this whole faith thing. I should have been more proud, less intimidated. I shouldn’t have bitten my tongue. If the only thing wrong with Moses is that he’s not yours; if the only thing wrong with Jesus is that he’s not yours; if the only thing wrong with mosques, Lent, chanting, Mecca, Buddha, confession, or reincarnation is that they’re not yours-well, maybe the problem is you.
One more question? I asked the Reb.
He nodded.
When someone from another faith says, “God bless you,” what do you say?
“I say, ‘Thank you, and God bless you, too.’”
Really?
“Why shouldn’t I?”
I went to answer and realized I had no answer. No answer at all.
I read up on Buddhist stories and parables.
One concerns a farmer who wakes up to find that his horse has run off.
The neighbors come by and say, “Too bad. Such awful luck.”
The farmer says, “Maybe.”
The next day, the horse returns with a few other horses. The neighbors congratulate the farmer on his reversal of fortune.
“Maybe,” the farmer says.
When his son tries to ride one of the new horses, he breaks his leg, and the neighbors offer condolences.
“Maybe,” the farmer says.
And the next day, when army officials come to draft the son-and don’t take him because of his broken leg- everyone is happy.
“Maybe,” the farmer says.
I have heard stories like this before. They are beautiful in their simplicity and surrender to the universe. I wonder if I could be attached to something so detached. I don’t know. Maybe.
The Things We Find…
After leaving the Reb’s house, I stopped at the synagogue, seeking information on the original building back in the 1940s.
“That might be in our files,” a woman had told me over the phone.
I didn’t know there were files, I’d said.
“We have files on everything. We have a file on you.”
You’re kidding. Can I see it?
“You can have it if you want.”
Now I walked into the foyer. The religious school was still in session, and there were kids everywhere. The preteen girls loped with awkward self-awareness, and the boys ran the halls and grabbed their heads to keep their yarmulkes from falling off.
Nothing had changed, I thought. Usually, this would make me feel superior. I had soared away while the poor hometown kids were doing the same old thing. But this time, I don’t know why, all I felt was empty distance.
Hi, I said to a woman behind the desk. My name is-
“Come on, we know you. Here’s the file.”
I blinked. I almost forgot that my family had been part of this place for four decades.
Thanks, I said.
“Sure thing.”
I took the file on me and headed home, or to the place I called home now.
On the plane I leaned back and undid a rubber band that held the file’s contents. I reflected on my life since New Jersey. My plans as a young man-my “citizen of the world” dreams-had come true, to a degree. I had friends in different time zones. I’d had books published in foreign languages. I’d had many addresses over the years.
But you can touch everything and be connected to nothing. I knew airports better than I knew local neighborhoods. I knew more names in other area codes than I did on my block. The “community” I had joined was the community of the workplace. Friends were through work. Conversation was about work. Most of my socialization came through work.
And in recent months, those workplace pillars had been falling down. Friends were laid off. Downsized. They took buyouts. Offices closed. People who were always in one place were no longer there when you called. They sent e-mails saying they were exploring “exciting new options.” I never believed the “exciting” part.
And without the work connection, the human ties released, like magnets losing their attraction. We promised to keep up, but the promises were not kept. Some people behaved as if unemployment were contagious. Anyhow, without the commonality of work-the complaints, the gossip-how much was there to talk about?
When I dumped the contents of my personal file onto the tray table, I found report cards, old papers, even a religious school play I wrote in fourth grade on Queen Esther:
MORDECHI: Esther!
ESTHER: Yes, Uncle?
MORDECHI: Go to the castle.
ESTHER: But I have nothing to wear!
There were also copies of congratulatory letters from the Reb-some handwritten-on getting into college, on my engagement. I felt ashamed. He had tried to stay in touch with these notes. And I didn’t even remember receiving them.
I thought about my connections in life. I thought about workplace friends who were fired, or had quit due to illness. Who comforted them? Where did they go? Not to me. Not to their former bosses.
Often, it seemed, they were helped by their churches or temples. Members took up collections. They cooked meals. They gave money to pay bills. They did it with love, empathy, and the knowledge that it was part of the supportive undercarriage of a “sacred community,” like the ones the Reb spoke about, like the one I guess I had once belonged to, even if I didn’t realize it.
The plane landed. I collected the papers, wrapped them back in the rubber band, and felt a small grief, like a person who discovers, upon returning from a trip, that something has been left behind and there is no way now to retrieve it.
Thanksgiving
Fall surrendered quickly in Detroit, and in what seemed like minutes, the trees were bare and the color siphoned out of the city, leaving it a barren and concrete place, under milky skies and early snowfalls. We rolled up the car windows. We took out the heavy coats. Our jobless rate was soaring. People couldn’t afford their homes. Some just packed up and walked out, left their whole world behind to bankers or scavengers. It was still November. A long winter lay ahead.
On a Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I came by the I Am My Brother’s Keeper Ministry to see firsthand the homeless program it operated. I still wasn’t totally at ease with Pastor Henry. Everything about his church was different-at least to me. But what the Reb had said resonated, that you can embrace your own faith’s authenticity and still accept that others believe in something else.
Besides, that whole thing about a community-well, Detroit
