Have A Little Faith Part 17

In the silent hallway, Albert and Sarah prayed for their child to live.

Hours later, she was dead.

It was a severe asthma attack, the first and last of Rinah's life. Today, most likely, she would have survived. With an inhaler, with instructions, it might not even have been a major incident.

But today is not yesterday, and the Reb could do nothing but listen to the worst imaginable words-We couldn't save her-told to him by a doctor he had never met before that night. How could this happen? She had been perfectly normal earlier in the day, a playful child, her whole life before her. We couldn't save her? We couldn't save her? Where is the logic, the order of life? Where is the logic, the order of life?

The next few days were a blur. There was a funeral, a small coffin. At the grave site, the Reb said Kaddish, a prayer he had led for so many others, a prayer which never mentions death, yet is recited on the anniversary of a death every year thereafter.

"May G.o.d's great name be glorified and sanctified throughout the world which He has created..." throughout the world which He has created..."

A small shovel of dirt was tossed on the grave.

Rinah was buried.

The Reb was thirty-six years old.

"I cursed G.o.d," he'd admitted when we'd spoken about it. "I asked Him over and over, 'Why her? What did this little girl do? She was four years old. She didn't hurt a soul.'"

Did you get an answer?

"I still have no answer."

Did that make you angry?

"For a while, furious."

Did you feel guilty cursing G.o.d-you, of all people?

"No," he said. "Because even in doing so, I was recognizing there was a greater power than me."

He paused.

"And that is how I began to heal."

The night the Reb returned to the pulpit, the temple was packed. Some came out of condolence. Some, no doubt, out of curiosity. But privately, most wondered the same thing: "Now that it's happened to you, what do you have to say?"

The Reb knew this. It was partly why he came back so quickly, the first Friday after the mandatory thirty days of mourning.

And when he rose to his lectern, and when the congregation quieted, he spoke the only way he knew how-from the heart. He admitted that, yes, he had been angry at the Lord. That he'd howled in anguish, that he'd screamed for an answer. That there was nothing in being a Man of G.o.d that insulated him from the tears and misery of never being able to hold his little girl again.

And yet, he noted, the very rituals of mourning that he cursed having to do-the prayers, the torn clothing, not shaving, covering the mirrors-had helped him keep a grip on who he was, when he might have otherwise washed away.

"That which I have had to say to others, I must say now to myself," he admitted, and in so doing, his faith was being tested with the truest test there is: to drink his own elixir, to heal his own broken heart.

He told them how the words of the Kaddish made him think, "I am part of something here; one day my children will say this very prayer for me just as I am saying it for my daughter."

His faith soothed him, and while it could not save little Rinah from death, it could make her death more bearable, by reminding him that we are all frail parts of something powerful. His family, he said, had been blessed to have the child on earth, even for a few short years. He would see her again one day. He believed that. And it gave him comfort.

When he finished, nearly everyone was crying.

"Years later," he told me, "whenever I would go to someone's home who had lost a family member-a young one, particularly-I would try to be of comfort by remembering what comforted me. Sometimes we would sit quietly. Just sit and maybe hold a hand. Let them talk. Let them cry. And after a while, I could see they felt better.

"And when I'd get outside, I would go like this-"

He touched a finger to his tongue and pointed skyward.

"Chalk one up for you, Rinah," he said, smiling. Now, in the back of his house, I was holding the Reb's hand, as he had done for others. I tried to smile. He blinked from behind his gla.s.ses.

All right, I said. I'll come back and see you soon.

He half-nodded.

"You...okay...yeah...," he whispered.

There was little else to do. He was no longer able to speak a full sentence. And with each of my poor attempts at conversation, I felt I was only frustrating him more. He seemed to sense what was happening, and I feared the look on my face would reveal the crus.h.i.+ng loss I felt. How was this fair? This wise and eloquent man, who a few weeks earlier had been discoursing on divinity, was now stripped of his most precious faculty; he could no longer teach, he could no longer string together beautiful sentences from that beautiful mind.

He could no longer sing.

He could only squeeze my fingers and move his mouth open and closed.

On the plane ride home, I wrote down some sentences. The eulogy, I feared, was finally coming due.

From a Sermon by the Reb "If you ask me, and you should, why this wonderful, beautiful child-who had so much to give-had to die, I can't give you a rational answer. I don't know.

"But in a commentary to the Bible, tradition tells us that Adam, our first man, was supposed to have lived longer than any man, a thousand years. He didn't. Our sages, in quest of an answer, related the following: "Adam begged G.o.d to let him see into the future. So the Lord said, 'Come with me.' He took him through the celestial chambers, where the souls that were to be born awaited their turn. Each soul was a flame. Adam saw some flames burn purely, some barely flicker.

"Then he saw a beautiful flame, clear, strong, golden orange, and healing. Adam said, 'Oh Lord, that will be a great human being. When shall it be born?'

"The Lord replied, 'I'm sorry, Adam, but that soul, as beautiful as it is, is destined not to be born. It has been preordained that it will commit sin and tarnish itself. I have chosen to spare it the indignity of being besmirched.'

"Adam pleaded, 'But Lord, man must have someone to teach and guide him. Please, do not deprive my children.'

