I Believe Jesus is the Messiah

by Rachmiel Frydland

This tract is available from Messianic Literature Outreach
(This is a longer version of Why I Believe.)

I was born, and brought up, in a Jewish religious home. As far back as I can remember my father always wore a religious garb, with beard and peyoths (side curls) and all the other customary marks of Jewish orthodoxy.

The Jewish community where I spent my boyhood was small and poverty stricken. It was not in a position to maintain a Cheder (a Jewish religious school). But my father, being a devout Jew, felt it his bounden duty to instruct his own five children, my four sisters and his only son, in the faith of his fathers. ANd when he no longer was able to devote the needed time and strength to that task he, out of his own meager resources, engaged a Belfer (a primary religious teacher) to continue our instruction.

It was the Belfer who started the Chumesh (Books of Moses) with me, but he did not stay long. For various reasons, chiefly financial, my father had to let him go. It was decided that I should be sent to a Cheder in a neighboring town to continue my religious training.

Accordingly, after Pesach (the Jewish Passover), having reached the ripe age of seven, my father took me by the hand and brought me to the Cheder about four miles away from our village.

I Became a Talmudical Student

I began to study the Talmud at the age of nine. A year later the Rebbe advised my father that he had advanced me in my studies as far as he was able, and that if he desired me to continue my Talmudical studies he should transfer me to a higher school of learning. My father joyfully took his advice and soon after I was enrolled as a student in a Yeshivah.

Such a life until I reached my 13th year of age, that is until I became Bar Mitzvah (a son of the Law). This is an important milestone in the life of a Jewish boy. According to the Jewish tradition the boy at that point becomes of age and a full-fledged member of the Jewish synagogue. Prior to that his father was responsible for his sins, but now the father is delivered from that responsibility. From then on the "Son of Law" must suffer the penalty for his own misdeeds.

A year later I was in the capital city of Poland, Warsaw, continuing my Talmudical studies in one of the famous Rabbinical seminaries. At the end of my course of studies I expected to obtain my Rabbinical diploma. But this meant again a period of struggle and seminary, but for lodging. I like other needy students, had to find some Jewish store where I would act as a night watchman, for which service I would receive shelter and sometimes a few pennies.

Doubt and Problems

The teaching in the Rabbinical Schools was all "spoon-fed" -- that is, we had to learn by heart or memorize what we read in the books or what were heard from the lips of the Rabbi. Independent reasoning and questions were utterly discouraged. Those who inadvertently expressed a doubt, or an opinion of their own not found in the books, were cruelly punished for their temerity. As a result, I carried around my problems and doubts, not daring to confide them to anyone.

At that time also it became clear to me that however I tried, I would not go to heaven anyway. I felt I could not measure up to the requirements of the Torah. A Talmudical story about a famous Rabbi troubled me exceedingly. According to it, when his end was approaching, he was so terrified that he wept bitter tears. He did not know, he lamented, where he was going -- to Heaven or the Gehenna. "If such a Rabbi," I said to myself, "so famous for his devotion and sanctity,  did not know whether he was good enough to go to Heaven, what chance had I to get there?"

At this point an incident occurred which completely changed the whole course of my life. I had a friend who was suspected of not being sufficiently orthodox according to the rigid conception of the Yeshivah I was attending. He belonged to a religious Zionist group, called the Mizrachi, which was not tolerated by that Yeshivah. Though having nothing to do with this group, my association with this friend of mine nevertheless drew suspicion on me also.

At that time I also became dissatisfied with the whole system of Rabbinical education. All of it was nothing except what the Rabbis long ago said or wrote. I desired to read and to study things which were outside the Talmudical curriculum. I craved to learn things other than those which were taught in the Yeshivah.

That opportunity soon came. Walking in the streets of Warsaw, I met a friend, also a Talmudical student, standing in the street and selling things. I asked him why he was doing it. He said, "I am fed up with the tyranny and fanaticism of the Rabbis. I am now earning my own living. I am no longer dependent upon the Yeshivah. Now I can think for myself and read what I like." A short time later, I too, was standing in the street, selling things.

A Radical Change

Then the storekeeper, who was giving me lodging on his premises, saw me in the street with my basket of goods. "Aha," he said, "you are no longer in the Yeshivah! My store is only for Yeshivah Bocherim (students). You therefore can no longer sleep in my place!"

The only thing then for me to do was to find another lodging. This I succeeded in doing quickly  in the home of a kindly motherly woman. But this woman was attending meetings at a mission!

"What are they doing at the mission?" I asked her. "Come and see!" she replied. My curiosity was aroused, and so one day I accompanied her to the meeting.

The missionaries were not altogether unknown to me. I had heard of them before, and abhorred them. I also had seen some of their literature, and as soon as I looked into it, I tore it up. It seemed to propound the idea that Jews should believe in three gods and exchange the holy Torah for teachings of the "Hanged One." It was a sin for a Jew to take his name even upon his lips, because "that One" was the cause of all the sorrows that had befallen Israel since His day nearly two thousand years ago.

