Hello my name is Adoniyah, and I’d like to share my testimony. Living a counterculture lifestyle has its challenges for sure but also has its rewards. For me, I grew up as a Messianic Jew in Camden, NJ.
As a kid I learned a lot about the harsh realities of what choosing to be different and set apart from the ways of the world. I would often get bullied in school for being Jewish and having “odd traditions.” At times it came with loneliness because people would steer clear of me.
Over the years a few curious people would ask a ton of questions like;
“What do you believe?”
“Why do you believe in that?”
“Doesn’t that seem like a waste of time?”
“How do you know that what you believe in is real?”
At the start, I didn’t have many answers, even though I was raised in the faith it hadn’t become personal to me yet. But as I grew in spiritual maturity, I found the answers and was able to defend my faith.
Growing up, people mostly had a negative outlook on what type of faith I chose to live by. Then as I got older and took my walk more seriously, things started to change because I was applying what I knew, in a more mature way.
People would see how I approached life differently, and then they started asking deeper questions. I was now confronting hard questions such as;
“How are you so happy and cheerful all the time while living this type of life?”
“Who is G-d to you?”
“I am a good person, am I saved too?”
“How does this Torah thing have any importance today besides just religious traditions?”
The earlier years of my life prepared me for the harder and deeper questions that I had to have answers for. So as I got older and bolder, taking ownership, wearing a kippah in public and tzit tzit- the perspective was mostly positive regarding my faith walk. Personally living a counterculture lifestyle has given me purpose in life, I would not even be able to imagine living any other way.
All the harsh times I’ve experienced as well as our community’s oppression really solidified it the reality for me. This has pushed me to strive towards a higher level of commitment to being set apart for G-d.
The times continue to get even harsher. And challenge us in how we should respond as believers.
Simcha Torah of 2023 changed our reality. With what happened on October 7th, the start of the war really put things in perspective for our community. For those who are walking this path, we got defensive over who we serve and what we believe and we rose up. Those who don’t agree, took a hard stance on antisemitism and in a sense, persecution. Now those who live this type of life, stand out even more which of course also comes with its pros and cons.
Friends of mine separated from me because of the false narrative of the media and they openly supported terroristic acts as long as it was a means to get rid of the Jews and remove them from their homeland. People who followed the media would often try to argue with me and get aggressive and angry over something that they barely knew anything about, those of us who have been walking this walk for most of their lives, had a reason to stand and be more vocal about the injustices that have been happening to our people. Our world will only continue to get harder with division amongst friends and our communities.
I recently went to the Holocaust museum in Philadelphia, this time with a a group of Young Messianic adults; and saw the urgent realization that things are getting worse for us. Those who live this counterculture lifestyle will continue to be targeted and persecuted, history is repeating itself. Things are unfolding the same way they did back then, and it feels unsafe for us in today's time. But seeing all the evil that happened during the holocaust again and being reminded of it, just really engraved in me that this walk that I'm in, is so important and it’s real. I’m not living like this, just to say that I can do it. No, I’m living in this walk because the wars starting, the holocaust, the mass genocides since the beginning of time, all proves that this is true, that what I’m standing for, is from G-d and is more real and true than anything else this world has to offer. But the culture I choose to live in is more than just persecution, it’s freedom. I went to a Messianic Judaism conference this year and it was absolutely beautiful to see hundreds of people from all around the world who live this counterculture lifestyle, join as one and fellowship with one another with the knowledge of what we all go through with living this lifestyle.
The Messiah 2024 summer conference was the most spirit led conference I’ve ever been to, you could feel G-d's presence and just connect some of the ways he was moving. It was very powerful and really makes this walk worth it, being connected to a living G-d, but also experiencing all the amazing blessings that come with walking his path. Overall, I have no regrets with the lifestyle that G-d has chosen for me to walk and it comes with purpose. I hope others will rise to the challenge to be courageous and bold to walk a different path from the world’s expectations.
Join me and write your own counterculture story.
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