Called to Controversy (11 page)

He was eleven years old, sitting in the synagogue, finding it difficult to listen to the rabbi's sermon. To alleviate boredom, he flipped through the
machzor
(high holiday prayer book), looking for something that might stir his imagination. Sure enough, he found a section called “For the Day of Atonement.” It had fascinating instructions: a man was supposed to take a rooster and swing it over his head three times while making the statement, “This is my change, this is my redemption. This rooster is going to be killed, and I shall be admitted and allowed to live a long, happy and peaceful life.” And a woman was supposed to take a hen and swing it over her head and make a similar statement.

Moishe was sitting with his father on one side and his little brother, Donny, on the other. He first pointed out the section to his dad, who said in a low voice, “We don't do that anymore.” Moishe glanced at his brother, who was smart and could read well. Moishe tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the page that talked about swinging the chicken. Donny quickly read it, then looking up at his older brother, he smiled gleefully, as though he thought swinging a live chicken over his head would be a lot of fun.

When they got home, Moishe asked Ben to tell them more about the chicken. His father explained that after the ceremony, you couldn't eat the chicken because it was a sacrifice, and you had to give it to somebody in need. Donny seemed enamored by the whole idea. “Can we do it, Dad? Can we do it?” At that point, their father had ended the conversation by saying, “We've got better uses for chickens around here.”

Moishe had never forgotten what he'd seen in the prayer book that day. Now it made him wonder:
If Jewish people could recite something about how a chicken's death could somehow bring life and peace to a human being, why was the story of Jesus dying for people's sins considered so very un-Jewish?

Walking home that night from Orville's, Moishe thought
What Orville says makes sense to me, and that means I must be one dumb Jew because Jesus couldn't possibly be the Messiah.
As for the New Testament Orville had given him, Moishe shook his head, thinking,
If I read it, I might be dumb enough to believe it, and that would make me one of them [a Christian or Gentile]. If the rabbis ever get together and decide that Jesus is the Messiah, maybe I' ll go along with them. Until then, I'm not having anything to do with this book.

The tire store next door to his house had a large trashcan out front, and Moishe tossed the New Testament in before climbing the steps to his front door. Inside, he quickly undressed and flopped into bed, utterly exhausted.

Ceil had lain awake for hours, worried because Moishe had not stopped by to see her after work. It was rare for him to let an evening go by without at least a brief visit. The next day Moishe came by and apologized, explaining his encounter with Orville and how they had talked until the wee hours of the morning. Ceil didn't ask, and Moishe never mentioned what he and Orville had discussed.

In subsequent weeks Ceil met Orville and his wife, Juanita, and the four became friends. Orville later recalled how Moishe “loved a friendly argument and could take either position with equal ease.” Moishe especially liked talking about philosophy and politics and, according to Orville, was “very radical”
*
and “always an individualist” but at the same time was “considerate and soft-spoken. The only time he ever raised his voice,” Freestone added, “was when he was laughing raucously. He had quite a sense of humor!”

Juanita described Moishe as “a nice-looking young man, very intense.” She said, “He was intent on living life. He had times of fun. But to him, everything was really a big deal. Everything was really important. In conversations, he'd look right at you. He was
with
you—he heard every word you said. I mean, you wouldn't dare say anything that you weren't willing to back up right then because you knew he'd ask questions. Everything that he talked about was just really important to him. I guess maybe he was interested in living. That's the only way I know how to describe it.”

The Freestones went on many walks with Moishe and Ceil, during which time Moishe and Orville, deep in conversation, usually outstripped Juanita and Ceil. The women had their own conversations. Both Orville and Juanita were committed Christians, and both, in their way, attempted to share their beliefs.

Orville used comparisons and analogies. For example, Moishe insisted that it was incomprehensible that God would become man. They were approaching a large anthill, and Orville said, “Well, let's just suppose for some crazy reason, you knew that these ants were going to be destroyed when this area got redeveloped. You knew they were going to widen the street here, and the ants would be wiped out. And for some crazy reason, you wanted to warn them. How would you do it?” Moishe replied, “I couldn't.” Orville replied, “You could if you become an ant.”

Orville was referring to the danger that Jesus warned about. According to the Bible, sin separates all people from God regardless of race or religious background.
*
Christians therefore believe that whoever is not reconciled to God in this life will be separated from him forever in the life to come. And they believe the only way to be saved from that eternal separation is through faith in Jesus who, the New Testament teaches, died to take the punishment for our sin and then rose from the dead. Orville and Juanita tried to convey that message to all their friends, including Moishe and Ceil. But their attempts, while motivated by genuine friendship and concern, did not seem to lead to any great revelation for either Moishe or Ceil.

Juanita recalled, “During one of our walks, I asked, ‘Celia, have you ever really been saved?' She looked at me—and it was quite late in the evening—but she just stopped walking and turned to me and said, ‘I don't know what you mean. Am I in danger?' Then I realized that I was speaking a different language and she had no frame of reference to understand what I meant by ‘saved.'”
**

Moishe decided the conversations had crossed a tenuous boundary that lay between an interesting exchange of ideas and attempts to convert him. As Orville recalled, “At one point he told me, ‘I really don't want these talks about religion to get so personal anymore.'” Later Orville commented to his wife, “My friend Martin will be the last person in this world ever to be saved.”

