My grandfather on my mother's side
was Mordechai Ben-Ami
and participated in the first Zionist Congress
in Basel Switzerland along
with Theodor Herzl.
My grandfather moved his family
to Canada to Montreal
and at the age of 14 my father
turned to his father
and said I don't want to be part of the family
business.
I'm not interested in money.
I'm moving to New York City to study
at a yeshiva.
When he finished his studies
my father thought
about what he wanted to do next
and he decided to become a physician.
Later when he was doing his residency he
was asked to give a blood transfusion to
a gentile, on Shabbat.
While he knew this wasn't right under the law
(Oral Law) it felt right in his heart.
And so he went ahead and did it.
But he immediately knew that he had violated
the Halaka,
the rules of the rabbis at the time.
So he went back to New York City
and met with his rabbis there
and asked them if he had done the right
thing.
And they said no.
He walked out of the yeshiva
bought a ham sandwich
and was never going to look back
because if the law isn't true then God's
not true.
And my father's heart,
was broken.
My mother and father met in Israel
and were married there, moved to New York City,
and that's where I was born.
We were raised in a very secular Jewish
home.
Knowing that we were Jewish
but never going to synagogue,
not celebrating Shabbat
or any of the holy days in fact we had a Christmas
tree growing up because my father
wanted us to be Americans.
After college I decided to move to Washington
D.C. to get involved in politics.
And I was hired on the staff of a freshman
senator that no one had ever heard of
named John McCain.
While I was serving on Senator McCain's staff
I was invited by another staff member to
a breakfast.
Then all of a sudden it got quiet.
And one of the men he pulled out a little
book.
And he began to read from it.
And as he was reading the thought crossed my
mind.
Is that the Bible?
Is he reading the Bible?
In front of all these people.
Is this a Bible study?
So when one of the young men turned to me
after introducing himself
and asked "what church do you go to?"
I looked at him very sternly
and I said,
"I don't!"
I was invited to attend the National Prayer
Breakfast.
And when I did something profound happened.
My two loves in life,
my two passions,
were politics
and classical music.
My hero in politics was
Secretary of State James Baker.
He got up in front of 3000 people
and said it's pretty neat being secretary
of state, to the wealthiest nation
in the world.
And it's pretty neat being chief of staff,
to the most powerful man
in the world.
And it's pretty neat being secretary
of state to the most influential
country in the world.
But the thing that's really getting me up in the morning
these days and I'm excited about.
Is Jesus.
Did he just say Jesus?
Why would James Baker
talk about Jesus as
something that's interesting to him?
One of my heroes in music
was Mitislav Rostropovich.
He was considered the greatest cellist of
all time.
He was Yo-Yo Ma before Yo-Yo Ma
was Yo-Yo Ma.
Rostropovich gets up.
And says basically the same thing as James
Baker.
It's pretty neat being the most famous
cellist in the world.
But the thing that really is interesting to
me right now, is Jesus.
I thought. Him too?
Rostropovich?
Maybe he's even Jewish!
Why would he be talking about Jesus?
Over time.
I became convinced of one thing.
This Jesus question was not going away.
I decided the best thing to do would
be to jump into it right now.
So I thought a good place to start would be in
the Bible and I began on my own
to start reading through the Bible.
For the first time ever in my life.
I started in Genesis
and I read a chapter every day.
I made it all the way through the Tanakh,
and then I came to
the Book of Matthew
and I read through the genealogy of Matthew.
And then I got to the Sermon on the Mount.
And that's when it all came crashing in.
That our Messiah!!
That's my Messiah!
I don't know what all these Christians are doing following
him but that's my
Messiah!
The enemy clearly doesn't want Jews
to know who their own Messiah is.
And so he overwhelms us
with thoughts of betrayal
and turning your back on people
who are killed in the Holocaust
or killed during the Spanish Inquisition.
And I felt overwhelmed
with these thoughts and fears as well.
My great uncle had passed away by then
but his eldest son Moshe pulled
me aside and wanted to speak
with me privately.
He said John when we met your wife
we knew immediately that she was a very
deep spiritual person.
She was familiar with the scriptures.
There was just something about her that we knew was good.
But there's one thing we can't understand.
You've been married for seven years.
Why has she not converted to Judaism.
Because for him that's the only way to
be in a right relationship
with God.
And I said Moshe there
is a reason why she hasn't converted to Judaism.
My father knows what it is.
He's a little bit embarrassed about it.
But if you really want to know I'll tell
you why she hasn't converted
he said Please tell me.
I said Moshe.
My wife and I believe that that Messiah
has actually been here once already
and a famous rabbi who came to that same
conclusion once said
If you believe in the blood of this Messiah
then you automatically become in a right
relationship with the God of Abraham
Isaac and Jacob.
And so there was no need to convert.
She's already in a right relationship
with the God of Abraham Isaac
and Jacob
I didn't know how he would respond.
Was he going to turn the table over
or tear his clothes
or shout at me and say,
get out of here! and don't ever come back!!
Instead he started to daven
and he was pulling on his beard
and thinking
and I assume praying.
And then he looked at me
and in Hebrew he said
"yecholiot" which means
maybe so.