"The Lord gently answered, 'The decision has been made. I have no years left to allocate to him.'

"Then Adam boldly said, 'Lord, what if I am willing to bestow on that soul some of the years of my life?'

"And G.o.d answered Adam, saying, 'If that is your wish, that I will grant.'

"Adam, we are told, died not at 1,000, but at 930 years. And eons later, there was a child born in the town of Bethlehem. He became a ruler over Israel and a sweet singer of songs. After leading his people and inspiring them, he died. And the Bible concludes: 'Behold, David the King was buried after having lived for 70 years.'

"My friends, when sometimes we are asked why does someone perish, someone so young in age, I can only fall back on the wisdom of our tradition. It is true that David did not live long for his day. But while he lived, David taught, inspired, and left us a great spiritual legacy, including the Book of Psalms. One of those Psalms, the twenty-third, is read sometimes at funerals.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul... He restoreth my soul...

"Is it not better to have known Rinah, my daughter, for four years, than not to have known her at all?"

WINTER.

Then some people came, bringing a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Then some people came, bringing a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made a hole in the roof.

MARK 2:3-4

Winter Solstice On a Sunday morning, with the snow whipping sideways, I pulled open the church's large front door and stepped into the vestibule. The sanctuary was freezing-and empty. The roof hole was above me. I could hear the wind whipping the blue tarp. An organ sound was coming from somewhere, but there was no one around.

"Psst."

I turned to see the thin man with the high forehead, motioning me to another door on the side. I walked in and did a double take.

Here was some kind of makes.h.i.+ft mini-sanctuary, just two short pews wide, with a side "wall" of plastic sheeting staple-gunned into wooden two-by-fours. It was like a fort that kids make in the attic. The plastic wrapped overhead as well, creating a low ceiling.

Apparently, with no heat to fight the cold, the church had been forced to build a plastic tent inside its own sanctuary. Congregants huddled in the limited seating. The small s.p.a.ce made it less frigid, although people still kept their coats on. And this was where Pastor Henry Covington now conducted his Sunday service. Instead of a grand altar, he had a small lectern. Instead of the soaring pipe organ behind him, there was a black-and-white banner nailed on the wall.

"We are grateful to you, G.o.d," Henry was saying as I slid into a back row. "G.o.d of hope...we give you thanks and praise...in Jesus's name, amen."

I glanced around. Between the roof hole, the heat being shut off, and now a plastic prayer tent, you wondered how long before the church withered out of existence altogether.

Henry's sermon that day had to do with judging people by their past. He began by lamenting how hard it is to shake a habit-especially an addiction.

"I know how it is," he bellowed. "I know what it's like when you done swore, I'll never do this again...next time I get my money, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that,' and you go home and you promise your loved ones, 'I messed up, but I'm gonna get back'-"

"Amen!"

"And then you get some money, and all those promises-out the window."

"Way-ell!"

"You're so sick and tired of being sick and tired-"

"Sick and tired!"

"But there comes a time when you have to admit to G.o.d, this stuff is stronger than me-it's stronger than the rehab program-it's stronger than the pastor at the church...I need you, Lord...I need you, Jesus..."

He started clapping.

"But you gotta be like Smokey Robinson..."

He burst into song. He did two lines from "You Really Got a Hold on Me."

Then back to preaching.

"And maybe you make it to the supermarket and buy some groceries, then someone comes up to you and you get weak...and all the groceries that you bought for seventy dollars, you'll give 'em away for twenty-"

"Fifteen!"

"Yes, sir...fifteen...that's right, if you on a hard enough mission to get high...I'm tellin' you, I know what it's like to be in, and I know what it's like to be out."

"Amen!"

"But we gotta fight this thing. And it's not good enough for just you you to get clean. If someone else is trying, you gotta believe in them too-" to get clean. If someone else is trying, you gotta believe in them too-"

"Preach it, Pastor!"

"In the Book of Acts, we read that Paul-after his conversion-people distrusted him because he used to persecute the church, but now he praised it. 'Is this the same guy? 'Is this the same guy? Can't be! Nuh-uh.'...It's amazing how folks can't see you, 'cause they want to keep you in that past. Some of our greatest problems in ministering to people is that they knew us back before we came to the Lord-" Can't be! Nuh-uh.'...It's amazing how folks can't see you, 'cause they want to keep you in that past. Some of our greatest problems in ministering to people is that they knew us back before we came to the Lord-"

"Yes it is!"

"The same thing with Paul...They saw him...they couldn't believe that this man's from Jesus, because they looked at his past-"

"That's right!"

"They just looked at his past. And when we're still looking at ourselves through our past, we're not seeing what G.o.d has done. What He can can do! We're not seeing the little things that happen in our lives-" do! We're not seeing the little things that happen in our lives-"

"Tell it now."

"When people tell me that I'm good, my response is, 'I'm trying.' But there's some people that know me from back when-anytime I make that trip to New York-and when they hear I'm the pastor of a church, all of a sudden, it's like "I know you gettin' paid, boy. I know know you gettin' paid. I you gettin' paid. I know know you.'" you.'"

He paused. His voice lowered.