Daily Devotionals

Voice of the Lord

Devotional: 18th of Tammuz

You are a letter from the Messiah ...written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God (2 Corinthians 3:3).

Rabbi Daniel Zion was the chief rabbi of the Bulgarian Jewish community for over 23 years. During the years of World War II, he was one of my main role models and a man very dear to me.

One day Rabbi Zion was looking at the sunrise while praying, and Yeshua appeared to him in a vision. After that, Rabbi Daniel's faith in Yeshua became a well-known "secret" in the Jewish community of Bulgaria. His position was so honored and his services so highly esteemed, however, that no one would openly criticize the rabbi. The rabbi remained well within the boundaries of the Jewish community in Bulgaria and did not stop living as an Orthodox Jew.

In 1943, the government of Bulgaria made a decision, under German pressure, to send all Bulgarian Jews to the death camps in Poland and Germany. But due to Rabbi Zion's influence with King Boris II, 86 percent of Bulgaria's 50,000 Jews were saved. When Nazi Germany occupied Bulgaria, Rabbi Zion, as the spiritual leader of the Jewish community, became the object of persecution and ridicule. He was publicly flogged in front of the Great Synagogue of Sofia.

In 1949, the rabbi immigrated to Israel with his community and lived the rest of his life as the chief rabbi of Bulgarian Jews, though everyone knew that he believed in Yeshua. Rabbi Daniel wrote hundreds of songs that we still use to this day in our Messianic congregation in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Zion was truly a "letter from the Messiah."

...consider how I can be a letter to my people from within the Jewish community.

JS