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few years before the Crunch, he probably wouldn’t have survived it.
    Ben’s parents were Reformed Jews. His father was a farm credit union loan officer and his mother was a “professional volunteer” who had spent all of her married life donating her time to the PTA, the Red Cross, Women of Hadassah, Habitat for Humanity, and the Democratic Party at the precinct level.
    Ben attended the prestigious Yeshiva of Virginia for high school and then pre-law and law school at Virginia Commonwealth University. As he grew up, even though he attended Yeshiva, Ben felt that he was more Jewish by birth than he was by faith. After graduating from high school, he only rarely attended temple services.
    Ironically, it was one of his Gentile classmates from his law study circle who invited Ben to attend a Saturday Shabbat service at Tikvat Israel (“Hope of Israel”), a Messianic Jewish congregation on Grove Street in Richmond. The congregation was a mixture of “Jewish Believers”—Jews who had come to faith in Yeshua Messiah (Jesus Christ) and Gentile followers of the Messiah who enjoyed delving into the more Hebraic roots of their faith, including celebrating the Feasts of the Lord, accompanied by some Shabbat service liturgy. About 10 percent of the congregation was black.
    The Tikvat congregation met in an old synagogue building that had been the meeting place for Beth Israel from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. The building had sat vacant for fifteen years before the Tikvat congregation noticed it in 1990 and found that it was available to rent. One of the Elders had a vision which indicated that this old building was to be their new congregational home. The Tikvat group held their first service there during Chanukah in December 1990.
    Occasionally at Tikvat there would be “black hat” visitors to the Shabbat service—Orthodox Jews. Many of them were just curious about the Messianic Jewish movement, but a few were business travelers who were “walk-ins,” assuming that it was a typical Saturday Jewish temple meeting. Very few of them visited more than once. They seemed offended, either by the modern worship service and the band’s electric instruments being played on the Sabbath, or by the references to the Messiah, Yeshua. Other Jewish visitors, like Ben, who were Reformed seemed more receptive to the Good News of Messiah, and less offended by the contemporary aspects of the service.
    Ben was intrigued by the services and what he heard. He wanted to know more about Yeshua. Shortly after beginning to attend, Ben decided to take the Messianic rabbi’s new member class. He heard provoking and expositional teaching of the scriptures.These proved to him without a shadow of a doubt that Yeshua was indeed the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. Ben spent a lot of time studying the scriptures on his own, praying, and fasting. One day he got on his knees and cried out to Jesus to forgive him for his rebellion against God and for sins he had committed in his life. Ben recognized that he could never keep the Law perfectly, and that all men are sinners. He asked Jesus to come into his life and to save him. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit at that moment and Ben felt a glorious in-filling and cleansing. Immediately, Ben knew that he had become born-again, a “completed Jew.” Full of that indescribable joy, he jumped up from his bedside and began praising God and worshipping him with all his heart, mind, and soul. At the next Shabbat service, Ben confessed to the congregation that he had repented and that Yeshua had come into his life and that he knew that he was saved from his sins. Four months later Ben took part in a Mikvah service, being immersed for baptism in the York River, along with some other new believers from Tikvat.
    Ben tried to explain to his parents and show them how Jesus fulfilled many of the scriptures prophesying the future Messiah: Jesus as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, Daniel’s prophecies of the coming Messiah,