Tales Of A Village Rabbi
It was not quite 5 o’clock in the morning when my telephone rang. A young man whom I knew was on the line. “I heard your voice. You were speaking to me. I have a message for you. I must see you. I must speak to you. Where are you now?” In my semi-sleepy state, I determined that his call was not a life-and-death emergency. “Please wait,” I said. “Call me back at eight.” He called me back promptly at eight a.m. “I must see you, there is so much I have to tell you. I know that you were speaking to me. It was not a hallucination. It was your voice and everything you said was directed at me.” The caller was not hallucinating and had heard my voice. His only error was that I was talking to an audience on the airwaves and not exclusively to him. A sister synagogue in Manhattan used to sponsor a Jewish radio program called “The Message of Israel.” That program disappeared long ago. Taped sessions
would be broadcast all over the country at many different hours. I believe that the principle of non-profit religious broadcasting was that free time was given to a program if the station had time available. Those available hours could be in the wee hours of a pre-dawn morning. I had taped a number of talks through the years and I might have recalled once actually tuning in at the right time and station to catch myself on the air. Apparently old tapes were broadcast a number of times throughout the years. I never really knew when my voice and thoughts might be heard over the airwaves, save for this one time.
They seemed to be a promising young couple. She was striking, with dark eyes and dark hair, always impeccably dressed and precisely spoken. She had been a Lebanese Christian who had converted to Judaism and came to services often. Eventually she began to attend in the company of an equally striking young man. His looks were nearly a total contrast to hers. He was blonde and light, almost albino. His way of expressing himself was also measured and precise and expressed his interest in possible conversion as well. He supported himself by his work as a nightclub photographer. So often we meet people who seem normal and restrained on the surface. So often that restraint and control masks a deep inner confusion and turmoil. One never knows what thought or incident will open the sluice gates to the outpouring of emotion or to the total loss of control.
I set a time for him to come to my study. He showed up precisely on time. His companion was with him. He was dressed, as I had often seen him, in a light suit and shirt. He looked exhausted and ragged. Draped over his shoulders was a huge white linen bed sheet, like a flowing cape. In his hands was a ceramic jug. He said it was filled with holy water. He was sure now that he was Jesus and he had a message for the world. He wanted guidance from me as to how that message should be disseminated to humanity. He would follow whatever I said, because he had heard my voice in the middle of the dark night. His girlfriend, the dark-eyed woman, concurred that it was true; she too had heard my voice on the radio. Only then did it occur to me that it was indeed my voice they really heard, on an isolated late-night re-broadcast of one of the audiotapes I had long ago recorded for the “Message of Israel.” I was not sure what to do, but felt that given my “hallucinatory” power over him, I could buy some time to figure it out. My wife Meryl was worried that he could become violent. Who knows what any- one might do in the midst of a full-blown psychosis? I had pooh-poohed her fears. I knew them both. I told him to go home, get some rest, and return to me in two hours. I called a psychiatrist with whom I served on the board of a social service organization. “Yes,” he said, “he could turn violent. You must convince him to turn himself in voluntarily to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital. You must play along with his fantasy. Don’t negate what he says.”
He and the woman returned in precisely two hours. By now, everyone in the Temple knew that something strange was underway. “Rabbi, there’s a man in a flowing cape carrying a bottle of holy water waiting to see you,” said one of the office staff. “Shall I call the police?”
“Just send him up to me, but not to my study, to the chapel and have Greg [the building superintendent] there also.” The man came to the chapel. There was a certain pathetic majesty in his good looks, his cape, his holy water and the look of sublime stress and emotional exhaustion on his essentially handsome face. His woman friend was again by his side. Not a thread out of place. Perfectly groomed. She spoke first and indicated that there must be some truth to this vision of his. A whole group of their friends had come by their apartment to see him. They listened to him speak and were most encouraging. They seemed to believe him and his message and they liked the holy water he had gently splashed upon them with his hand. They felt that, strange as it was, there was really something to all this. Without meaning to be cruel or undermining, I “played along with the fantasy” but I gave that “playing along” a directive twist. “The time has come for you to give your message to the world, but you really must do it right. I’m going to give you the taxi fare and you must go down to Bellevue Hospital and there you must spread your message. Convince the people there.
Tell them what you have to say. That is the best place to begin. Once you have convinced them, the next step is easy. The next step is to speak to everyone.” He did it. He took a cab. He voluntarily entered Bellevue.
I did not hear from him for a few days. He then called me at home. “I don’t like it here.” “No,” I said. “You must be patient. It takes time. Don’t give up on them so soon.” I don’t know how they treated him. I don’t know if they administered electro-convulsive therapy, or medical tranquilization, or psychotherapy or all three or combinations of each one. I never saw him, or her, again. I tried to make contact. Phone calls and messages went unanswered. Her apartment had been vacated.
I do admit to looking over my shoulder occasionally walking home at night.
