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.
MOHANDAS GANDHI
AUGUST
Why War?
The summer moved quickly. The war in Iraq dominated the headlines, as did a battle to put the Ten Commandments in front of an Alabama courthouse. I found myself phoning the Reb in between visits. His voice was always upbeat.
“Is this Detroit calling?” he might begin.
Or: “Rabbi hotline, how can I help you?”
It made me ashamed of the way I sometimes answered the phone (a rushed “Hello?” as if it was a question I didn’t want to ask). In all the time I knew the Reb, I don’t think I ever heard him say, “Lemme call you back.” I marveled at how a man who was supposed to be available for so many people could somehow be available for each one of them.
On a late August visit, the Reb’s wife, Sarah, a kind and eloquent woman who’d been with him for sixty years, answered the door and led me to his office. The Reb was already seated, wearing a long-sleeved shirt despite the summer heat. His downy white hair was neatly combed, but I noticed that he didn’t get up. He just stretched out his arms for a hug.
Are you okay? I said.
He flung his palms in opposite directions.
“Lemme put it this way. I’m not as good as I was yesterday, buuuut…I’m better than I’m gonna be tom- orrrrr-ow…”
You and singing, I said.
“Ah,” he laughed. “I sing a song, you hum along…”
I sat down.
A newspaper was open on his desk. The Reb kept up with the news, as much as he could. When I asked how long he thought the Iraq war would last, he shrugged.
You’ve lived through a lot of wars, I said.
“Yes.”
Do they ever make more sense?
“No.”
