law that stated if a psychiatrist probated you to a psychiatric ward, you had to stay there for a period of two months, and then a court hearing would be held to determine if you needed to stay. Well, after two months, I was interviewed by a team of psychiatrists, and they recognized that I didn’t need to be there, so I was released.

PERSECUTION FOR MY FAITH IN YESHUA

After being released from the psychiatric ward, it took me several months to begin to recuperate and get back on my feet. God, in His faithfulness, strengthened me and led me onward and upward. I continued being less vocal about Yeshua, but difficulties and problems still persisted. I ended up being thrown out of my parent’s house, and I lost all my friends.

Since receiving the supernatural vision of Yeshua from God in 1978, I have withstood tremendous rejection and hostility from the Jewish community for my faith, but my faith has never wavered.

MY FAITH JOURNEY

After losing my family and friends, I decided there was nothing left for me in Cleveland. I therefore decided to leave everything behind and start my life over, just the LORD and I.

What I did next, I would not recommend to anyone, even though the LORD used it in my life. I took a map of the United States, laid it on the ground, and then closing my eyes, I flipped a coin, saying, “LORD, wherever this coin lands, that’s where I’m going to go, just You and me. I’m not going to tell anyone where I’m going. I’m going to start my life over, just You and me.”

When I flipped the coin, it landed on Park Rapids, Minnesota. The next day I packed up my orange AMC Gremlin and headed towards Park Rapids. I was elated! The LORD and I were starting over, just Him and I. I just knew it would be glorious! I even envisioned myself pastoring a church when I got there.

When I arrived in Park Rapids, I discovered it to be an Indian reservation. It was a ghost town; hardly anyone was even living there. The only job available in the whole town was working on a ski slope. I would have had to invest $200 in ski equipment and clothing to work there, and then the job wouldn’t start for another two months. On top of that, I didn’t even know how to ski.

At this point, I knew I couldn’t stay in Park Rapids. I thought to myself, “What am I going to do?” I knew I had to get someplace warm, so when I ran out of money, I wouldn’t freeze to death. I counted the money I had left in my wallet and calculated how many miles I could travel with that money. I looked at a map and figured I had just enough for one last meal and enough to get me to Corpus Christi, Texas. I had never been there before, but I assumed, “It must be warm, because it’s on the ocean.” Even though I’d be out of money when I arrived, I hoped it would be warm enough there to survive.

On the way to Corpus Christi, I stopped for my last meal at a restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri. After finishing the meal, I got back in my Gremlin, but it wouldn’t start. Now I didn’t have enough money to get my car fixed and get to Corpus Christi. I thought to myself, “What am I going to do?” I ended up giving my car to the waitress at the restaurant.

I then went into the restaurant’s restroom and threw my wallet and glasses into the trash can and said, “LORD, I’m going to rely on You alone.” I know this sounds unstable and radical, but God used this time in my life to teach me to trust and rely only upon Him. It became the grounding of my manhood in the LORD. I learned to be confident in Him, as I ventured out with nothing to rely on but Him.

Having given my car away, I needed a change of plans. I decided to head to California, where I would fast in the northern woods. I started hitchhiking. The first two days, no one picked me up. The first night, I slept on the side of the road in the weeds. The next night, I slept on a bench in an all-night sports coliseum. Those were very lonely days.

On the third day, someone finally offered me a ride; however, he wasn’t going to California, but was on his way to Amarillo, Texas, to visit a friend. He told me that his friend owned a Tex-Mex restaurant and he would give me a job working there. When I got to Amarillo, I started working at the restaurant as a line cook. I ran into difficulty, because I was having trouble seeing, since I had thrown away my glasses in Kansas City. The orders were spun around on a wheel, and I couldn’t see them without walking from one end of the kitchen, back to the wheel on the other side of the kitchen. This considerably slowed down the production line. Eventually, I ended up getting released from the job because of my vision problems.

From there, I did end up going to California. I lived with one of my relatives and worked as a graveyard shift dishwasher in a Sambo’s Restaurant. I had left home to seek the LORD, believing it would be a glorious experience, but now here I was, two months later, working in a restaurant as a graveyard shift dishwasher. I had no car, and I was riding my little cousin’s bicycle to work every day, while my brother and sister were on their way to success. I began to feel like a real loser, because the Jewish community tends to be very focused on education, with many becoming doctors, lawyers, or successful business owners. Here I was, without a college degree, working as a graveyard shift dishwasher, riding my little cousin’s bicycle to work. It felt like I was on the road to nowhere.

I said, “LORD, I really am beginning to feel bad about myself. If I ever make $100,000 in a single year, it will be a miracle!” It wasn’t that I was seeking riches; I just wanted to feel better about myself and was measuring myself by the affluent Jewish community that I had grown up in. It was only a few years after praying this prayer to God that He put me in a position where I made $111,000 in one year. The LORD is awesome! I’m not bragging about how much I made, since all that money meant nothing to me. I’m just testifying to the goodness and loving kindness of my Father God.

MARRIAGE AND BIBLE COLLEGE

Eventually, the LORD brought me back home to Cleveland. The journey He had taken me on shaped me into a new man. It’s like one who enlists in the Marines and after finishing boot camp is a new person, because they’ve been through an experience that has imparted something within. The LORD used my experiences to impart His strength within me and build a strong faith and trust in Him.

