Very, very long testimony at the original link. Well worth reading.
http://jesusoverisrael.blogspot.com/200 ... riend.html
OPEN LETTER TO A JEWISH FRIEND
ABOUT COMBATING DEPRESSION
WITH FAITH, A HEALTHY DIET ,
AND AN ACTIVE LIFESTYLE
-snip-
From 1998 to the end of 1999 I endured many ups and downs. I was slowly losing my interest in Breslov and Na Nach. Life as a divorcee in the world of Israeli ultra-Orthodoxy was very awkward and unpleasant, and therefore I found myself drifting away from the interests and commitments of my former friends. In this period of my life I grew to resent many of the restrictions of Orthodox life. I especially resented the Sabbath, with its extreme overindulgence of food. I craved just going to the beach or to a park. But I feared breaking Jewish ritual law, so I did not do these things, much as I wanted to. I stayed within the camp, but just barely.
I also fell into serious sin. I write this part of my testimonial with trepidation, knowing that it will shock many people, as well as hurt those who have been close to me. But I do so to glorify God, who can turn the worst sinner and into a Saint by the power of His Spirit. Saint Paul was a murderer, rounding up and condemning Christians for some time before his famous conversion on the Damascus Road. I ask that my readers bear this in mind as they read the following.
I also wish to expose the ugly underside of Israeli life, so that Christians might intercede with more vigor and intelligence about the many terrible problems that afflict that tragic society. Finally, St. Augustine is regarded as famous due to his book, Confessions, in which he writes openly of his wantonly immoral behavior before converting to Christianity. This has given a huge halo of holiness to the Roman Catholic Church, which has adopted Augustine as perhaps its most important Saint after the Virgin Mary. I offer this confession for myself and for the State of Israel, in the hope of evoking Divine Mercy on the Remnant of Israel, that they too might be fully engrafted into the Vine of Life who is Jesus Christ.
Due to my extreme loneliness, I developed an unfortunate predilection for prostitutes. I discovered, first to my shock, and then to my downfall, that they were ubiquitous in Israel. They were all over Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv. Many were Russians who were unable to find work commensurate with their skills and training in Russia. One, for instance, was a 30 year old woman who had been a high school biology teacher in Russia. Whenever I went to these women, guilt would prompt me to ask them why they did this degrading work and why they didn’t find someone to marry. One of them, a Yemenite woman who resembled Ofra Chaza told me that she prays every week at the Western Wall that God would save her from this despicable lifestyle!
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Ofra.htm
I heard from more than a few of them that 40% of their clients were Orthodox Jewish men, many of whom would come to them when their wives were in a Niddah state, or ritually unclean. This is a good illustration of the Christian principle of how the Word leads to death, while the Spirit gives life, for these religious men, scrupulous to avoid the sin of Niddah, did not hesitate to commit the equally severe sin of Zona! This is exactly the sort of hypocritical behavior that Jesus deplored so vehemently.
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/sexisrael69690531.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=16883
No doubt the culture of violence, warfare, and economic opulence all contribute to this plague of immorality. Prayer intercessors who are reading this should intercede to put an end to this shameful problem. There is a great need for a ministry to prostitutes, which is done in other countries, but for some reason no one is willing to do in Israel. I suspect that both Jews and Christians are in denial of this problem. All parties like to pretend that Israel’s problems are all external enemies rather than internal rot and corruption. The Christian Zionist churches clamor for military and economic support to the Jewish State. They insist that Islam is the source of all evil, rather than the wickedness of the unsaved heart, as Jesus taught. And they do not want to put a blemish on the slick veneer of the Holy Land as a tourist destination for Christian pilgrims. No, despite the fact that Jesus ministered to prostitutes, the churches and synagogues today refuse even to acknowledge that the problem exists in modern day Israel!
I survived this shameful period of my life purely by the grace of God, who had a higher purpose in mind for me.
