Leaving It All Behind for Jesus

A VISION OF JESUS 

Beachwood, OH, where Kirt grew up, has the largest concentration of Jews anywhere in the world, after Israel and New York City – about 90%.

As is typical for Jewish boys, he was bar mitzvahed at age 13, and describes the cultural richness of his Jewish family and community as fun and colorful, full of love, freedom, and belonging. Spiritually, however, he describes his childhood differently.

“Little I learned growing up as a Jew pointed me toward a personal relationship with God or gave life eternal meaning. Though my family attended synagogue on holy days like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and celebrated Passover in our home, religion had very little to do with our day-to-day life.”  

Kirt says much of his identity as a teen was wrapped up in his high school wrestling success. When high school ended, so did his sense of purpose. Not knowing where else to look for meaning, a new fear of the future settled on him. A couple of years later, in 1978, Kirt remembers going to bed with a bad headache. Several hours later, he was awakened into what he calls a supernatural state, which he remembers clearly to this day.  

Twenty-year-old Kirt saw a vision of Jesus on the cross, like he’d been transported back in time. “As I looked on Him, I knew that God was telling me that He knew me and that Jesus was the way to know Him,” he explains. “I heard no divine voice or audible words. I don’t think the entire experience lasted more than a second or two, but it marked me. In that moment, I realized I didn’t have to be afraid anymore. In Jesus, I knew I would overcome and find my purpose and destiny.”  

Kirt was excited and thankful for what had been revealed to him that night and told everyone, including his parents and siblings. They dismissed it as a dream he’d soon forget.  Kirt not only didn’t forget, but continued talking about Jesus, and started reading the New Testament and exploring Christian churches.  “I don’t identify at all with the concept that I’ve lost my Jewishness because I follow Yeshua.  Instead God has clarified my Jewish identity. Yeshua is the Messiah, and as a Jewish believer who follows Him, I’ve experienced some of the same rejection He did.  I had no idea what I was in for.”   

A BITTER COST

Invigorated by his revelation, and hopeful about the future for the first time since high school, Kirt talked about Jesus more than anything else. What he didn’t understand was how it was affecting his parents. “Most in our community saw becoming a believer in Jesus as becoming a traitor to the Jewish people,” he later learned.

“I know now that my parents felt a lot of shame to have their eldest son walking around the Jewish community in Cleveland, telling everybody about Jesus.”  

After four years of such behavior, his parents decided to take action. One day, Kirt’s dad told him not to make plans for the next Sunday, because they wanted to take him to a business meeting about opening a restaurant together. The three of them drove to a hotel, and entered the room of a middle-aged man in a suit. Once inside, Kirt saw two more large men and realized he would not be allowed to leave.  

The man in the suit was a well-known “de-programmer” of the time named Ted Patrick (who later went to jail for kidnapping). He talked with Kirt about cults, showed him a film on the subject, then they all went back to the Schneider’s home. Kirt was told to pack a bag with clothes for two weeks, and the next day, he, Ted, and the “goons,” as he calls them, got in his van and drove from Cleveland to San Diego.  

For two weeks, Kirt was dropped off at the beach each day, and taken to local bars at night. Then they let him go home. That was it. None of it had changed his mind about Jesus in the slightest. Kirt drove all the way back to Ohio, and he and his parents never discussed the whole episode. 

In time, his parents tried another tactic; they hired a Jewish psychiatrist to come examine their son. Kirt cooperated and thought he’d “made mincemeat” of the doctor by boldly explaining his vision of Jesus as the Messiah, and his belief that He had special work for him to do. A week later, he realized he’d been set up.  

The psychiatrist had gathered enough information about Kirt to determine he was having hallucinations, and therefore, was a danger to himself and others. When he arrived home one day, his father said, “You see that police car down there? They’re waiting for us. You can come with us in our car, or they’re going to come and take you. You’ve been probated to the psychiatric ward of Mount Sinai Hospital.”  

Kirt was admitted without any say in the matter. “I was completely a prisoner, with much less freedom than I’d had with Ted Patrick in California,” he explains. The state of Ohio allowed patients to be held for two months on the word of a psychiatrist, and Kirt was also medicated without his consent.  

“When they offered the pills, they told me, ‘You can either take these, or we’ll strap you down and inject them.’ It was scary and depressing.” Kirt was reviewed by a hospital board after two months and released. Though it took a few months to feel like himself after that awful experience, Kirt remained undaunted in his pursuit of Yeshua. Kirt knew his parents were only doing what they thought would “save” their son, not understanding true salvation.  

Sadly, his relationship with them and other family members was badly damaged. “Since the day I gave my life to Jesus, I have not been able to have a deep relationship with my own flesh-and-blood relatives – it has been this way for over forty years now.”  
    
A LIFE OF BREAKTHROUGHS

Within a couple years, Kirt met and married Cynthia, attended Bible College, and became a pastor. In the years ahead he received many opportunities to teach on Jesus as the Messiah, and eventually became a rabbi to a Messianic congregation. He also started a TV teaching program in the Toledo area and named it "Discovering the Jewish Jesus."

In 2013, the show went national and international via an opportunity with Direct TV. Rabbi Schneider brings revelation on how the Old and New Testaments are integrated, teaching personal application that builds faith, changes lives, and instills a greater awareness of God’s love.  

Rabbi defines a “breakthrough” as greater freedom to be all that one is meant to be spiritually. He says a number of things are needed for a breakthrough: believing it all begins and ends with the grace of God, having a vision for more of God, having childlike faith, being willing to be different and pay the price, taking action when needed, expecting opposition, and mostly, clinging to God.  

“And so, beloved, if we want breakthrough, we need to cling to God all day long, every day – looking to Him for guidance, for wisdom, and for the leading of the Holy Spirit. As we do this, we’re going to get breakthrough,” he encourages.