Mitch Albom - Have a Little Faith - A True Story

Before the weather turned cold, Henry occasionally cooked on a grill by the side of the church; chicken, shrimp, whatever he could get donated. He gave it out to whoever was hungry. He even preached sometimes on a low crumbling concrete wall across the street.

“I’ve spread as much of God’s word on that wall,” Henry said one day, “as I have inside.”

How is that?

“Because some people aren’t ready to come in. Maybe they feel guilty, on accounta what they’re up to. So I go out there, bring them a sandwich.”

Kind of like a house call?

“Yeah. Except most of ’em don’t have houses.”

Are some of them on drugs?

“Oh, yeah. But so are some folks coming in on Sundays.”

You’re kidding. During your service?

“Whoo, yeah. I’m looking right at them. You see that head whoppin’ and boppin’ and you say, ‘Umm-hmm, they had something powerful.’”

That doesn’t bother you?

“Not at all. You know what I tell them? I don’t care if you’re drunk, or you just left the drug house, I don’t care. When I’m sick, I go to the emergency room. And if the problem continues, I go again. So whatever’s ailing you, let this church be your emergency room. Until you get the healing, don’t stop coming.”

I studied Henry’s wide, soft face.

Can I ask you something? I said.

“Okay.”

What did you rob from that synagogue?

He exhaled and laughed. “Believe it or not-envelopes.”

Envelopes?

“That’s it. I was just a teenager. Some older guys had broken in before me and stolen anything valuable. All I found was a box of envelopes. I took ’em and ran out.”

Do you even remember what you did with them?

“No,” he answered. “I sure don’t.”

I looked at him, looked at his church, and wondered if one man’s life ever truly makes sense to another.

I take home a box of the Reb’s old sermons. I leaf through them. There is one from the 1950s on “The Purpose of a Synagogue” and one from the 1960s called “The Generation Gap.”

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.

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.