In December 1999 I met a group of people in Tzfat, who were operating a Christian Messianic fellowship. This discovery started in a most amazing way. An Orthodox friend, with whom I often would visit in Tzfat, told me about a Christian group that was led by a South African missionary couple. He told me that they had caused the marriage of one of his close friends to break up after his wife got involved with the group. I decided to take matters into my own hands and to pay them a visit. I wanted to find out what they were doing and to encourage them to leave the area. The night I went to them I immersed in the ARIZAL mikvah and prayed at his grave for the strength and courage to confront these evil Christian Amalekites and get them evicted from Tzfat. While at the mikvah a huge lizard appeared on the hillside. I thought it might be poisonous, so I tried to kill it with a large beam of wood. But I accidentally dropped the wood on my foot, almost breaking it. The pain was excruciating!
I hobbled up the hill to confront the missionaries, with my foot throbbing in pain. I knocked on their door, and they opened it, to find me standing there with my long black coat, hat, side curls and other Chassidic appurtenances. The man himself was a huge bear of a South African. He later told me that, before his conversion, he had been a member of a violent motorcycle gang that used to attack blacks vigilante style. But he greeted me with kindness and asked if I wanted to come inside, which I did. I felt that I had walked into a cloud. They lived in a very dark apartment, almost like a basement, but the place was filled with light and I almost felt dizzy. They told me they had just had a prayer meeting, so I guess I was feeling the after effects. They made me some coffee and we just chatted. I found them to be very friendly and kind, and since I was starving for kindness in my life I took to them immediately.
When I left they told me I was welcome back at any time. I started frequenting them. I would ask them questions about the New Testament. Sometimes they would have good answers, but what I respected is that they would admit to me when they didn't and they asked for time to research an answer. They allowed me to use their computer, and I discovered websites that presented Christianity in a very different light than what I had assumed about it:
http://www.saltshakers.com/lm/
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/
http://www.heartofisrael.net/chazak/index.html
Eventually I was so won over by their love and compassion for me that I decided I wanted to be part of the religion they professed. After about six months, on 20 June 20000, I was baptized in a natural spring outside of Tzfat. My studies had persuaded me that the classical rabbinical arguments against Christianity and the New Testament were not nearly as simple and clear cut as I had thought. I decided that even if there was only a 50% chance of Christianity being true, I was willing to try it out, so desperate was I for salvation, release from a heavy burden of guilt I was carrying around from the adoption of my son and my addiction to prostitutes, my confusion from the splits and schisms within Breslov, and plain loneliness and personal sadness.
During the process of my studies with the missionaries, I had a number of interesting experiences with the Tzfat Jewish community. I used to eat in a soup kitchen run by Chabad for the poor of Tzfat. Some of the messianic Jews also ate there. Once I decided to humiliate them in public. It was just before Purim, and I called them Amalekites intent on destroying the Jewish religion and the Jewish people. I mocked Jesus' words on the cross: My God My God why have you abandoned me. I said that the Talmudic account of Rabbi Akivah's death was much more inspiring, saying that he recited the Shema as his skin was being raked off his body by Roman torturers. I said that, unlike Jesus, Rabbi Akivah had died with his faith intact. I smirked and sneered at the Messianic Jews eating with us. One of them, a fellow named Aryeh, looked up at me and said very quietly: Jesus said those words because He was put into darkness for your sins. I was stunned by his answer. I didn't accept it, but I respected the quiet calm certainty he seemed to have. I respected him for speaking up for his beliefs in such a hostile surrounding. Later I found out that Aryeh convicted me with his still small voice. I also found out that Jesus died with the words of Psalm 22 on his lips, so if I had problems with it I should perhaps have asked the author of this Psalm (King David?) and not Jesus.
-snip-
My wife and I both pray that this has been helpful to you and can serve to bring you restoration and rejuvenation in body, soul, and spirit. AMEN!
Sincerely in Christ, the Hope of Israel (Tikvat Yisrael)
Michael and Elisheva Korn
A.C.E. - American Christian Evangelists
PS A final note: concerning the general matter of suffering, Rabbi Nachman has an amazing teaching that might prove edifying to you. He said that since God is King of the Universe,
He must reign with majesty and nobility. A king does not reveal his innermost feelings to just anyone. When a person feels pain, suffering, or grief, this is because God is choosing to share with him or her those very feelings that He has. The Bible makes clear that God does suffer over the sufferings of His creation. When we feel such feelings we are privileged to be given a glimpse of the very heart of God Himself. AMEN!