“Please, have him accept Jesus. Please…”
Few attendees ever forgot that service.
And then there was the time when a member of the Reb’s congregation, a German immigrant named Gunther Dreyfus, came racing in during a High Holiday service and pulled the Reb aside.
Gunther’s face was ashen. His voice was shaking.
“What’s wrong?” the Reb asked.
Apparently, minutes earlier, Gunther had been outside, overseeing the parking, when the Catholic priest came stomping out and began to yell about all the cars parking by his church, because it was a Sunday and he wanted the spaces for his members.
“Get them out of here,” he hollered, according to Gunther. “You Jews move your cars now!”
“But it’s the High Holiday,” Gunther said.
“Why must you have it on a Sunday?” the priest yelled.
“The date was set three thousand years ago,” Gunther replied. Being an immigrant, he still spoke with a German accent. The priest glared at him, then uttered something almost beyond belief.
“They didn’t exterminate enough of you.”
Gunther was enraged. His wife had spent three and a half years in a concentration camp. He wanted to slug the priest. Someone intervened, thankfully, and a shaken Gunther returned to the sanctuary.
The next day, the Reb phoned the Catholic archbishop who oversaw the area’s churches and told him what had happened. The following day, the phone rang. It was the priest, asking if he could come over and talk.
The Reb met him at the office door. They sat down.
“I want to apologize,” he said.
“Yes,” the Reb said.
“I should not have said what I did.”
“No, you should not have,” the Reb said.
“My archbishop had a suggestion,” the priest said.
“What is that?”
“Well, as you know, our Catholic school is in session now. And they will have their recess soon…”
The Reb listened.
Then he nodded and stood up.
And when the school doors opened and the kids burst out for recess, they saw the priest of St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church and the rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom walking arm in arm, around the schoolyard.
Some kids blinked.
Some kids stared.
But all of them took notice.
You might think that an uneasy truce; two men forced to walk around a schoolyard, arm in arm. You might think a certain bitterness would haunt the relationship. But somehow, in time, they became friends. And years later, the Reb would be inside that Catholic church.
At the priest’s funeral.
“I was asked to help officiate,” the Reb recalled. “I recited a prayer for him. And I think, by that time, he might have thought it wasn’t so bad.”
Life of Henry
Henry was often told “Jesus loves you,” and it must have been true. Because he kept getting second chances.
While he was in prison, Henry boxed well enough to win a heavyweight competition, and he studied well enough to earn an associate’s degree, even though he had never finished junior high.
When he got out of prison, he found a job in the exterminating business. He married his longtime girlfriend, Annette, and for a short while they lived a straight, normal life. Annette got pregnant. Henry hoped for a son.
Then one night, he came home and she was doubled over. They rushed to the hospital. The baby was born, three months premature, a tiny boy who barely weighed a pound. They named him Jerell. The doctors warned that his chances of survival were bleak, but Henry held the child in the palm of his big hand and he kissed the tiny feet.
“My son,” he whispered. Then he turned to God and asked for his help. “Let him live. Please, let him live.”
Five days later, the baby died.
Henry and Annette buried their child in a cemetery on Long Island. For a while, Henry wondered if the Lord had punished him for the things he had done.
But soon he turned bitter. His business soured, his house went into foreclosure, and when he saw that his drug-dealing brother had more hundred-dollar bills than he had singles, Henry turned his back on God and second chances and returned to the business of breaking the law.
He began by dealing a small supply of drugs, then a larger amount, then a larger amount. The money came in fast. Soon, he was acting like a kingpin, glorifying himself, giving orders. He bought fancy clothes. He styled his hair. He actually made people kneel down when they wanted something. Only when mothers came with babies did he soften up. They would offer him anything in exchange for drugs: groceries they’d just purchased, sometimes even a baby girl’s tiny earring.
“Keep it,” he would say, giving them a small bag. “But that earring belongs to me now. I want to see it on that baby every time you come in here.”
At one point, in the mid-1980s, Henry was making tens of thousands of dollars per month. He sold drugs at fancy parties, often to “respectable” types like judges, lawyers, even an off-duty cop. Henry smirked at their weakness and his momentary power. But one night, he made a common and fatal error: he decided to try some of his own product.
That was the cliff. And off it he flew.
Soon Henry was addicted to his own poison, and he wanted only to lose himself in a cloud of crack cocaine. Often he used the very product he was supposed to sell, and then, to cover up, he’d invent outlandish excuses.
Like the time he took a cigarette and burned holes into his arm, so he could tell his dealers he’d been tortured and the drugs stolen.
Or the time he had a friend shoot him in the leg with a .25 automatic, so he could tell his dealers he’d been robbed. They still came to the hospital, demanding to see the wound.