After returning to Cleveland, it wasn’t long before many things in my life started changing. Within a month, I met my future wife, Cynthia, who also became a follower of Jesus. We were married in 1983. Bringing Cynthia into my life was the LORD’s way of straightening me out and getting me on track in many ways. Without her love and influence in my life, I would not be where I am today.

I also enrolled in Toccoa Falls, a fully accredited Bible college. This college was very good for me; I learned a great many things, and I truly enjoyed my time there. Looking back on those days, I am thankful that they didn’t throw me out of this Bible College. Almost all of the students attending there had come from Christian homes, and they knew what was acceptable or unacceptable behavior in a Christian setting. As for me, I came right out of the world, and looking back, I cringe at some of the things that came out of my mouth, not knowing any better. One professor told me that he thought I was like Peter, “a diamond in the rough.” I believe that they put up with me, because I was Jewish, and they saw potential in me.

Although this college was very strong and committed to most aspects of the Word of God, they discouraged seeking the supernatural and many types of ministry associated with the spiritual gifts. I recall one student from Bible College who was very charismatic. One evening I invited him and his wife to my home to have dinner with Cynthia and I. As the evening went on, he began sharing with us how he was able to speak in tongues, something I had never done. In fact, one of my professors had us listen to a cassette tape, in which an evangelist cast a demon out of someone, whom the professor claimed came in when this individual sought to speak in tongues. As a result, I was afraid to seek this gift.

Now, here was a fellow student and friend telling me he had spoken in tongues. As he was speaking to me about the fact that God gives believers this gift as a prayer language, the LORD clearly bore witness with my spirit that this friend was telling me the truth. It was shocking to me that at the very instant God’s Spirit was bearing witness to me that what my friend was telling me was the truth, my friend said to me, “What are you feeling right now?” I am ashamed to say that I said, “Oh, I’m not feeling anything.” I covered up the truth and suppressed the witness of the Holy Spirit within me.

It’s been many years since then, and now God has released me into a much fuller walk with the Holy Spirit, including all the gifts of the Spirit, but I’ll never forget that moment. The LORD had clearly spoken to me, and I’m so ashamed to think back on how I suppressed His Spirit.

STARTING INTO MINISTRY

When I graduated from Toccoa Falls College in 1985, I was awarded “The Preacher of the Year Award.” The award was a blessing from God, because it opened up doors in ministry for me.

I began ministering in 1985 in a mainline denomination. I found my position very difficult to cope with, because everything done in this congregation was by congregational vote. I had to contend with church politics and all the tradition and culture that had been there prior to my arrival. Being young and immature, I found it very difficult to handle. After all, I still had a lot of issues in my own life that needed to be resolved. For personal reasons, I decided to take a sabbatical from ministry.

SABBATICAL FROM MINISTRY

During my sabbatical from ministry, I worked in the business world in sales and motivational speaking. I started out in the area of insurance and investments. In the first year, I won a national sales contest, competing against other new agents, but I found it difficult to earn a good living.

From there, I began selling new residential homes, and I was the number one salesperson in the last company I worked for. During my years as a salesperson, I observed that many in the sales field did a very good job explaining their product, but they were afraid to ask for the sale. If they’d only had the courage to overcome their fears, their sales would have increased.

I decided to start giving motivational talks to sales representatives to help them overcome their fears. In preparation, I did extensive research on the topic of fear. I ultimately knew the cause of fear was Satan and darkness, but I wanted to see what had been written by others and what studies had been done.

Although there were several theories on the origin of fear, there was nothing written on solutions for fear. I asked myself, “How have I overcome fear?” Instantly, I knew the answer. It was Yeshua! It was a eureka moment; immediately I knew I had to get out of business and back into ministry. The message I had to share was the message of Yeshua!

DISCOVERING THE JEWISH JESUS IS BIRTHED

I started back into ministry, and the LORD quickly and supernaturally opened many doors. The most significant one was the launching of a weekly television program called: Discovering The Jewish Jesus in 2002. Because of my Jewish heritage, I wanted to help people understand the connections between the Old and New Testaments and teach them about the Jewish origins of their faith. Today, we broadcast to nearly 200 countries around the world, including the Nation of Israel.

CRUSADES

In 2014 we began organizing on-the-ground crusades, initially in Haiti. Since this time we have gone to Cuba, Ukraine, Brazil, and many parts of Africa. In Africa, especially, we have seen crowds over 100,000, and have witnessed healings, deliverances, and thousands of salvations. Click here to learn more about our on-the-ground crusades!

REACHING ISRAEL

I personally have a great passion for Jewish people in Israel and around the world. Our broadcast reaches 99% of the homes with televisions in Israel. Starting in 2017 we began annual evangelistic outreach events in Jerusalem, and have seen hundreds of Jewish people accept Jesus as their Savior. In 2017 we also initiated humanitarian efforts to Jewish immigrants coming to Israel.

AUTHOR /GUEST

I have had the privilege of ministering to God’s people through the authoring of several books: Awakening to Messiah, Do Not Be Afraid, Self-Deliverance, The Book of Revelation Decoded, Experiencing the Supernatural, and The Lion of Judah. In addition, I have been blessed to be a guest on various national television programs, including TBN’s Praise the Lord, The 700 Club, Daystar’s Marcus and Joni, The Jewish Voice, Sid Roth’s It’s Supernatural, and Mornings with Maria on Fox Business Network.