ETHNIC IDENTITY CAN BLIND US TO WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT

 

 

When I was a 6-7year-old and there were still school prayers, I would recite them, along with my personal prayer requests, even in Jesus’ name, when I’d get into bed at night. I hadn’t realized at the time that Jews weren’t supposed to pray to Jesus. However, my prayers were answered, sometimes miraculously.

 

I would never tell my parents about this. I was a private kid and would never talk to them about anything. However, when I was an eight-year-old, I learned that I was Jewish and the Jews didn’t do such things. Therefore, I stopped praying and consequently condemned myself to a life of depression and alienation.

 

How could I have done this to myself, especially after having received answers to my prayers? Why did my ethnic identity become more important to me than God? I still do not have any clear answer for this. However, years later, the Scriptures began to fill in some of the missing pieces:

 

·       “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are WITHOUT excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20)

 

I had no excuse for turning my back on God. Later, I began to intensely hate anything Christian due to my experiences with anti-Semitism and my knowledge of Jewish history and became%-z oh no defenseless against blinding hatred. I hated so much that I was convinced that whites had a different odor. I was also assured that they would kill me if they could. I therefore felt uncomfortable sitting on our family couch behind which was a big window through which I might be shot in the back of my head. I therefore preferred to close the curtains. I never explained to my parents why I’d do this. We just never talked.

 

Hate also closes the curtain. Jesus had taught that we are either children of the Light or the darkness of unbelief:

 

·       And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

 

Did I see that I was filled with evil? No! I couldn’t face it. My self-imposed darkness blinded me. However, hatred became my friend, and I believed that my hatred was totally justified.

 

The fear, threat, and hatred led me to Israel. I was sure that I belonged with my own people. Israel would be my home, these would be my people, and this would be my nation. If necessary, I would sacrifice myself for Israel. I was a Zionist.

 

I dreamed that my first night there would be a religious transformational experience. While everyone got off the plane and boarded the bus for Tel Aviv, this was my time to be alone. It was night, and I walked in a field where I spread out my sleeping bag and looked into the stairs, expecting them to sing to me. Instead, the mosquitoes provided the chorus, and I awaited the morning.

 

I made it to the youth hostel in Tel Aviv and smoked some weed, got lost and paranoid, and vowed I’d never smoke another joint. But I was glad to be in Israel. Instead of seeing street signs like Washington Ave. and Lincoln Road, I was delighted in seeing Rehov Ben Yehuda. This was my home where I’d find family, friends, and my home. Now I would find the perfect Kibbutz family.

 

At least, this is what I hoped. However, at each community where I hoped to find love and family, I found that I was still troubled and detached from almost all. Later, I discovered that I had been regarded as a problem wherever I went.

 

But it was in Israel where I began to search for God, tracking down those who seemed to have a living faith.

 

What is the reason that I am sharing this with you? We all want to believe and to feel that we are a “somebody.” We try to attain this through our accomplishments, attainments, popularity, psychotherapy, national or ethnic identity. However, I discovered that the pursuit of these are all dead ends and disappointments.

 

Only Jesus has been able to make a difference in this broken life:

 

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32)