The House of Peace
I drove the car slowly under a light spring drizzle. For our second meeting, I had asked to see the Reb at work, because knowing what to say after a man died included knowing how he labored, right?
It was strange driving through the New Jersey suburbs where I’d grown up. They were provincially middle- class back then; fathers worked, mothers cooked, church bells rang-and I couldn’t wait to get out. I left high school after the eleventh grade, went to college up near Boston, moved to Europe, then New York, and never lived here again. It seemed too small for what I wanted to achieve in life, like being stuck wearing your grade school clothes. I had dreams of traveling, making foreign friends in foreign cities. I had heard the phrase “citizen of the world.” I wanted to be one.
But here I was, in my early forties, back in my old hometown. I drove past a grocery store and saw a sign in a window that read “Water Ice.” We used to love that stuff as kids, cherry-or lemon-flavored, ten cents for a small, a quarter for a large. I never really found it anywhere else. I saw a man emerge licking a cup of it, and for a moment I wondered what my life would be like if I’d stayed here, lived here, licked water ice as an adult.
I quickly dismissed the thought. I was here for a purpose. A eulogy. When I was done, I would go home.
The parking lot was mostly empty. I approached the temple, with its tall glass archway, but I felt no nostalgia. This was not the prayer house of my youth. As with many suburban churches and synagogues, our congregation, Temple Beth Sholom (which translates to “House of Peace”), had followed a migratory pattern. It began in one place and moved to another, growing larger as it chased after its members who, over the years, picked more affluent suburbs. I once thought churches and temples were like hills, permanent in location and singular in shape. The truth is, many go where the customers go. They build and rebuild. Ours had grown from a converted Victorian house in a residential neighborhood to a sprawling edifice with a spacious foyer, nineteen classrooms and offices, and a wall honoring the generous benefactors who’d made it possible.
Personally, I preferred the cramped brick building of my youth, where you smelled kitchen aromas when you walked in the back door. I knew every inch of that place. Even the mop closet, where we used to hide as kids.
Where I once hid from the Reb.
But what stays the same in life?
Now the Reb was waiting for me in the foyer, this time wearing a collared shirt and a sports coat. He greeted me with a personalized chorus of “Hello, Dolly”:
“Helllooo, Mitchell,
Well, hellooo, Mitchell,
It’s so nice to have you back
Where you belong…”
I pasted a smile on my face. I wasn’t sure how long I would last with the musical theater thing.
I asked how he’d been doing. He mentioned dizzy spells. I asked if they were serious.
He shrugged.
“Let me put it this way,” he said.
Ain’t what he used to be, I said.
“Ah.”
I felt bad that I had interrupted him. Why was I so impatient?
We walked down the hallway toward his office. At this point, in semiretirement, his hours were strictly of his own choosing. He could stay at home if he wanted; no one would object.
But religion is built on ritual, and the Reb loved the ritual of going in to work. He had nurtured this congregation from a few dozen families in 1948 to more than a thousand families today. I got the feeling the place had actually grown too big for his liking. There were too many members he didn’t know personally. There were also other rabbis now-one senior, one assistant-who handled the day-to-day duties. The idea of assistants when the Reb first arrived would have been laughable. He used to carry the keys and lock the place up himself.
“Look.”
He pointed to a stack of wrapped presents inside a doorway.
What’s that? I asked.
“The bride’s room. They come here to get dressed before the wedding.”
He ran his eyes up and down the gifts and smiled.
“Lovely, isn’t it?”
What?
“Life,” he said.
IT IS 1967…
…and the houses are decorated for Christmas. Our neighborhood is mostly Catholic.
One morning, after a snowfall, a friend and I walk to school, wearing hooded jackets and rubber boots. We come upon a small house with a life-sized nativity scene on its front lawn.
We stop. We study the figures. The wise men. The animals.
Is that one Jesus? I ask.
“What one?”
The one standing up. With the crown.
“I think that’s his father.”
Is Jesus the other guy?
“Jesus is the baby.”
Where?
“In the crib, stupid.”
We strain our necks. You can’t see Jesus from the sidewalk.
“I’m gonna look,” my friend says.
You better not.
“Why?”
You can get in trouble.
I don’t know why I say this. Already, at that age, I sense the world as “us” and “them.” If you’re Jewish, you’re not supposed to talk about Jesus or maybe even look at Jesus.
“I’m looking anyhow,” my friend says.
I step in nervously behind him. The snow crunches beneath our feet. Up close, the figures of the three wise men seem phony, hardened plaster with orangey painted flesh.
“That’s him,” my friend says.
I peer over his shoulder. There, inside the crib, is the baby Jesus, lying in painted hay. I shiver. I half expect him to open his eyes and yell, “Gotcha!”
Come on, we’re gonna be late, I say, backpedaling.
My friend sneers.
“Chicken,” he says.
Life of Henry
Having been taught to believe in the Father, and having accepted the Son as his personal savior, Henry took the Holy Ghost to heart, for the first time, when he was twelve years old, on a Friday night at the True Deliverance Church in Harlem.
It was a Pentecostal tarry service-inspired by Jesus’ call to tarry in the city until “endued with a power from on high”-and as part of the tradition, people were called to receive the Holy Spirit. Henry followed others up to the pulpit, and when his turn came, he was swabbed with olive oil, then told to get on his knees and lean over a newspaper.
“Call him,” he heard voices say.
So Henry called. He said “Jesus” and “Jesus” and then “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” over and over, until the words
