A quarter of a million Jewish people live in the UK – and this month, most of them will be celebrating Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. But for Randy Newman, author of Questioning Evangelism, it was this Jewish Festival that started his journey to faith in Christ. Everything changed when he looked down at his shoes…
I was born into a Jewish family in the suburbs of New York City.
At the time ‘maintaining Jewish identity’ was a high priority. My father fought in World War II, and my parents were of that generation that first learned of the horrors of the Holocaust, that demonic explosion that slaughtered one third of the world’s Jewish population (6 million out of 18 million).
So although my parents were not particularly observant in their practice or even believing in all that Judaism taught, they joined a Conservative synagogue that leaned toward the Orthodox variety, and made sure their three sons would have a Bar Mitzvah and not get assimilated into the predominantly ‘Christian’ culture in which we lived.
‘Christ-killer’
Very soon I learned that we were not like Christians, and that to be Jewish meant to be hated. I vividly recall being called ‘kike’ and ‘Christ-killer’ by ‘Christians’ at my school. I remember my father receiving a request from our synagogue president to guard our congregation’s property on a Halloween night. One year before, someone had chosen to carve a swastika into our synagogue lawn with a lawnmower.
I may not have been able to expound on all the major doctrines of Judaism but I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jews do not believe in Jesus. For some reason, I took Judaism’s spiritual aspects more seriously than the rest of my family. I continued to meet with our rabbi even after my Bar Mitzvah, which was far from typical.
The Day of Atonement
When I was 15 years old, I chose to diligently obey all the many commandments associated with the celebration of the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. The traditions of the rabbis mandated that you fast on that day, not ride in a car, abstain from any work, and confess sins for the purpose of ‘afflicting one’s soul.’ And so I walked to synagogue (about two miles from where we lived) and confessed every sin the liturgy listed. I had begun the holiday with the hopes that, if I obeyed all the commandments for that holiest of days, God would no longer seem distant and alien as he had up until that point.
Soft soles
But it didn’t work. I walked home, watching the sun as it set, and felt no closer to God than I had 24 hours before. And then I looked down at my shoes. I was dressed in a suit and wore leather dress shoes to match the formal attire. At that moment, I remembered something I was taught back in Hebrew School years before—you don’t wear leather shoes on Yom Kippur. If you were to visit a synagogue on Yom Kippur, you would see men dressed in fine suits and athletic shoes that don’t match. It’s a day for soft-soled footwear, not leather, which is equated with fine luxury – out of place on a day of repentance.
I wrestled with the notion that my shoes were the reason for my lack of connection with God. If only I had worn the right shoes, God wouldn’t seem so alien to me, I reasoned. And then I thought: ‘That’s the stupidest thing in the world! Is that really what knowing God is all about? Wearing the right shoes? Obeying every obscure, demanding, rule the rabbis could concoct?’ If that was what a relationship with God was all about, I was not interested.
There must be a better way
But still, I sensed there must be a better way and expressed some kind of prayer asking God to show me what it was. That began a process of searching that lasted more than five years. It included meeting a group of Christians who were different. They were different from me because they talked about having ‘a personal relationship with God’. They were different from other ‘Christians’ I knew because they challenged my thinking. They said that just because someone is Gentile doesn’t mean they are Christian.
And they were different from almost everyone I knew in that they talked about God and to God in a way I found tremendously attractive. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but I was jealous that these goyim (a not-so-positive term for Gentiles) knew my Jewish God better than I did.
I began to read the Bible – both the so-called Old Testament and the New Testament – and found I had misunderstood both Judaism and Christianity. The God revealed in the Tenach (a Jewish term for the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings) was different from the rules-obsessed, law-enforcing deity I had heard about in Hebrew School. And the New Testament was not at all anti-Semitic as I had expected and been warned about. In fact, the New Testament sounded remarkably Jewish, quoting from David, Solomon, Hosea, Micah and Malachi.
The claims of Jesus
Most of all, I found that Jesus was not who I expected him to be – merely a good teacher. He made claims about himself that, if true, meant he was the Messiah and, if false, meant he was a megalomaniac. Best of all, I found this Jesus to be a delight to both my mind and my soul. He taught lessons that challenged and comforted, made sense and made for shalom – peace. He fulfilled what the prophets foretold and what my heart yearned for. And his death, I learned from Matthew, a Jewish man writing for a Jewish audience, atoned for sin in a way that no animal sacrifice in the temple or personal sacrifice after the temple’s destruction could ever manage. He was the one Isaiah expected, the one Simeon hoped for, and the one I desperately wanted.
Source of my every joy
That same Jesus continues to amaze and delight me to this day. I regularly find ways in which he unifies the Old and New Testaments. He still challenges me with his teachings, cleanses me with his cross-work, and empowers me with his Spirit. He is the source of my every joy and the balm for my every tsuris (a Yiddish word that means ‘troubles’).
And as soon as you put the word ‘Jewish’ and the name ‘Jesus’ together in a sentence, you’re asking for tsuris. If there’s one thing the vast majority of Jewish people believe, it’s that ‘Jews don’t believe in Jesus.’ In fact, they go further. If you ‘used to be Jewish’ and you believe in Jesus, you’re no longer Jewish, they insist. You betrayed and abandoned your people.
But despite that, God is as powerfully at work in the lives of Jewish people today as he was when he parted the Red Sea. Their resistance or the evils done to them are not obstacles that can thwart the omnipotence of our God. In fact, friends of mine in Jewish missions tell me that Jewish people are more open to the gospel than ever. Jewish people are reading the New Testament, talking about Jesus, visiting evangelistic websites, attending Christian Bible studies, sneaking in the back doors of churches and messianic congregations, and finding the One who has fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah, Micah, Hosea and all the other prophets. Not only that – many of these Jewish people are embracing the One who satisfies their deepest longings, atones for all their sins, and grants them joy that will last for all eternity.
There is no limit to what God can do in and through the lives of the Jewish people he brings across your path.
