conclusions drawn, what was I to do? I did what every honest seeker after truth does when the truth is revealed: I simply accepted it. With my own lips I said, "Yeshua haMashiach (Hebrew for Jesus the Messiah)..." And with those words, with admission, I, Orthodox Rabbi Isidor Zwirn, became a follower of the Messiah.

I had often read the prophets' promise of the New Covenant God would make with His people "behold, days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke... but this covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (Jeremiah 31:3133).

And now as I took the Brit Hadesha (Hebrew for New Covenant) in my hands, I realized I was seeing absolute proof of the veracity, the literal fulfillment of the prophets' words. This was God's new covenant with His people. The long awaited, eagerly anticipated Messiah had come. And in so doing, He had instituted a New Age. I, who had so often looked for Messiah to come, had met Him, and was now one of His many students! Even now, there is a quiet and growing excitement within me as I realize the truth of my words.

There is also within me a growing desire for all of my Jewish family to research the scriptures as I have done, and to verify for themselves, the truths that I have verified for myself. From the day that I realized that the Jewish Messiah had already come, nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed. I am still as Jewish as ever. I have rejected neither my people nor my culture. I have simply recognized from the scriptures the Jewish Messiah, and I have willingly begun to follow Him.

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