Part 16 (2/2)

”Wonderful, wonderful.” Asher's enthusiasm kept br.i.m.m.i.n.g. ”They say there's too many lawyers in the world- and I'm inclined to agree-but there can never be too many teachers.” Asher paused, then looked closer at Seth. ”I just now noticed your Star of David. It's enlightening to find people that still wear them-and your cross, too, Judy. In a sense, faith is relative; the common denominator is what matters most. But I sometimes find myself more and more disheartened as I get older.”

”Why is that?” Judy asked, errantly fingering her cross at her throat.

”Because faith is waning-there can be no doubt,” the rabbi said.

Only now did Seth see that Ahron, Eli, and Lydia had disappeared.

Asher continued. ”The more any culture tries to progress, the less of its genuine culture-its spiritual base-survives. These days I see more iPods and camera phones than I see any symbol of faith.”

”Good old technology,” Seth said.

”The new idolatry,” Judy remarked. ”The new Golden Calf.”

”How true, Judy.” Asher finally sat down opposite them, one hand in the other. He seemed intensely serious now. ”That's what my people and I have tried to do here in Lowensport. Secure our culture at its roots, and those roots are crucially faith-based. Our town may seem odd to you, unadorned, and, well, unexciting.” He made a fist. ”But it's that same cruciality that helps remind us of our heritage, and the reason our people came to America in the first place-and your ascendants, too, Seth, and perhaps Judy's as well. They came here to preserve their faith.”

”Now you're making me feel guilty,” Seth half laughed. ”I haven't actually prayed in a long time.”

”Prayer is simply conversation with G.o.d, Seth. Sometimes we stop talking, but when we're ready to talk again, G.o.d's always ready to listen.” Asher stiffened a moment, then blurted, ”No more religious pep talks, sorry. Here!” He slid the tray forward. ”Try the blintzes.”

Judy's smile beamed through the awkward prequel; she helped herself. ”To be honest, Asher, a little pep talking would probably do Seth and me some good.”

Seth couldn't shake the odd feeling in his gut- something like remorse-but he knew it wasn't the same as his remorse for Helene. ”It's funny, but Judy mentioned it when we were driving up.”

”And what's that, Seth?” Asher asked.

”My Star of David. She said she hadn't seen me wear it in a long time, and she was right. I haven't. I don't really know why I put it on. I don't really...I don't really know what it means anymore.”

Asher nodded. ”All too often when we think we've lost faith, we've merely lost sight of G.o.d because we've let G.o.d pa.s.s us by on what ever this road is we call Life. We're humans, Seth. We err, usually by temptation, and by the same distractions we dismiss as progress. But what we must always remember when we lose sight of G.o.d is this: we can always regain that sight simply by desiring to, in our hearts. We just have to get back on that road.” He waved a finger and smiled. ”And G.o.d's a pretty easygoing guy. Sometimes he'll even slow down a little, to let us catch back up.”

”That's a promising way of putting it,” Seth said.

”Everything that faith's about is just that: promise.” Asher leaned over closer. ”Anytime you feel like talking about it, let me know. I'd like to help you remember what that Star of David means.” Then the rabbi leaned back abruptly and laughed. ”I mean, I am a rabbi! It's my job!”

They all laughed at that, and after Seth ate a blintze, he mentioned, ”Where exactly is your synagogue or schule? That building across the square?”

”The House of Hope,” Judy added. ”It didn't really look like a synagogue.”

”It's what I was saying before,” Asher answered, ”about preserving one's spiritual culture by honoring its roots. In worse times, during the centuries of persecution, Jews had no obvious synagogues to wors.h.i.+p in. They had to be hidden, they had to be secret, or else they'd be burned down. So the faithful would hold ser vices in bas.e.m.e.nts, or even deep in the woods, in caves. Our synagogue, for instance, is right here in this house, and in Gavriel Lowen's time”-Asher smiled right at Seth-”it was in your house.”

Seth's brow creased. ”Then...what's the House of Hope?”

Asher had another blintze and explained, ”We call it a youth-guidance center but that's a rather soft way of putting it. It's a drug rehab center, and-there? See? What we were talking about before. There are many ways to lose sight of G.o.d, and there's nothing that the devil likes more. Drugs truly are the great corruptor of our youth, the most devious evil, and very much indeed wielded by the beast.” He shook his head in a lamentation. ”The drug problem around here is horrendous.”

Surprise focused Judy's attention. ”That's quite a shock, Asher. If any town looks like it doesn't have a drug problem, it's this town.”

”Oh, I don't mean here in Lowensport,” the man clarified. ”There are no drugs here. Our in-patients all come from Somner's Cove. We have a few alcohol abusers and one or two addicted to heroin, but almost all of it's cocaine-crack. Horrific stuff. We only have twenty-five beds, but when we get the money we'll be able to expand. We take what ever overflow we can, since the Somner's Cove facilities are always full to maximum capacity. We're legally a Yes.h.i.+va, the Jewish version of a parochial facility; because we're considered a faith-based clinic, we can't get federal a.s.sistance. It can get discouraging, though. We've barely got a fifty-percent success rate.”

Judy sat up straighter. ”That's phenomenal. The national average is ten percent for crack.” She paused, then shrugged. ”I ought to know. I...had some problems with that myself.”

Asher nodded, probably trying to conceal surprise. ”I wouldn't have guessed, but it is very true. The deviousness of drugs is all-pervading, while the cliche is that it's limited to lower-economic social levels.”

