I've been remiss about posting. Some good reasons, but using reasons as excuses can become a sloppy habit. So I will just say I'm sorry, and try to do better. The post below is the text of a "lesson" I will be giving this evening at a special Shabbat at my synagogue, in honor of Angie Atkins. Angie was a very involved member of our congregation who has recently decamped to Manhattan; and tonight, offically called TISH (Taking it to Shomrei's House), is the gift she chose to have rather than a material gift when she was honored at a dinner-dance here for her service. I missed that event, but wanted to participate in tonight by writing some remarks I hope will speak of and to her.

Here's what I have written for this evening.

A Mixed Blessing

Once upon a time, at our community Shavuot all-nighter, Rabbi Patz was conducting a session in one of our classrooms. I don’t remember what the topic was–I always chose his session regardless because he’s such a fine teacher. The room was crowded. Rabbi Patz taught with his usual straight up clarity; then he asked a question. No hands went up. I raised my hand. I said something. Another hand across the room went up and the speaker built on what I said. The rabbi asked a follow-up question. No hands. Then hers again. Again, I don’t remember what she said–only that it was wonderfully open –which elicited an open response from me. Whereupon Rabbi Patz looked from one of us to the other and said “Are you two related?” Angie and I both laughed. “No,” I said. “We’re just believers.”

It’s in honor of Angie and that shared moment years ago that I dare to speak this evening briefly about that most difficult of all subjects to say anything accessible about. Belief. That’s risky enough, without veering from the only belief I know, my own. So: what do I mean when I say I’m a believer? I mean I believe that God is present in my life. Even when I don't sense His presence–which is most of the time–I believe God is present. Here. For sure, HERE. To join in celebrating Shabbat with Angie, who celebrates Him with such fervor.

When someone asks, Do you really believe in a personal God?, I say “I do.” What’s more, I believe that, if we are made in God’s image, God has to be somewhat like us. I’m not talking about limbs–there’s some inner similarity between God and us. I believe God has wants and even needs; and feels lonely when He’s ignored. And as, to me, God in not an abstraction, I am convinced that my belief cannot be an abstraction, either. That means I have to act on my belief. By doing things I might otherwise avoid doing.

I have to say that I’ve found faith to be a distinctly mixed blessing. It is nearly always centering. It is very seldom comforting. It is continually challenging. This is important: I think what God challenges me to do is not different from what my secular parents brought me up to do. What’s different is the freedom faith gives me to do it. Belief enables me to take chances beyond my natural inclination. I can do something my intuition tells me is right or important to do, regardless of the possibility that, in return, I may get an eyeful of spit.

I’ll tell you about the first time this happened. During the second week of February 1962–not more than ten days after I first came to believe–I set out on my lunch hour for Altman’s. As my bus neared 34th Street, I noticed an elderly woman talking to the driver. Her appearance kindled memory. Her grey hair was wound in thin braids around her head. She wore a “topper,” a style of coat then fifteen years out of style. Beneath its hem showed what in my childhood was called a “house dress.” She gripped a change purse. She looked like a hundred women I had as a youngster seen around the Amalgamated. The driver glanced at a piece of paper she was holding out to him. He said something; she shook her head. He tried again. Again, she shook her head. We approached my stop. Hers, too, apparently. As I neared the door, the woman was focused on negotiating the steps down to the curb. The driver took the opportunity to ask me in a low tone if I’d show her the way to her destination. She seems confused, he said mildly. (Both passengers and bus drivers tended to be gentler with one another in 1962.)

When I stepped off the bus, the woman was standing on the sidewalk, looking lost. On the corner of 34th and Lex? I asked if I could help.

She handed me the same piece of paper she’d shown the driver. It was a page from a prescription pad; on it were jotted another doctor’s name and an address. The address was one block north and a block and a half west of where we stood. Do YOU know where it is? she asked in a tone signifying doubt that ANYONE would.

I said I did, and assured her that I was headed the same way. I was careful to let her set the pace. She started talking–from nervousness, I think. The doctor whose office she was coming from had not merely referred her to this doctor, but set up an immediate appointment. Whom would that not worry? When we reached Park Avenue, I turned right with her, remaining quiet to leave an opening for her to vent more if she wanted to. But she turned silent.

In the silence, a thought occurred to me. If she didn’t know the way from the bus to an address two and a half blocks away in mid-Manhattan, she might not know her way home. Carefully, but with confidence, I asked where she lived. East Broadway, she said, her tone dismissive, as though I were chattering. East Broadway? I knew my way from the top of Manhattan to, well, not THERE.

But my brain bonged that it had to require a change of bus or subway. And, whether from age, infirmity or anxiety, my companion looked worn down with fatigue. God only knew how she might feel after the visit to the second doctor. Besides, I had asked her. My own guess was, there was no smooth way from Madison and 35th to East Broadway. What to do?

The solution was simple–which is to say, not easy. Though our pace was slow, we were now almost to the island that bisects Park Avenue. There was only half a block to put my solution into effect. As we stepped up onto the curb, the light turned red. She wasn’t looking my way. Quickly, I transferred four singles from my purse to my pocket, folding them tightly. Then I said it. "You’ll be tired after seeing two doctors in a row. May I treat you to a taxi home?" She turned fully toward me and looked up at me–INTO me. I had it coming; she hadn’t asked me for a thing–not to walk with her, not to provide her with directions home, certainly not to pay her way there.

That red light belonged in Ripley, outlasting any other in history, while that old lady’s eyes frisked my soul. I was beginning to think we’d be standing there until I was as old as she, when the light went to green–and she nodded, once, and said, "Yes." Just, "Yes." But I was as content as watered grass.

We walked on in silence. I passed her the folded bills–enough for a cab from Spuyten Duyvil to anywhere in Manhattan, but not so much that it could possibly appear that I was offering her money. Only a ride home. Because she’d be tired. Without counting them, she put the bills into her change purse, and clicked it shut.

We reached the apartment house address on the prescription slip. At the curb end of the awning, I wished her good luck and said goodbye. "Goodbye," she said. Gummed to the sidewalk by relief, I watched her walk toward the building entrance, where a doorman was already opening the door for her. She stopped, turned around and, seeing me still there, she paused, then came back. “I only had a dime,” she said, turned, and walked back toward the building entrance, where the doorman still held the door.

I walked on to Altman’s according to plan, my vision only the slightest bit blurred

How did I feel? Grateful. Blessed. REAL. The way belief feels to me. And how, this Shabbat, it feels to be related to Angie.