Growing up in Brooklyn, Mordechai Pearlman could have been the poster child for the Orthodox Jewish faith. In a typical Jewish household, parents send their children to Hebrew school when they are 11 or 12. “My dad sent me at age 9,” says Mordechai. “For the next four years, I went to Hebrew school every day.” At age 13, he became a bar mitzvah—a son of the commandment.

Mordechai loved life in the Jewish community. “I looked forward to Saturdays,” he says of going to synagogue. After the extremely long service, his family stayed for fellowship. “My dad and I sat at the rabbi’s table, and he talked about the lesson of the day and how we can apply it. It was a wonderful experience for me.”

Instead of waiting until the traditional age of 18, Mordechai began studying to become a rabbi at 14. “This meant I still had to go to public school and get an education. Immediately after that, I would study for six to eight hours. I didn’t get home until 9 or 10 or 11 p.m.,” he says.

With this immersion in the Jewish faith and culture, it seemed unlikely he would hear of Jesus. However, this was the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn. “I grew up in a culturally diverse neighborhood—blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Irish, Italians. You name it, we had it,” he says. One of the benefits of such a neighborhood was that his friends’ moms prepared food from their native cultures—and kids followed their appetites. “On Saturday, they’d worship with me. On Sunday, I’d go to a Roman Catholic church or a Baptist church, depending on whose mom was serving the best meal afterward.”

While they ate, they talked. “My friends would talk about Jesus. I would talk about my religious beliefs,” Mordechai says. The more they talked, the more interested he became.

When Mordechai read a King James Version of the Old Testament, he discovered Isaiah 53. As an Orthodox Jew, whose teachings followed the line of the Pharisees, Mordechai believed that there is a Messiah but he has not yet come. So he began asking questions that rabbis could not or would not answer—like who is this Jesus? Is he the Messiah? “I wanted answers,” says Mordechai. “I was told to stop being curious or get out of Dodge. I made the only choice I could: I got out of Dodge.”