i remember having a conversation with my
mother and she was encouraging me to go
to bed early so i'd get a good night's
sleep and i said ma why why should i go
to bed and get a good night's sleep
she says so you can get up and be
refreshed in the morning and do well in
school
i said why do i need to do well in
school she said so you can go to a good
college
i said why do i need to go to a good
college so you can get a good job
why don't you get a good job so you can
have a family and have a house and
have things the nice things of life i
said well okay if i have all those
things then what
she goes then they're nothing that's it
i said is that all there is
being the only son of a jewish mother i
was made to feel like i was the center
of the universe
it was all about me and then in the
world when
it wasn't about me it was shocking to me
and
and i wanted it to be about me i sought
the
the the approval and the affirmation and
the confirmation of these things from
other people
that in fact it was about me and that i
was the center of the universe
i went to a private school and we had to
study the life of jesus
at that private school and i didn't like
jesus but i wanted to
hear from my own rabbi why we don't
believe in jesus
and he explained to me that he couldn't
be the messiah because when messiah
comes
he'll bring peace and since jesus has
already come and there is no peace
he could not be the messiah and that
satisfied me for about seven years
and i was i was totally satisfied with
that answer it made sense to me
in college i became a theoretical
marxist i believed
that uh that what the world needed was
radical social change
that instead of people competing against
each other
uh in the marketplace that government
would come
and and would create an equal playing
field even more than that and create
equal outcomes
for everyone in the culture if we could
get rid of the competitiveness and the
and the adversarial relationship that i
that i saw
in the the the culture and we could work
towards cooperation
we could create a better world together
and i really wanted to make a better
world that was my
i saw this as a source of of
significance and purpose in my life
that i could help bring about a better
world for
for uh mankind the only problem with
my convictions about social change
and making a better world was that was
the problem
of the brokenness in people my own
personal brokenness i saw that
my own selfishness my own pride my own
lust my own greed all of those things
in my life and and i saw that in other
people i saw it in the world around me
and if if there was something wrong with
us if there was something wrong with
people
then changing social systems wouldn't
make any difference
it would just be the same thing over and
over again
so in my freshman year of college i hear
a knock on my door
i open the door and there's a young man
there he looks at me goes hi my name's
paul
and i'd like to come i'd like to talk to
you about establishing a personal
relationship with jesus christ
i thought well to me by surprise and i
said
i'm sorry i'm jewish he goes that's okay
so was he
i said yeah yeah you're right yeah i
said come on in so i invited him in the
room
invited some some of my jewish friends
from down the hall to come join us
and then he began to explain to us
why jesus was the jewish messiah
so the questions that i came to college
with stayed with me
and i and i realized if there was no god
there was no hope
that led me on on a quest on a search
and the process of that search
i came across the prophecy in the 53rd
chapter of isaiah
and i remember reading it and
thinking to myself what's jesus doing in
my bible
i was surprised as i read it that that
this was from the prophet isaiah the
jewish prophet
and i said what's jesus doing in my
bible and i began to think
why didn't the rabbi tell me about this
why didn't he tell me
that that there was a picture of messiah
other than
messiah bringing peace but a messiah
that was going to suffer and die for us
after college in order to make extra
money i work nights and weekends
uh for a kosher caterer in in boston
one night april 30th 1980 i was at
temple sinai in marblehead massachusetts
i was there for a donor dinner serving a
donor dinner i was asked
if i would pack up the truck so
everybody else could go home
and just i would be left and i said fine
so everybody else left the the ladies
had their fundraiser
inside the show and i was outside
with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and
just thinking about life
all of a sudden inside the synagogue the
women started praying
their prayers began to remind me of my
own
searching and my own struggle my own uh
journey that i
that i was on and i started thinking
about uh
jewish history and i started thinking
about uh david i started thinking about
jesus is jesus the messiah is it really
important who the messiah is is
is jesus the son of god is he is he is
he god you ever say he was god and
couldn't he just meant that he was close
to god and intimate with god
and i said what difference does that
make with the name of god is as long as
we we live a good life
and as i'm thinking these things i'm
walking around the temple parking lot
and i get to the uh the end of the
parking lot and i look up
and before me is a gathering of light
and the light forms a figure of a man
and the and the man is all in light and
and and there was and he was behi he's
in front of a cross not on the cross but
in front of a cross
and it's all brightly illuminated in
front of me about 20 yards
about 20 yards away from his biggest
life and i looked up and i saw the
figure and i said oh my god it's jesus
christ
my hands are shaking and i'm shaking my
head on the way home
that i really see this that i really see
this and and it scared me so much i
decided to try to put it out of my mind
so i spent the next couple of weeks just
partying and
and uh going out to bars and just trying
to forget about
what what had happened and i did this
for for a couple of weeks
of getting drunk and and trying to
forget i woke up one morning i was
living at home at the time and
and i woke up in the morning and and uh
i was getting my orange juice in in the
kitchen and my mother looks at me and
says rich
what are you running from
so i came to realize
that i wasn't the center of the universe
that that
that god was that it wasn't about me was
about him
and it was about me investing my life
and and and his purposes that he had for
me
and that gave me such a feeling of
meaning and purpose in my life that it
was beyond
anything that i i could have i could
have dreamt for
i never thought i'd get the answers i
never thought that those were kinds of
things that there were answers to
but now i realize that there's a god and
that
he loves me and that that love sets me
free
to love and serve others love and serve
him
today i am i'm married to my beautiful
wife michelle who happens to be italian
i thought it was more important
to marry a girl that shared my faith in
jesus
than it was to marry a jewish girl we
have three
uh wonderful boys uh uh joshua 27 micah
26 and zach 23.
they all have come in their place in
their life where they have
asked jesus to be their messiah and lord
and they are walking within and so we're
very proud of them
i presently i'm teaching as as a
professor
in a graduate school in new york city
and and really enjoy
delight in being able to share my
experience and my journey in my life
with these young people in the context
of a learning environment
you