One bad night, already high and needing more money, he and a few others, including a nephew and a brother-in-law, drove a Coupe DeVille out to Canarsie, Brooklyn. Their method of assault was to pull the car alongside an unsuspecting target, jump out, demand the money, and ride off.
This time, it was an elderly couple. Henry sprang from the car and waved a gun in their faces.
“You know what this is!” he yelled.
The old woman screamed.
“Shut up or I’ll blow your head off,” he screamed back.
The couple surrendered their money, jewelry, and watches. Henry was unsettled by their older faces. A pang of conscience hit him. But it didn’t stop him. Soon the Coupe DeVille was racing away down Flatland Avenue.
And then a siren sounded. Lights flashed. Henry shouted at his nephew to keep driving. He rolled down the windows and out it all went. The jewelry. The money. Even their guns.
Moments later, the police overtook them.
At the station, Henry was put in a lineup. He waited. Then the officers brought in the elderly man.
And Henry knew he was sunk.
Once the man identified him, Henry would be charged, convicted, and face fifteen years in prison. Life as he knew it would be over. Why had he risked it all? He had literally thrown everything out the window.
“Is that him?” the officer asked.
Henry swallowed.
“I can’t be sure,” the old man mumbled.
What?
“Look again,” the officer said.
“I can’t be sure,” the old man said.
Henry could not believe his ears. How could the man not finger him? He had waved a gun right in his face.
But because the ID was not certain, Henry was let go. He went home. He lay down. He told himself the Lord had done that. The Lord was being merciful. The Lord was giving him another chance. And the Lord did not want him stealing anymore, using drugs anymore, or terrorizing people anymore.
And perhaps it was true.
But he still did not listen.
IT IS 1974…
…and I am in my religious high school. The subject is the parting of the Red Sea. I yawn. What is left to learn about this? I’ve heard it a million t
imes. I look across the room to a girl I like and contemplate how hard it would be to get her attention.
“There is a Talmudic commentary here,” the teacher says.
Oh, great, I figure. This means translation, which is slow and painful. But as the story unfolds, I begin to pay attention.
After the Israelites safely crossed the Red Sea, the Egyptians chased after them and were drowned. God’s angels wanted to celebrate the enemy’s demise.
According to the commentary, God saw this and grew angry. He said, in essence: “Stop celebrating. For those were my children, too.”
Those were my children, too.
“What do you think of that?” the teacher asks us.
Someone else answers. But I know what I think. I think it is the first time I’ve heard that God might love the “enemy” as well as us.
Years later, I will forget the class, forget the teacher’s name, forget the girl across the room. But I will remember that story.
JULY
The Greatest Question of All
In any conversation, I was taught, there are at least three parties: you, the other person, and the Lord.
I recalled that lesson on a summer day in the small office when both the Reb and I wore shorts. My bare leg stuck with perspiration to the green leather chair, and I raised it with a small thwock.
The Reb was looking for a letter. He lifted a pad, then an envelope, then a newspaper. I knew he’d never find it. I think the mess in his office was almost a way of life now, a game that kept the world interesting. As I waited, I glanced at the file on the lower shelf, the one marked “God.” We still hadn’t opened it.
“Ach,” he said, giving up.
Can I ask you something?
“Ask away, young scholar,” he crowed.
How do you know God exists?
He stopped. A smile crept across his face.
“An excellent question.”
He pressed his fingers into his chin.
And the answer? I said.
“First, make the case against Him.”
Okay, I said, taking his challenge. How about this? We live in a world where your genes can be mapped, where your cells can be copied, where your face can be altered. Heck, with surgery, you can go from being a man to being a woman. We have science to tell us of the earth’s creation; rocket probes explore the universe. The sun is no longer a mystery. And the moon—which people used to worship? We brought some of it home in a pouch, right?
“Go on,” he said.
So why, in such a place, where the once-great mysteries have been solved, does anyone still believe in God or Jesus or Allah or a Supreme Being of any kind? Haven’t we outgrown it? Isn’t it like Pinocchio, the puppet? When he found he could move without his strings, did he still look the same way at Geppetto?
The Reb tapped his fingers together.
“That’s some speech.”
You said make a case.
“Ah.”
He leaned in. “Now. My turn. Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can’t explain, something that created it all at the end of the search.
“And no matter how far they try to go the other way—to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty—at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When life comes to an end?”
I shrugged.
“You see?”
He leaned back. He smiled.
“When you come to the end, that’s where God begins.”
Many great minds have set out to disprove God’s existence. Sometimes, they retreat to the opposite view. C. S. Lewis, who wrote so eloquently of faith, initially wrestled with the very concept of God and called himself “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.” Louis Pasteur, the great scientist, tried to disprove a divine existence through facts and research; in the end, the grand design of man convinced him otherwise.
