There was a buoyancy in their voices I hadn’t heard in months, as if an unexpected summer had arrived in their backyard. And when I caught a plane to the East Coast and entered the house myself, and got my first glimpse of the Reb in his office-well, I wish I could describe the feeling. I have read stories about coma patients who suddenly, after years, awaken and ask for a piece of chocolate cake, while loved ones stare in dropped-jaw disbelief. Maybe it was like that.
All I know is that he turned in his chair, wearing one of those vests with all the pockets, and he held out his bony arms, and he smiled in that excited, crinkle-eyed way that seemed to emit sunlight, and he crowed, “Hellooo, stranger”-and I honestly thought I had seen someone return from the dead.
What was it like? I asked him, when we’d had a chance to settle.
“A fog,” he said. “Like a dark hole. I was here, but somehow I wasn’t here.”
Did you think it was…you know…
“The end?”
Yeah.
“At times.”
And what were you thinking at those times?
“I was thinking mostly about my family. I wanted to calm them. But I felt helpless to do so.”
You scared the heck out of me-us, I said.
“I am sorry about that.”
No. I mean. It’s not your fault.
“Mitch, I have been asking myself why this happened,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Why I have been…
Milligrams?
“That’s it. And I could’ve been kaput.”
Aren’t you furious?
He shrugged. “Look. I’m not happy, if that’s what you’re asking. But I must believe the doctors were doing their best.”
I couldn’t believe his tolerance. Most people would have been at a lawyer’s office. I guess the Reb felt if there was a reason for his rescue, it wasn’t to file lawsuits.
“Maybe I have a little more to give,” he said.
Or get.
“When you give, you get,” he said.
I walked right into that one.
Now, I knew the Reb believed that corny line. He truly was happiest when he could help someone. But I assumed a Man of God had no choice. His religion obliged him toward what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”
On the other hand, Napoleon once dismissed religion as “what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” Meaning, without the fear of God-or literally the hell we might have to pay-the rest of us would just take what we wanted.
The news headlines certainly endorsed that idea. In recent months, there had been terrorist train blasts in India, greedy executives sentenced in the Enron fraud case, a truck driver who’d shot five girls in an Amish schoolhouse, and a California congressman sent to jail for taking millions in bribes while living on a yacht.
Do you think it’s true, I asked the Reb that day, that our nature is evil?
“No,” he said. “I believe there is goodness in man.”
So we
“Deep down, yes.”
Then why do we do so many bad things?
He sighed. “Because one thing God gave us-and I’m afraid it’s at times a little too much-is free will. Freedom to choose. I believe he gave us everything needed to build a beautiful world, if we choose wisely.
“But we can also choose badly. And we can mess things up something awful.”
Can man change between good and evil?
The Reb nodded slowly. “In both directions.”
Human nature is a question we’ve grappled with for centuries. If a child were raised alone, separate from society, media, social dynamics, would that child grow up kind and openhearted? Or would it be feral and bloodthirsty, looking out solely for its own survival?
We’ll never know. We are not raised by wolves. But clearly, we wrestle with conflicting urges. Christianity believes Satan tempts us with evil. Hindus see evil as a challenge to life’s balance. Judaism refers to a man’s righteous inclination versus his evil inclination as two warring spirits; the evil spirit can, at first, be as flimsy as a cobweb, but if allowed to grow, it becomes thick as a cart rope.
The Reb once did a sermon on how the same things in life can be good or evil, depending on what, with free will, we do with them. Speech can bless or curse. Money can save or destroy. Science can heal or kill. Even nature can work for you or against you: fire can warm or burn; water can sustain life or flood it away.
“But nowhere in the story of Creation,” the Reb said, “do we read the word ‘bad.’ God did not create bad things.”
So God leaves it to us?
“He leaves it to us,” he replied. “Now, I do believe there are times when God clenches his fist and says, ‘Ooh, don’t do it, you’re gonna get yourself into trouble.’ And you might say, well, why doesn’t God jump in? Why doesn’t he eliminate the negative and accentuate the positive?
“Because, from the beginning, God said, ‘I’m gonna put this world into your hands. If I run everything, then that’s not you.’ So we were created with a piece of divinity inside us, but with this thing called free will, and I think God watches us every day, lovingly, praying we will make the right choices.”
Do you really think God prays? I asked.
“I think prayer and God,” he said, “are intertwined.”
I stared at him for a moment, marveling at the way he was speaking, analyzing, making jokes. Just weeks ago, hands were being wrung for him, tears were being cried. Now this. His daughter called it a miracle. Maybe it was. I was just relieved that he was better-and that his eulogy could wait.
We heard a honk. The taxi had arrived.
“So, anyhow” he said, wrapping up, “that is the story of my recent life.”
I stood and gave him a hug, a little tighter than usual.
No more scares, okay?
“Ah,” he laughed, jerking a thumb skyward. “You’ll have to take that up with my boss.”
Life of Cass
The Reb had achieved that.
And so had someone else.
Not Henry-although he certainly lived many lives.
But I refer here to his trusty elder, the man with one leg, who nudged and cajoled me until finally, on a cold night, in a plastic-covered section of the church, he said, in a scratchy voice, “Mister Mitch, I got to share this with you…”
