It doesn't have to be December to learn about the Light of Hanukkah

Last year, as we lit the candles for the first night of Hanukkah, my wife recited a very traditional Jewish prayer:

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha'olam, Asher kid'shanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Chanukah

Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified

"Marcia, Jesus was a Jew; he came for the Jewish people. He came for you."

Those words were spoken to my mother by my friend's mother when I was nine years old, and while they made a distinct impression on me, it wasn't until sixteen years later that I considered them in a personal way.

I grew up in an upper middle-class, Conservative Jewish home in the suburbs of Kansas. I attended a Jewish grade school through the

You can't be Jews if you believe in Jesus. Just call yourself Christians! That is what some people say because that is what they have heard. But why do they say someone can't be Jewish and Christian?

We're not talking about Jews who would prevent other Jews from belief in Jesus because (they think) disbelief in him is what separates Jews from gentiles. Nor are we talking about a segment of non-Jews who wouldn't want Jews in their particular church. Some Jews and gentiles, because of prejudice, say being Jewish and believing in Jesus

I was born into a middle class, Jewish Amercian family, which would have made me a "princess" except that my father was a florist, not a doctor. We celebrated almost all the traditional Jewish holidays in a superficial way. While I was taught there was a God, I never really knew him.

When I was eight years old I was bitten on my face by a German Shepherd. This changed my life forever. We had just moved to a new neighborhood when the accident took place. There had been no chance for me to make friends.

The policeman gaped at me, unable to suppress his astonishment. "Man, that's dangerous what you want to do. You can get into serious trouble. You're an Israeli Jew and these people you want to meet are Arabs on the West Bank.…"

I knew he meant well; he was a fellow Jew who wanted me to avoid a potentially explosive encounter with "the other side."

"Still, I feel I have to talk with them," I persisted, though my voice did shake a bit.

"Between God and man stands one! Jews think intercession or intervention is not required. As nothing comes between soul and body, father and child, potter and vessel, so they think nothing separates man from God, but sin does. That is why we need the intercessor.

Most people have little difficulty accepting a need for a mediator in their daily routine. In civic government, local officials represent their constituency to the higher governing authorities. In law, attorneys take the role of advocate. Tax accountants,

This is an archived article. It originally appeared on November 1, 2002.

There is something within most of us that yearns for the supernatural. It is this desire that explains the popularity of movies such as The Sixth Sense and Signs, TV shows about aliens, and books like the J.R.R.Tolkien series. It explains why we can be drawn to New Age practices such as Tarot cards, ouija boards and spiritualists. Yet, if we are looking to quench our thirst for the magical, mystical or mysterious, we need look no further

Not long ago, the father of my friend passed away. The family had prayed for his salvation for years. At the end, he was physically unable to respond, leaving his family uncertain whether he had ever received the gospel.

Another friend prayed for his father, a Holocaust survivor, to also come to faith. He continued to pray over the years, and his father gradually became more open, eventually accepting Y'shua as his Messiah.

In both cases, years were spent

The subject was never discussed in my pre-war-Poland Hebrew school. In the rabbinical training I had received, the fifty-third chapter of the book of Isaiah had been continually avoided in favor of other, "weightier" matters to be learned. Yet, when I first read this passage, my mind was filled with questions:

Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted, and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: So shall he sprinkle many

My father was a first generation North American. He grew up in Canada in a home heavily accented with the culture and customs of Eastern Europe, and a Jewry which was quickly shedding the religious orthodoxy of the Old World. He certainly didn't believe in Jesus, but the way he spoke that name almost daily had an effect on me as I grew up.

He would speak that name when he was irritated, upset or frustrated, and I would hear, "Jeeeezus!" The name came out as though it were being spat upon the ground, and I learned early