Christian Major League Baseball players Nelson Cruz, Jeimer Candelario and Cesar Hernandez are visiting Israel this week. They are guests of the Philos Project, an organization that describes its mission as promoting “positive Christian engagement in the Near East by creating leaders, building community, and taking action in the spirit of the Hebraic Tradition.”
Cruz, Candelario and Hernandez have spent time in Jerusalem and toured Christian sites in Northern Israel.
They also led a workshop for Israeli children in Ra’anana, where they met hundreds of young baseball players at the Ezra Schwartz Ballpark.
“We came to Israel to see the land of God,” said Cruz. “We are all believers that God does everything in our lives.”
“We are here to share some stories, share some tips and hopefully help you become better players in the future,” he added.
During their visit, Cruz, Candelario and Hernandez met with Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, executive director of Ohr Torah Stone’s Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation.
“I had the opportunity to spend time with them over Shabbat dinner,” said Rabbi Wolicki.
“I explained to them that while we don’t think of ourselves as being part of the biblical story, the Bible does not only speak about the past, the Bible also tells us what is going to happen in the future.”
The rabbi spoke about the thirtieth chapter of Deuteronomy, where Moses predicts that after a long exile, the nation of Israel will be gathered from the four corners of the earth, and will be brought back to the land of their forefathers, more numerous and more prosperous than their ancestors.
“That’s the reality right now,” Rabbi Wolicki said. “There are more Jews in the land of Israel than ever before, including at the time of Solomon, and we are more prosperous than ever before.”
In addition, the book of Zechariah speaks about a time when the nation of Israel is gathered and the temple has been rebuilt, and many people from great nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the God of Israel, Rabbi Wolicki noted.
“He is talking about you,” the rabbi told Cruz, Candelario and Hernandez.
“You didn’t come here because you couldn’t decide whether to go to Hawaii or Florida or Israel,” he concluded. “You came here to connect with God. Now nobody can take away from you that you have become one of the people that Zechariah was talking about in that promise.”
