I see one entitled “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” It is from the late 1970s. I read it. I do a double take.
It is an appeal to fix the collapsing roof.
“Our roof sheds copious tears after each rain,” the Reb wrote. He mentioned sitting in the sanctuary when a “sodden wet ceiling tile” fell and just missed him, and a wedding celebration in which two days of rain “created unwanted gravy on the chicken.” During a morning service, he had to grab a broom and puncture a buckling tile to allow the rainwater to gush through.
In the sermon, he beseeches members to give more to keep their house of worship from literally caving in.
I think about Pastor Henry and his roof hole. It is the first time I see a connection. An inner-city church. A suburban synagogue.
Then again, our congregation ultimately came up with the money. And Henry couldn’t even ask his.
NOVEMBER
Your Faith, My Faith
When I was a teenager, the Reb did a sermon that made me laugh. He read a thank-you letter from another clergyman. At the end, it was signed: “May your god-and our god-bless you.”
I laughed at the idea that two Almightys could be sent the same message. I was too young to realize the more serious shadings of that distinction.
Once I moved to the Midwest -to an area some nicknamed the “Northern Bible Belt”-the issue became weightier. I had strangers tell me “God bless you” in the grocery store. What should I say to that? I interviewed athletes who credited their “Lord and savior, Jesus Christ” for touchdowns or home runs. I worked volunteer projects with Hindus, Buddhists, Catholics. And because metro Detroit boasts the largest Arab population outside of the Middle East, Muslim issues were a regular part of life, including a debate over a local mosque broadcasting Adhan, the daily call to prayer, in a largely Polish neighborhood that already rang with church bells.
In other words, “May your god and our god bless you”-and whose god was blessing whom-had gone from funny to controversial to confrontational. I found myself keeping quiet. Almost hiding. I think many people in minority religions do this. Part of the reason I drifted from my faith was that I didn’t want to feel defensive about it. A pathetic reason, looking back, but true.
One Sunday, not long before Thanksgiving, I took the train from New York, entered the Reb’s house, greeted him with a hug, and trooped behind him to his office, his metal walker leading the way. It now had a small basket in front, which contained a few books and, for some reason, a red maraca gourd.
“I have found that if the walker looks like a shopping cart,” the Reb said, mischievously, “the congregation is more comfortable.”
His eulogy request now sat like a term paper in my mind. On some visits, I felt I had forever to finish it; on others, I felt I had days, not even weeks. Today, the Reb seemed well, his eyes clear, his voice strong, which reassured me. Once we sat, I told him about the homeless charity and even the rescue mission where I’d spent the night.
I wasn’t sure I should mention a Christian mission to a rabbi, and the moment I said it, I felt guilty, like a traitor. I remembered a story the Reb had told me once about taking his old-world grandmother to a baseball game. When everyone jumped and cheered at a home run, she stayed seated. He turned and asked why she wasn’t clapping for the big hit. And she said to him, in Yiddish, “Albert, is it good for the Jews?”
My worry was wasted. The Reb made no such value judgments. “Our faith tells us to do charitable acts and to aid the poor in our community,” he said. “That is being righteous, no matter who you help.”
Soon we had tumbled into a most fundamental debate. How can different religions coexist? If one faith believes one thing, and another believes something else, how can they both be correct? And does one religion have the right-or even the obligation-to try to convert the other?
The Reb had been living with these issues all of his professional life. “In the early 1950s,” he recalled, “our congregation’s kids used to wrap their Jewish books in brown paper before they got on the bus. Remember, to many around here, we were the first Jewish people they had ever seen.”
Did that make for some strange moments?
He chuckled. “Oh, yes. I remember one time a congregant came to me all upset, because her son, the only Jewish boy in his class, had been cast in the school’s Christmas play. And they cast him as Jesus.
“So I went to the teacher. I explained the dilemma. And she said, ‘But that’s why we chose him, Rabbi. Because Jesus was a Jew!’”
I remembered similar incidents. In elementary school, I was left out of the big, colorful Christmas productions of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” or “Jingle Bells.” Instead, I had to join the school’s few other Jewish kids onstage, as we sang the Hanukah song, “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, I Made It Out of Clay.” We held hands and moved in a circle, imitating a spinning top. No props. No costumes. At the end of the song, we all fell down.
I swear I saw some gentile parents hiding their laughter.
Is there any winning a religious argument? Whose God is better than whose? Who got the Bible right or wrong? I preferred figures like Rajchandra, the Indian poet who influenced Gandhi by teaching that no religion was superior because they all brought people closer to God; or Gandhi himself, who would break a fast with Hindu prayers, Muslim quotations, or a Christian hymn.
Over the years, the Reb had lived his beliefs, but never tried to convert anyone to them. As a general rule, Judaism does not seek converts. In fact, the tradition is to first discourage them, emphasizing the difficulties and suffering the religion has endured.
This is not the case with all religions. Throughout history, countless millions have been slaughtered for failing to convert, to accept another god, or to denounce their own beliefs. Rabbi Akiva, the famous second-century scholar, was tortured to death by the Romans for refusing to give up his religious study. As they raked his flesh with iron combs, he whispered his final words on earth, “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” He died with the word “one” on his lips.
That prayer-and the word “one”-were integral to the Reb’s beliefs. One, as in the singular God. One, as in the Lord’s creation, Adam.
“Ask yourself, ‘Why did God create but one man?’” the Reb said, wagging a finger. “Why, if he meant for there to be faiths bickering with each other, didn’t he create that from the start? He created trees, right? Not one tree, countless trees. Why not the same with man?
“Because we are all from that one man-and all from that one God. That’s the message.”
Then why, I asked, is the world so fractured?
“Well, you can look at it this way. Would you want the world to all look alike? No. The genius of life is its variety.
“Even in our own faith, we have questions and answers, interpretations, debates. In Christianity, in Catholicism, in other faiths, the same thing-debates, interpretations. That is the beauty. It’s like being a musician. If you found the note, and you kept hitting that note all the time, you would go nuts. It’s the blending of the different notes that makes the music.”
The music of what?
“Of believing in something bigger than yourself.”
But what if someone from another faith won’t recognize yours? Or wants you dead for it?
“That is not faith. That is hate.” He sighed. “And if you ask me, God sits up there and cries when that happens.”