By Ezekiel Young –
Greg Hershberg felt “a pull” to climb Jesus’ Mount of Transfiguration on his honeymoon. Aside from it being his honeymoon, what was strange about this? Greg was not a Christian; he was a Jew.
“It’s very strange, but the Mount was calling my name,” he declared, on a One for Israel YouTube video. “It felt as if somebody had a rod and they casted (sic) it off the top of that mount and the hook went into my chest.”
On the mount, Greg had a vision of God. “His face was shining like the sun and his clothes were white as light,” he said. The first thing God said to him was, “I love you.”
Greg Hershberg was born and raised in New York City, and grew up in a very Jewish family. He was raised Orthodox and walked to synagogue every Shabbat (Sabbath) and went to Hebrew school twice a week.
His mom was very Jewish and loved synagogue, however his dad was indifferent. Dad loved his wife, so he went to synagogue.
As a young man, Greg knew he was a Jew, but he got to a point where he didn’t like being a Jew because there was so much discrimination in New York at the time. He decided not to be a Jew anymore.
So he got pulled into some “eastern cults,” specifically, martial arts. “It’s not just a sport; it’s a religion,” said Greg.
In the class, he was learning several types of meditation and “Kundalini energy” and he was starting to derive satisfaction from it.
Later he fell in love with a swimsuit model. They decided to get married and were thinking about the honeymoon destination. His martial arts leader, whom he called a “cult leader,” recommended Israel.
“He was so influential in my life, such a powerful influence, that I thought, ‘Israel? I’m thinking Jamaica, I’m thinking on the beach, to be honest with you, I’m thinking about partying, getting high, and laying out, I’m not thinking Israel.’”
So Israel was out.
But the next day, on the train to go to work, someone that he never met said, “Have you ever thought about going to Israel.”
Suddenly, he felt the urge to go to Israel and forgot about Caribbean beaches. But because he wasn’t expecting to have fun in Israel, he added a trip to the Greek isles to finish off the honeymoon.
When they got to Israel, they were having fun, partying, and scuba-diving in the Red Sea. After five days in Israel, they went to Jerusalem. It was their last day before going to Greece.
Greg and his wife got in the car to go do something fun.
“Let’s go up north, to Tabor Mountain.”
“Why?” his bride asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I heard something special happened there.”
When he got to the top of the mountain, he saw a plaque that said, “Basilica to the Transfiguration.”
“I heard a voice,” Greg said. “The voice said, ‘Come away and pray with me.’ But I didn’t know how to pray, so I emptied myself and closed my eyes. And I saw a vision.”
In the vision he saw the Eastern sky open up, and coming out of it was a man whose face shone like the sun and his clothes were white as light. The glorious “Man” approached Greg.
“I love you,” he said.
“I remember crying for a really long time,” he relates. “My wife says maybe it was about 20 minutes. I looked back and it wasn’t tears of joy, it wasn’t tears of pain, it was like a sanctification, it was like a cleansing, all the religion just came out of me.”
On that mountain, Greg didn’t know anything about salvation or how God enters one’s heart. But he said he was sorry for all his sins.
“Two punk kids from the Bronx, go to Israel on their honeymoon to party,” Greg said. “We come back born again, saved, knowing Yeshua as our Messiah.”
Greg and his wife went up the hill sinners, and they came down the hill as born-again Christians.
When he got home, he started to read the Bible. He was expecting it to be very harsh words or values. He was “shocked” because when he opened the Bible it said, “This is the genealogy of Yeshua, the Messiah, the son of Abraham.”
Then he came to the startling realization: Jesus was a Jew!
It was an epiphany because when he was younger, he was told Jesus wanted nothing to do with the Jews.
But as he read the New Testament, he noticed that Jesus was very Jewish.
“It’s a fact,” he said. “Jesus is still Jewish.”
“I never looked back,” Greg said, “I’m so thankful for what God has done for me. I feel so free. I feel so alive – more than I have ever felt.”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
About the writer of this article: Ezekiel Young studies at Lighthouse Christian Academy near the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.