Seth spoke up without any reservations. ”Judy and I actually met in a rehab center. Drugs nearly destroyed her, and alcohol nearly destroyed me.”

”Ah, then what wonderful proof of the human spirit-backed by G.o.d's love, of course-persevering over the most negative odds,” Asher said.

Seth hoped that this sudden confession on his part wasn't putting the rabbi on the spot. Somehow, though, he knew it wasn't. ”Before I met Judy, I was married-my wife's name was Helene-and it's ironic that she was the one who actually brought the Lowen House to my attention.”

Asher sat focused in his seat. ”I'm afraid I don't understand. I thought you were originally from Florida.”

”Helene had relatives in Virginia,” Judy informed him. ”She and Seth drove up here to visit them, and-well, Seth, it's best that you tell the story.”

Seth sighed. ”Yes, we stopped to see her relatives, then planned to drive up to D.C. for some sightseeing, so we crossed over on the ferries and got off in Somner's Cove. We were trying to get on the interstate north but took a wrong turn and wound up driving past the Lowen House. Helene spotted it first, and we were so taken by it that I called the Realtor on the for-sale sign, and he showed it to us. The price was right but I couldn't afford a house at the time; I'd actually just lost my job with a computer game company that went bankrupt. I'd taken out several bank loans because I wanted to develop my game; I built the entire thing myself and used the bank loans to pay my graphic engineers and system techs to give the game the look I needed, then I sent the whole thing off to a distributor and kept my fingers crossed. This was two years ago. So, anyway, after I submitted the game, that's when Helene and I came up this way and saw the Lowen House. It was almost a joke. I said, *One day, if I'm ever rich, I'm going to buy this house.' ”

”What an ironic connection,” Asher said. ”Yet, I fear your reference to Helene in the past tense can only mean...”

Seth's throat locked up, so Judy answered for him. ”Helene was killed in a car accident several weeks later, after they returned to Tampa. It just so happens that on the same day she was killed, the distribution company bought Seth's computer game.”

Seth finally got his voice back. ”After that-Aw, Asher, I don't want to bore you with the story.”

Asher's eyes s.h.i.+ned. ”But I want to hear your story, Seth, and yours, too, Judy, if you like to share them. Sometimes a neutral ear can be quite therapeutic.”

Seth nodded. ”The game paid a very large signing bonus, and there were lots of offers for subsidiary rights pouring in, but I was barely aware of it. After Helene was killed, I...”

”Took solace in the bottle. I understand. All too often we only learn too late that there is no such solace.”

Seth gave a humorless laugh. ”Within a month I was a total wreck, a total clinical alcoholic. I would pa.s.s out in bars, in parking lots, several times I woke up in my car on the shoulder of some road I'd never been on before.”

”Loss is sometimes unreckonable,” Asher said. ”Many of the patients in our clinic took to drugs due to some similar loss, and next thing they know, they're hooked.”

”Yeah, well I was very much hooked, and you're right. I didn't know how to deal with the loss, I didn't understand it, but the thing that was the hardest were the details of Helene's death. That's what pushed me over the edge.” He held Judy's hand, tried to continue, then just looked down and shook his head.

”Seth blames himself for Helene's death,” Judy continued for him. ”She was driving back from the mall one day, so Seth called her on his cell phone and asked her to stop and get him a pack of cigarettes. She turned around to go to the convenience store, then-”

”That's when she got broadsided,” Seth choked the words out. Don't fall apart! he pleaded with himself...but already he was feeling better in this recital of his life's worst event. ”And of all things, it was a drunk driver.”

Asher calmly sat back, crossed his arms. ”What's just as common as alcohol abuse, and drug addiction, is our inability to separate happenstance from providence or even bad luck. Hopefully by now, Seth, you know that it's folly to blame yourself for an accident. And we mustn't blame G.o.d, either, because it actually has nothing to do with G.o.d. It has only to do with human error. G.o.d is the spiritual hallmark in our lives, not a physical one. He gives us proximity to him through the love and wisdom of his emanations. He doesn't divert drunk drivers, or stop wars, or allay sickness and poverty by a sweep of his hand.” Asher raised a finger. ”Now, he could do those things if he wanted to, but then that defeats his purpose. We need to do those things ourselves, and we're just not there yet. It's important that you perceive this, Seth. Blaming yourself for your wife's death only offends her memory.”

Seth dragged his eyes up and looked at the man. He gulped. ”I never thought of it that way before.”

”Of course not!” Asher said and laughed, ”because it's too easy not to! Why? Because we're humans! We screw up! And the only way to alleviate our error is to try as hard as we can to keep our lives in the light of G.o.d.”

Seth suddenly felt limp as putty. He nearly sobbed outright when he realized that the rabbi's words had un-loosed a terrible burden from him.

Judy sensed that Seth was still too choked up to continue, so she diverted, ”And Seth's not the only one who screwed up. I was a professor at an esteemed college. I had the career I'd always wanted, and the self-satisfaction, too. I was successful and well-liked by my peers. But one time I went on a date with this guy in the political science department. I was overweight at the time-I always had been-but this guy told me he lost forty pounds effortlessly-with cocaine. To this day I don't understand how someone with my education could've been stupid enough to fall for it. I believed everything he told me-I guess only because I needed to believe it. *Oh, don't worry, it's not addictive, that's just propaganda,' and *once or twice a week is perfectly safe,' and *I've been doing it for years, Judy, and I'm not an addict. I haven't lost my job and my friends and my home.' Stuff like that.”

”I hear almost identical stories right across the street at House of Hope,” Asher said.

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