PEORIA - A former Pentecostal prophetess said Wednesday her journey to Hasidic Judaism was a matter of searching until she found what she was looking for.
Tova Mordechai, 51, author of "To Play with Fire," will tell her story at 7 tonight at the Ramada Inn, 4400 N. Brandywine Drive.
Born Tonica Marlow, the daughter of a minister and an Egyptian Jewish woman who had converted to Christianity, Mordechai was ordained a prophetess at age 20 at a British Pentecostal seminary. But by age 25, she had left, seeking more.
"It was a very slow process," she said in an interview at Peoria Hebrew Day School.
"I was searching for a sense of fulfillment. I was searching for a relationship with God. I definitely had a relationship with Jesus and God when I was in the church, but there was a tremendous emphasis to believe. I felt if Jesus was really the Son of God and (if) he was God, his existence should be self-evident. I shouldn't have to make his existence real for me every day."
Through Judaism, she has been able to make a connection with God by carrying out commandments, Mordechai said.
She said at age 18 she began to be intrigued by Judaism but hadn't yet identified herself as a Jew spiritually. After contact with a Chabad rabbi, Mordechai said, she started investigating traditional Judaism with the Hasidic group.
"They saw the Jew in me," she said.
Mordechai moved to Safed, Israel, where she attended a Chabad school for girls and women. She is still there today - as an administrator - and is married to Rabbi Chanania Mordechai, a former Episcopalian American who converted to Judaism.
Though Tova Mordechai's change of faith strained family relations, she has managed to maintain contact. Her mother died a few years ago, and some siblings have also died. Her father, the Rev. James Frederick Marlow, is still a minister in Britain.
She said she avoids theological discussions with him.
"He really believes I'm going to burn in hell," Mordechai said. "This gives him a tremendous amount of pain."
Some of her Pentecostal schooling still surfaces, she said.
"I think definitely my training of how to deliver a sermon, a message, has held me in good stead for presenting my story now," Mordechai said.
She said she would always encourage people born to a Jewish mother to return to the practice of their ancestors if they have entered Christianity or another faith.
"A person who is Jewish needs to connect with God in a Jewish way," she said.
But she said non-Jewish Christians and other Gentiles don't need to convert to Judaism.
Michael Miller can be reached at 686-3106 or [email protected].