Have a Little Faith - Mitch Albom [10]
A few weeks later, he was dead.
At the funeral, Henry heard a Baptist preacher say something about the soul and Jesus, but not much got through. He kept thinking his father would come back, just show up at the door one day, singing his favorite songs.
Months passed. It didn’t happen.
Finally, having lost his only hero, Henry, the hustler’s son, made a decision: from now on, he would take what he wanted.
MAY
Ritual
Spring was nearly over, summer on its way, and the late morning sun burned hot through the kitchen window. It was our third visit. Before we began, the Reb poured me a glass of water.
“Ice?” he asked.
I’m okay, I said.
“He’s okay,” he sang. “No ice…it would be nice…but no ice…”
As we walked back to his office, we passed a large photo of him as a younger man, standing on a mountain in bright sunlight. His body was tall and strong, his hair black and combed back—the way I remembered him from childhood.
Nice photo, I said.
“That was a proud moment.”
Where was it?
“Mount Sinai.”
Where the Ten Commandments were given?
“Exactly.”
When was this?
“In the 1960s. I was traveling with a group of scholars. A Christian man and I climbed up. He took that picture.”
How long did it take?
“Hours. We climbed all night and arrived at sunrise.”
I glanced at his aging body. Such a trip would be impossible now. His narrow shoulders were hunched over, and the skin at his wrists was wrinkled and loose.
As he walked on to his office, I noticed a small detail in the photo. Along with his white shirt and a prayer shawl, the Reb was wearing the traditional tefillin, small boxes containing Biblical verses, which observant Jews strap around their heads and their arms while reciting morning prayers.
He said he climbed all night.
Which meant he had taken them up with him.
Such ritual was a major part of the Reb’s life. Morning prayers. Evening prayers. Eating certain foods. Denying himself others. On Sabbath, he walked to synagogue, rain or shine, not operating a car, as per Jewish law. On holidays and festivals, he took part in traditional practices, hosting a Seder meal on Passover, or casting bread into a stream on Rosh Hashanah, symbolic of casting away your sins.
Like Catholicism, with its vespers, sacraments, and communions—or Islam, with its five-times-daily salah, clean clothes, and prayer mats—Judaism had enough rituals to keep you busy all day, all week, and all year.
I remember, as a kid, the Reb admonishing the congregation—gently, and sometimes not so gently—for letting rituals lapse or disappear, for eschewing traditional acts like lighting candles or saying blessings, even neglecting the Kaddish prayer for loved ones who had died.
But even as he pleaded for a tighter grip, year after year, his members opened their fingers and let a little more go. They skipped a prayer here. They skipped a holiday there. They intermarried—as I did.
I wondered, now that his days were dwindling, how important ritual still was.
“Vital,” he said.
But why? Deep inside, you know your convictions.
“Mitch,” he said, “faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.”
Now, the Reb didn’t merely practice his rituals; he carved his daily life from them. If he wasn’t praying, he was studying—a major part of his faith—or doing charity or visiting the sick. It made for a more predictable life, perhaps even a dull one by American standards. After all, we are conditioned to reject the “same old routine.” We’re supposed to keep things new, fresh. The Reb wasn’t into fresh. He never took up fads. He didn’t do Pilates, he didn’t golf (someone gave him a single club once; it sat in his garage for years).
But there was something calming about his pious life, the way he puttered from one custom to the next; the way certain hours held certain acts; the way every autumn he built a sukkah hut with its roof open to the stars; the way every week he embraced the Sabbath, breaking the world down to six days and one day, six days and one.
“My grandparents did these things. My parents,