Moreover, what I saw at the Mission that day filled me with ridicule. The missionary began the meeting by offering prayer in Yiddish! I could not help bursting out in laughter. With us, in the synagogue, only ignorant women prayed in Yiddish. The language of prayer for men was Hebrew, from the Siddur!

A little reflection, however, made me ashamed of my behavior. After all, I said to myself, God understood all the languages, even Yiddish. Then thinking back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the prophets, it was clear they had no Siddur to pray from, and yet their prayers were accepted of God.

Signs of the Messiah

Then at the close of the meeting I heard the speaker make the following announcement:

Hearing this I decided to stay. I was sure that he was wrong. I knew there were no signs in the Tenach by which he could prove his point. I knew also that I could demolish all his arguments, and show him that he was in error. I was therefore eager to hear what he had to say.

The missionary made a long speech, quoting may verses from the Tenach in his support. But I had an answer ready for every one of those verses. Some of them, I explained, may not apply to the Messiah, and of those that did, I showed him that it was not Jesus to whom they referred. The only passage, however, for which I did not know the answer was Daniel 9:24-26. It reads as follows:

I simply had to confess that I did not understand this passage at all. But I promised the speaker that I would study it and come back with the answer. What puzzled me was: Why was Messiah to be cut off?

Rashi and other Rabbinic authorities, to whom I consulted, said that the reference was King Agrippa, Herod's descendant, who is called "Messiah" here and was "cut off" before the Temple's destruction. If one does not agree that Jesus was the Messiah, then the term "Messiah" is transferred to a voluptuous carnal king, like Agrippa, as Rashi interprets. On the other hand, there is Jesus, Yeshua of Nazareth, who was "cut off" forty years before the second Temple was destroyed, as revealed by Gabriel to Daniel.

In addition, the revelation given to Daniel deals also to some extent with the substance and the circumstances of Messiah's activity, "to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness." In other words, Messiah being "cut off" is distinctly connected with the atoning work that the Temple sacrifices attempted to do, except that it would be a work of completion and fulfillment far greater than any Temple sacrifices could possibly secure. In Daniel's timetable, Jesus fit in perfectly. No one else seemed to qualify.

As I continued to attend the meetings I learned to respect the people for their patience and humility. Further reflection and study made me feel that all my ready answers to the missionary's "signs" were based, not upon the unprejudiced study of the Bible,  but upon what the Rabbis told me. I had to admit that the promises fulfilled in Jesus were too numerous to be explained away. There was an accumulation of evidence which could in no manner be set aside.

I Accept the Messiah

But I wanted to get at the bottom of the whole matter. I therefore obtained a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew to learn first hand who Jesus was, and what He came to do and teach. I read it through carefully, comparing the many references in it to the Old Testament.

Slowly it dawned upon me that Jesus must be the Messiah of whom the Prophet Isaiah said:

Looking back upon my life, I realized that step by step the hand of God was upon me, leading me. All the circumstances seemed to combine to bring me to that decision. It was the hand of God which I could not and would not resist, and it was the Spirit of God, who still broods over the chaos of this world and over men's souls, darkened through sin, crying: Let there be light!

It was a lonely decision to make. I could not consult my parents or friends. They would not have understood. They would have been bitterly opposed to it. Nevertheless I knew that my next step was to make an open and public confession of my faith in the Messiah. But I lacked the courage to come out boldly.

Then came the winter of the year 1937. There was a meeting at the mission, and on that occasion, it was composed wholly of Jewish believers. The speaker was a Gentile woman, who talked about the Temple of Jerusalem, explaining how all the things in it -- its construction and its furniture -- all pointed to the fact that all men were sinners, and that the Lord Jesus was the sacrifice for the sins of all.

"How is it," I asked myself "that a Gentile woman knew more about the Bible and about the significance of these things than I, a student of the Yeshivah? Does this not prove that it is because we as a nation have rejected our Messiah?"

When the speaker was done, we were invited to kneel and to pray. then the unexpected happened. In spite of my Jewish reluctance to kneel, I immediately sank upon my knees before all, and prayed that God might open my eyes to the Truth, and forgive me my sins for not acknowledging openly before men that Jesus was my Messiah.

Boldness and Assurance

God answered my prayer. A new assurance filled my soul. I was no longer afraid to confess Him before men. I was no longer afraid of the consequences.

A Taste of Nazi Brutality

This however was not the end of my difficulties. Soon my parents learned of the step I had taken, and came endeavoring to dissuade me from my new-found faith. But as time went on, their opposition relaxed and I had many opportunities of witnessing to them about their and my Messiah. There was a wonderful sense of the forgiveness of sins and courage to confess Messiah openly.

I had been a believer for two years when the war came. Warsaw shook under more and more bombs. Food became scarce and the electricity and water supply failed. Along with several other young Jewish believers in the Messiah, I went to help defend the city. Because I did not want to use a gun, I was given physical work. Within a month the city was crushed and the triumphant German marched in.

I decided to leave the city and seek farm work with friends to the north. With a certificate in hand, given to me by my pastor, I set out across the burning city. Reaching the outskirts, I was stopped by a soldier. "Are you a Jew?" he demanded. Without a word I handed him my certificate. He looked at it and then spat out: "Yes, but are you still a Jew!" He seized a shovel and slammed it into my back, knocking me into a ditch. There I was ordered to join fellow Jews who were digging graves for dead horses. It was my first taste of Nazi brutality, but actually mild in comparison with what awaited so many other.

That night I escaped in the darkness and resumed my journey. My friends received me gladly and fed me, but in a short time the new restrictive laws against Jews forced me to leave. Returning to Warsaw, I discovered that one of my sisters had died of typhus and that a wall had been build around the Jewish Section. I decided to walk the 150 miles southeast to my native village. Jews were not allowed to travel any longer on public vehicles.

Home Again

*My parents could hardly believe I was still alive when I arrived in Mid-December. One of my sisters also returned home, and we settled down, hoping to wait out the war. We knew, however, that our blue-and-white armbands, marking us as Jews, were a constant hazard to our lives. I was forced to work with slave laborers, building a road, but managed to escape when starvation swept the camp. Home again, my mother told me that I must stop telling my Jewish friends about the Messiah. But the spreading pall of suffering and death caused people to reach out for some hope or answer for the dreaded future.

One day my sister came to me. "I read your Bible," she said, "and I heard your discussions. I believe, and if God gives us peaceful days. I want to be baptized." My mother came to me and said, "I have watched you and you are a different person. I was reading your New Testament and I don't see anything wrong in this Jesus. Why are our rabbis so much against Him?" My father never admitted anything to me. However, he stopped hiding my Bible and rebuking me for speaking about Jesus. He began secretly to read the Bible.

The blossoming faith of my family was a great blessing to me as death drew nearer in 1942. We saw trucks and trains loaded with Jewish people rolling toward the extermination camp at Sobibor. One by one and village by village they disappeared. My father, my mother, my sisters, my newly wedded wife, and all other relatives except a brother-in-law perished. At the end of August the order came for me to go. I was given permission by the mayor of our village to say goodbye to my parents, who at the time had not yet been called. I fled to the woods, and though time and again I was captured, by miracle after miracle, God enabled me to survive.

Alone in the Woods

Once, alone in the woods in the biting cold of winter, exhausted and discouraged, my whole being seemed to cry out: "Why are we so persecuted?" I was convinced that the companions who had been with me just days before had been caught, and lived no more. I, too, was ready to die. But there still remained the Lord, the same yesterday and today. He began to speak to me. "You have enough of my grace. Had not Job enough? Had not Paul enough?" The still small voice of God spoke softly to me. Overcome with tears, I yielded and decided to live as long as the Lord would allow me to live, and to work for Him. Confident that God was with me, I rose and left those woods.

As I moved from place to place, Gentile Christians often risked their lives by hiding and feeding me. One of my bitterest experiences, however, was the discovery that many German Christians, though they knew of the Nazi atrocities against the Jews, would not help. "It is our government, and we must obey," they said.

In the Warsaw Ghetto

*In late 1944, by hiding in cemeteries, deserted churches, and the homes of fearful friends, I was one of the few surviving Jews in Warsaw outside the ghetto. In that enclosure were 5,000 Jews, the last of Warsaw's original 500,000. By God's enabling, I secretly slipped into the ghetto and was able to speak comfort to a few of the Hebrew Christians still alive. Other Jewish brethren heard the message and believed in Messiah Jesus. My friends in the ghetto insisted that I leave. They said that if God had preserved me thus far, I would be a witness to the woes they now experienced. At the end of the war, I could tell the story of their suffering. I was probably one of the last to leave the ghetto. It was only shortly afterward that the Germans obliterated the entire camp.

Time seemed to drag slowly. There were nights when a Christian family would risk their lives by sheltering a Jew. Once, in the shop of a Christian undertaker, I slept in a coffin. There were other times when a barn provided my shelter. In all that time there was the assurance that God wanted me to live. As long as He wanted it, I was ready. And finally the day came when I was no longer hunted and condemned for being a Jew. In January of 1945 Russian troops entered Warsaw and the automatic death sentence for Jews was lifted.

What My Heart Feels

After the war I left Poland and went to England to study. With my training behind me, I came to the United States to share my witness for Messiah among my own people. Then, for four years I lived in Israel, serving as a pastor to Israeli believers in Messiah and sharing my witness with my brethren there, In Israel I met my wife, who is also a Jewish believer in the Messiah. She had suffered through the Nazi occupation of France and had survived to immigrate to Israel. We have four children.

Words fail to describe what my heart feels. Awed by the power and greatness of the God of Daniel, King Darius wrote a decree to his dominions which perhaps describes best the awe and reverence that I feel for what God has done for me:

From my harrowing experience, I see that men who reject Messiah are capable of bringing hell on earth. But surely God has not abandoned mankind. He has a plan for every person who will trust Him. The Bible, which has guided and sustained me thus far, promises that peace and justice will fill the earth only when the Prince of Peace returns. He is the only hope of mankind, and I know that He will come, because He has proved His great love and His miraculous power to me. Will you not also trust Him, my friend?