Jason Sobel was a hard-working young Jewish man living in New York City who believed he knew the intricacies of his faith. But as he acknowledges now, he didn't. At the time, Sobel was an employee at a large recording studio in the Big Apple, surrounded by rock stars and rappers.
"I looked at their life, and I said, 'There has to be something more than this,'" Sobel told Crosswalk Headlines. "And I began a spiritual journey. I was going to the synagogue and studying with my traditional rabbi. And I started studying martial arts and Eastern philosophy."
Eventually, he found Christianity. Or, as he says, Jesus found him.
"One day, I was meditating and had this crazy spiritual experience. My soul began to leave my body. Next thing I know, I was up in Heaven and standing before this King," Sobel said.
Sobel remembers a "glorious light."
"I felt the power of God pulsate through every part of my body. And I didn't know anything, but I knew that that was Jesus …seated there on that throne, and He told me I was called to serve Him. Next thing I knew, I was back in my body, shaking under the power of Heaven, running around, going, 'I'm called to serve Him.' My mom's like, 'You're called to serve who? We're Jewish, for goodness sake.'"
A testimony from a Messianic Jewish friend was the next step in his conversion.
"He said, 'Jason, could you tell the difference between the Old and the New Testament?' I said, 'Sure.'"
His friend read him a passage: "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes, we are healed."
"He said, 'Is that the Old or the New?' I said, it's obviously talking about Jesus [so] it must be the New Testament," Sobel said. "He said, 'No, that's Isaiah 53 -- the Jewish prophet speaking 700 years before [Jesus] walked the face of the earth. He invited me to this Messianic congregation where Jewish people worship Jesus in a Jewish way. I went. At the end of the service, they played the piano and prayed. I figured I needed all the help I could get, so I prayed. He said, 'If you prayed this prayer for the first time, raise your hands.' I raised my hand. He said, 'If you raised your hand, will you please stand up? You've just been born again.'"
Sobel didn't want to stand up, but eventually, he did. He also was given the first New Testament he had ever seen.
"I took it home, read it, and realized He was the one who Moses and the Prophets spoke of," Sobel told Crosswalk Headlines.
Sobel received his Rabbinic ordination from the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations in 2005. As a Messianic Jew, he has written several books about the Jewish background of Christianity, including 2023's Signs & Secrets of the Messiah. He hosts a TBN series of the same name.
"Every major event in the life of Jesus happened on a biblical holiday," Sobel said. "... He celebrated these holidays with His disciples.
"We're doing what Jesus did," he added. "All of the biblical holidays point to Him."
Photo Credit: ©Facebook/Rabbi Jason Sobel
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.