On the day that Jake Asher realized he was the last Jew in Loweville, he was sitting with his girlfriend, Sandra, in the fourth row of the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church, listening to Reverend Smith give yet another one of his sermons on Abraham.
Abraham, Jake heard the reverend once again remind the congregation, later became “The Father of the Great Jewish Nation”, but today he wanted to concentrate on the prophet’s early days when Abraham was trying to save Lot from the nastiness that surrounded Sodom and Gomorrah. The reverend added, as an aside, that it should be noted that Lot’s wife could not be saved because, unfortunately, she could not follow directions.
In the sermon, Reverend Smith referred to the evil twin cities as ‘bedroom communities’, a joke that no one else in the sanctuary seemed to pick up on, save Jake, who for the indiscretion of chuckling aloud drew a disapproving look from Sandra. Jake felt only slightly contrite. He could not recall ever having laughed in shul, which could have been because none of his many rabbis had every said anything particularly funny, or it could have been simply that his sense of the absurd had not yet been honed. As he took in Sandra’s frown, Jake realized suddenly that although he had been attending church semi-regularly for the past couple of years, he had not even stepped foot into a synagogue in the five years since his wife had passed away.
Jake didn’t really mind coming to church, not because of Reverend Smith’s off-the-wall sermons, or even his occasional jokes, but because the good reverend was such fun to look at: he wore a huge, prodigiously waxed handlebar mustache and a thick, completely artificial-looking toupee that was not even close to the color of the tufts of hair that stuck out the back of it. He also sported shiny expensive-looking maroon-black cowboy boots the sharp toes of which peeked from beneath the legs of his stark black suits. Jake thought the reverend looked more like a snake-oil salesman from the Old West than a respectable Baptist preacher and leader of the oldest, largest and richest church in Loweville, the new sanctuary of which had just recently been built to the tune of many millions of dollars. The man keenly amused Jake.
When Jake had first begun attending the Baptist church with Sandra (she had tried out Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian and Church of Christ congregations before settling in as a Baptist) he had been surprised at the sedateness of the crowd, their well-dressed murmurings of assent, their all around good behavior. He had been convinced he would see the Baptists rolling on the floor and shouting “Amen” every three minutes (although perhaps, he thought, that was just Black Baptists). All he really knew of Christianity he had picked up from television, and that was precious little. He suspected that the ignorance of the Baptist congregation about his own tribe might be equally profound because, in spite of his being in Loweville for more than forty years, for too many of the congregants who stopped to greet him after services he was sure he was the first and only Jew they had ever seen up close and personal.
After the service, Jake and Sandra stood outside for a few moments, while Jake lit a cigarette and he and Sandra received the well wishes of their fellow churchgoers.
“Jesus loves you, Jake,” said a woman Jake couldn’t recall ever meeting.
“Thanks,” he said.
What Jake really wanted to say was How do you know? And does he love me because I’m Jewish and he thinks his love will convert me? Or because he loves everyone no matter what? And how do you know that?
And he was also dying to ask: What if I don’t love him? Does he still love me? And what the hell am I supposed to do about all that love anyway?
But naturally, Jake said none of those things, asked none of those questions. He worked on his cigarette as Sandra said hello to several more people, sensing that Sandra was worried he might say something, though; that he might just choose today to finally act up. He understood why; it was because she was still unsure of him.
Sandra put her relieved hand on Jake’s arm and said softly, “Thanks for coming, Jake. I know it doesn’t really suit you.”
Jake took Sandra’s hand in his. “I got nowhere else to be Sunday morning,” he said, “and I’ve been up since five. It’s no big deal.”
“Nonetheless, I appreciate it,” Sandra said in the peculiarly formal way she spoke. She shook another hand, gave another woman a short hug; then she turned to Jake and said: “So where do you want to go for lunch?”
Very touching, and touching the very heart of the experience of so many Jews around the world.
A nice reminder just before Yom Kippur that it’s never too late, it’s just that we tell ourselves it is.
Until we don’t.
Life is about the comprimises that we make,whether we know that we make them or not. And they always seem like good ideas at the time…what we do sometimes to accept being Jewish in a non-Jewish world, and we, who don’t live in a place in which there are many Jews do to make our Jewishness acceptable to the non-Jews around us.
Nice job.
This is a moving story that has me thinking about the ways that I comprimise my Jewish self sometimes. Thanks for sending it for me to read.