The Bar Mitzvah

For a little while last week I thought about writing a piece about Lance Armstrong’s fall from public grace, our society’s insatiable appetite for details of the fall, and the equally insatiable debate that always rages between our demand to know if he’s really sincere (“Is he ashamed because he was caught or ashamed because he sinned?”) in his confession and our desire to give our fallen a “second chance”.  The topic of “second chances” intrigues me – as you can imagine – and I jotted down a fair number of notes, dialog really, about what I’d say to Mr. Armstrong if given the chance.

But, I was sidetracked by a documentary and it got me thinking a different way.  So, Mr. Armstrong will have to wait; but the idea, at least from my way of thinking, that “the truth will set you free”, applies here as well.

The story takes place in Bergen-Belsen, a notorious Nazi death camp.  The chief Rabbi of Amsterdam was there along with thousands of other Jews.  He maintained his faith and organized the prisoners as best as he could.  One day, he approached a young Jewish boy in the camp.  “I understand you will soon turn thirteen.  Would you like to study for your Bar Mitzvah?”  The boy, at first stunned by the offer, agreed.

Each morning the Rabbi would wake the boy at 4:00 and they would sit outside and read from a small Torah.  The boy learned his lessons in Hebrew.  Soon it was time for the ceremony.  But, the Nazi’s frowned on acts of faith.  In a bunkhouse, with the windows covered, the boy was led up to a makeshift altar.

Before he began there was a knock on the door and a lone woman entered.  It was his mother.  They had been separated on arrival at the camp.  The Rabbi, however, had found her and had her smuggled across the camp.

In those filthy, dismal conditions, with hundreds of Jewish people he did not know, the boy recited the text that had carried his father’s people forward from generation to generation.  Through slavery, freedom, captivity in Babylon, pogroms throughout the centuries, he repeated the same prayers every Jewish boy says at his Bar Mitzvah.  At the conclusion, with the ceremony over, the boy was handed a small piece of chocolate as a gift.

Weeks later, the Rabbi again pulled the boy aside and gave him the Torah.  “Keep this and tell the world what took place here”, the Rabbi told the boy.  The Rabbi would not see the end of the war.  But the boy - he survived and made it to Israel.  He would become a scientist and design an experiment that was carried into space on the Space Shuttle Columbia by an Israeli astronaut. 

And the Torah, that small Holy collection of the word of God, was also carried into space.  It was Columbia’s last flight, the fateful re-entry when the space shuttle broke apart over Texas.  The old man who’d been that boy once movingly said the Torah had been “From the depths of hell to the edge of space”.

I love that imagery.  Life is a very difficult proposition.  No one’s life is free of trials or difficulties.  Some, like the boy’s, are thrust on us by the evil that seems to permeate human kind.  He experienced more trial, more difficulty, more inhumanity, than most can comprehend. 

Others, like me, find ourselves in great difficulty and trying circumstances because of our own sin.  We struggle to come to grips with our behavior, our wrongs, and the consequences of our actions even as our lives go further astray.  And the consequences, we realize much too late, are usually beyond what we anticipated or deserved.

Life can break you; it can stretch you and wear you down.  Unless you learn a few simple truths.  First, you always have to have hope.  Without it, there can be no faith.  And faith can move mountains.  It can lead a boy from the concentration camps of Nazi Germany to a life of family, friends and science.

You also have to be kind, in spite of the anger launched against you.  The Rabbi understood that.  It is a lesson I teach myself over and over in here as I deal with a wide array of broken, angry, dysfunctional men and the program system that perpetuates the disgust of prison. 

Finally, you have to forgive and let go of the hurt and pain.  How do you forgive when you’ve been hurt so deeply?  I have spent literally every day of my confinement asking that question.  There isn’t any easy answer.  It’s like the Nike slogan – you “just do it”. 

The other day I learned a new reader – “Tonya” – popped up and was clearly not happy with me.  I wrote a number of witty replies down to “zing” her.  See, I know “Tonya” isn’t “Tonya”.  I know everything that occurred at the office for months after my arrest and my arrest leading to someone being fired did not occur.  But, I also know it’s easier to blame others when we find ourselves in situations we don’t like or understand.  As I’ve said many times on the pages of this blog, what I did was wrong.  But, what I’ve been through and what I lost does not balance with my sins.  And that, I’ve learned is alright.  So I keep hoping.  And I keep believing because my faith tells me that hope does not disappoint.

I had intended to write about falling and your chance at redemption.  Come to think of it, that’s what I wrote about.