A spate of recent books had declared God a fool’s notion, hocus-pocus, a panacea for weak minds. I thought the Reb would find these offensive, but he never did. He understood that the journey to belief was not straight, easy, or even always logical. He respected an educated argument, even if he didn’t agree with it.
Personally, I always wondered about authors and celebrities who loudly declared there was no God. It was usually when they were healthy and popular and being listened to by crowds. What happens, I wondered, in the quiet moments before death? By then, they have lost the stage, the world has moved on. If suddenly, in their last gasping moments, through fear, a vision, a late enlightenment, they change their minds about God, who would know?
The Reb was a believer from the start, that was clear, but I also knew that he was not crazy about some things God allowed on this earth. He had lost a daughter, many years ago. That had shaken his world. And he regularly cried after visiting once-robust members of the congregation who now lay helpless in hospital beds.
“Why so much pain?” he would say, looking to the heavens. “Take them already. What is the point?”
I once asked the Reb that most common of faith questions: why do bad things happen to good people? It had been answered countless times in countless ways; in books, in sermons, on Web sites, in tear-filled hugs. The Lord wanted her with him…He died doing what he loved…She was a gift…This is a test…
I remember a family friend whose son was struck with a terrible medical affliction. After that, at any religious ceremony—even a wedding—I would see the man out in the hallway, refusing to enter the service. “I just can’t listen to it anymore,” he would say. His faith had been lost.
When I asked the Reb, Why do bad things happen to good people?, he gave none of the standard answers. He quietly said, “No one knows.” I admired that. But when I asked if that ever shook his belief in God, he was firm.
“I cannot waver,” he said.
Well, you could, if you didn’t believe in something all-powerful.
“An atheist,” he said.
Yes.
“And then I could explain why my prayers were not answered.”
Right.
He studied me carefully. He drew in his breath.
“I had a doctor once who was an atheist. Did I ever tell you about him?”
No.
“This doctor, he liked to jab me and my beliefs. He used to schedule my appointments deliberately on Saturdays, so I would have to call the receptionist and explain why, because of my religion, that wouldn’t work.”
Nice guy, I said.
“Anyhow, one day, I read in the paper that his brother had died. So I made a condolence call.”
After the way he treated you?
“In this job,” the Reb said, “you don’t retaliate.”
I laughed.
“So I go to his house, and he sees me. I can tell he is upset. I tell him I am sorry for his loss. And he says, with an angry face, ‘I envy you.’
“‘Why do you envy me?’ I said.
“‘Because when you lose someone you love, you can curse God. You can yell. You can blame him. You can demand to know why. But I don’t believe in God. I’m a doctor! And I couldn’t help my brother!’
“He was near tears. ‘Who do I blame?’ he kept asking me. ‘There is no God. I can only blame myself.’”
The Reb’s face tightened, as if in pain.
“That,” he said, softly, “is a terrible self-indictment.”
Worse than an unanswered prayer?
“Oh yes. It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.”
Life of Henry
He was now approaching his thirtieth birthday, a criminal, an addict, and a liar to the Lord. He had a wife. It didn’t stop him. He had a daughter. It didn’t stop him. His money was gone, his fancy clothes were gone, his hair was unstyled and coarse. It didn
’t stop him.
One Saturday night, he wanted so desperately to get high that he drove with two men to Jamaica, Queens, to the only people he could think of with both money and product—drug dealers he used to work for.
He knocked on their door. They answered.
He pulled a gun.
“What are you doing?” they said, incredulous.
“You know what this is,” he said.
The gun didn’t even have a firing pin in it. Luckily, the dealers didn’t know that. Henry waved it and barked, “Let’s go,” and they gave him their money and their jewelry and their drugs.
He drove off with his friends, even gave them the valuables, but he kept the poison for himself. It was all his body wanted. It was all he could think about.
Later that night, after he’d smoked and sniffed and guzzled alcohol as well, paranoia set in, and Henry realized the dumb mistake he had made. His victims knew who he was and where he lived. And they would want revenge.
Which is when Henry grabbed that shotgun, went out front, and hid behind a row of trash cans. His wife was confused and scared.
“What’s happening?” she said, crying.
“Shut the lights!” he yelled.
He saw his daughter, watching from the doorway.
“Stay inside!”
He waited. He trembled. Something told him that for all the trouble he had escaped, this would be the night it caught up with him. A car would come down his block, and he would die from a spray of bullets.
And so, one last time, he turned to God.
“Will you save me, Jesus?” he whispered. “If I promise to give myself to you, will you save me tonight?” He was weeping. He was breathing heavily. If, with all the wrong he’d done, he was still allowed to pray, then this was as close as he came to true prayer. “Hear me, Jesus, please…”
He had been a troubled child.
A delinquent teen.
A bad man.
Could he still be a saved soul?
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.