The Christian couple had said all they could say on the subject and would not try to force an unwelcome conversation. They stopped talking to Moishe and Ceil about God, but they never stopped talking to God about Moishe and Ceil, praying every day that the couple would come to know and follow Jesus. They continued on friendly terms, and the Freestones attended Moishe and Ceil's wedding. They were, to Orville's recollection, the “only goyim present.”
***

Ceil had graduated a year before Moishe and had a job as a secretary in a law office while Moishe was still studying and working part time at the sporting goods store. But when he finished school the following spring (1950), they decided they would marry at the end of that summer. At eighteen both of them were eager for independence.

They set the date: August 27. The guest list consisted of some two hundred people, mostly from Moishe's side of the family. The wedding was a simple affair. Ceil borrowed a gown and veil from a friend who'd recently married. Moishe wore dark slacks and a rented white dinner jacket.

Ceil recalled, “Moishe promised to take me as his wife according to the Law of Moses, and I didn't say anything. I was not required to say anything. I just stood there under the velvet chupah
*
and smiled. Of course, neither of us expected to observe the Law of Moses in our new home. That was just part of the ceremony. We had already agreed that tradition was fine if we didn't take it too seriously. We would not be entangled in Orthodox rules and regulations. We would just be modern American Jews.”

They lived a short time in a basement apartment before moving to another house that had been divided into apartments. Moishe and Ceil, along with another couple and their new baby, shared one upstairs bathroom with the older man who owned the house. Moishe and Ceil were glad to have the tiny space; affordable postwar apartments were hard to find.

Ceil was quite taken with the baby next door, and with the shadow of the draft looming she and Moishe decided to start a family. If Moishe were to be drafted, which they rather expected, the baby would keep Ceil busy and help ward off loneliness. If she couldn't manage alone, she could move in with her in-laws, who were always kind and supportive. To the couple's surprise and relief, however, Ceil's pregnancy earned Moishe a draft deferment.

It was a happy time. So happy that Ceil felt a surge of gratitude welling up inside her. But gratitude to whom? She realized, with a start, that it was gratitude to God. For some time she'd been far less vocal about her atheism, less secure about what she didn't believe. Now that she had her own home and was free to examine her beliefs, she realized that denying God's existence had been, more than anything, a way to break away from her strict upbringing.

Many years had passed since she'd spoken to God in her own words, and during most of that time, she had not even used the traditional Jewish prayers to reach out to him. Now she focused her mind and heart outward as she shyly and silently told God,
I'm sorry I said that you don't exist. I know that you are real. Thank you for all the good things you have given us. Please let our baby be healthy and strong
.

It was the first of several prayers that would ultimately change everything.

*
prayer shawl

*
This statement so impressed Moishe that in later years, he came back to it time and time again, including it in many of his sermons and lectures.

*
When asked what he meant by “radical,” Orville mentioned how, after the Freestones moved, Moishe wrote him letters addressed to “Comrade Orville Freestone” and signed his letters as “Comrade Martin Rosen.” This actually made Orville somewhat nervous. He knew that Moishe was no Communist, but his references to socialism, even in jest, could certainly have been taken amiss in those days.

*
“Your iniquities have separated you from your God; / And your sins have hidden His face from you, / So that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

**
The concept of being “saved” or delivered from one's sins or guilt can be found in the Jewish Bible (for example, Psalm 51), but for many Jewish people it is not a widely known or discussed concept except during Yom Kippur.

***
Goyim
literaly means “nations.” It is used both in the Bible and in contemporary Jewish culture to refer to nonJews.

*
Wedding canopy.

TEN

If things are going easier, maybe you're headed downhill.

—MOISHE ROSEN

H
ow much do I owe you?” Ceil asked.

“It was sixty-nine cents,” Dorothy replied, handing Ceil a brown paper bag. She was too good a friend to raise questions about the contraband it contained.

Ceil counted out the coins. “Thanks so much,” she said and smiled as she placed them in Dorothy's hand.

As soon as Dorothy left, Ceil hastily pulled the thick black book from the bag. The gilt letters said “Holy Bible.” She had carefully specified, “Be sure to get a
whole
Bible. You know—both the Old and the New Testament—but don't tell anyone!” Dorothy had raised an eyebrow, but didn't voice any surprise.

Now, hands trembling, Ceil fumbled past the parts she recognized from years of Hebrew school. And then, there it was, about two-thirds of the way through the Bible: the New Testament.

Now she would find out who those Christmas carols were really about and why Jesus was described as the one in whom “the hopes and fears of all the years” resided. She began with the first verse of the first book of the New Testament: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
What's wrong with that?
she thought.
It's saying that Jesus was Jewish!

She read voraciously until it was time to prepare dinner, then she hid the Bible beneath some papers in a desk drawer. From then on, whenever she had a few moments alone she read it. The more she read, the more impressed she was that it was a Jewish book about a Jewish person who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah.