Rabbi Salzberg got a real scrunched-up look on his face when I asked him about heaven. He’s pretty scrunched up to begin with—the kids at Gates of Prayer Temple and Hebrew School call him Rabbi Magoo. (It’s not a respectful thing, to compare a rabbi with a cartoon character, except he really and truly does look like Mr. Magoo.) But when I asked him about heaven, he got an especially scrunched-up look, like he’d just bitten into the sourest pickle ever.
I was standing in front of the big wooden desk in his office, which always has, like, a blanket of dust on it, and he was sitting on the other side with his hands folded.
“How’s that any of your business?” he said. “Why don’t you wait until after your bar mitzvah to worry about that?”
“But my bar mitzvah is next month,” I said.
“Worry about your haftarah!”
So then I told him about Quentin, about how he might not be able to come to my bar mitzvah since he was in the hospital, and how no one knew how long he’d have to stay there. I even told him about the tubes going in and out of him and the bandages around his head. I blurted out the whole thing, and I got real emotional talking about it.
You’d think hearing about what Quentin was going through would change the look on Rabbi Salzberg’s face. But he stayed scrunched up the entire time. Then, after I got to the end, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “So you’re worried your friend is going to die and go to heaven?”
“Yes, Rabbi.”
“Worry about your haftarah!”
“Rabbi, I have it memorized.”
“Do you think that’s the purpose of haftarah—to memorize words? What do the words mean?”
“I don’t know what they mean, Rabbi. The words are in Hebrew.”
“You’re in Hebrew school, aren’t you?”
“But that’s not the kind of Hebrew we learn.”
“Mr. Twerski, when you’re standing up on that stage, reading the words of your haftarah, you’ll be leading the congregation. Your family and friends will be listening to you. You’ll be their guide.”
“They don’t know what the words mean either.”
“Then make them understand. Be their guide.”
“Lonnie got bar mitzvahed last year,” I said. “Do you think he understood a word he was saying? But he made it through okay. You even told him what a good job he did. He said his haftarah, and I’ll say my haftarah.”
“No two haftarahs are the same.”
“I know,” I said. “Mine’s half a page longer than his was. We compared them side by side. I don’t think that’s real fair, but I guess it’s the luck of the draw.…”
“No two are the same because haftarah is more than just the words. That’s the reason you have to study it. You have to let it become part of you, let it beat in your heart. You have to learn it, and then you have to live it. Study your haftarah, Mr. Twerski. Let God worry about Quentin.”
“But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“What was your question?”
“Is there a heaven?” I said.
“Are you Jewish?”
That kind of caught me off guard, since we were talking about my bar mitzvah. I figured it had to be a trick. I thought it over for a couple of seconds, then said, “I think I am.”
“You think so? That’s it?”
“I’m getting bar mitzvahed.”
“That’s your only proof?”
I thought for another couple of seconds. “Well, I’m standing here talking to you, and you’re a rabbi.”
“What about your last name? Twerski sounds Jewish, doesn’t it? So you must be Jewish. That’s a logical conclusion, am I right?”
I nodded.
He slammed his fist down on the desk. “So you’re Jewish because of logic?”
“Well, no, not just because of logic—”
He jumped to his feet, rushed around from behind his desk, and grabbed me by the shoulders. He smelled of cigarettes and fish, but I knew enough to take a deep breath and hold it as soon as he got out of his chair. He shook me a couple of times by the shoulders, then poked his right index finger into my chest. “What about what’s in here? What about what’s in your heart?”
“I’m Jewish in there too,” I said, breathing out as I did.
He pulled back his finger. “That’s good to hear.”
I watched him walk back around his desk and sit down.
When he saw I hadn’t moved, he shook his head. “Yes?”
“You still didn’t tell me whether or not there’s a heaven.”
“Are you asking what I believe, or what the Torah says?”
“Is there a difference?”
“No.”
“No, there’s no difference? Or no, you don’t believe in heaven?”
He almost, but not quite, smiled at that. “I’m sure God will look after your friend.”
“But I want to know—”
“Judaism isn’t about what you believe,” he said. “It’s about who you are, about how you act. If you ask a hundred rabbis about heaven, you’ll get a hundred different answers.”
“But there are only two answers, Rabbi. You either believe in heaven, or you don’t.”
“Maybe you should become a lawyer, Mr. Twerski.”
I nodded again, even though it didn’t sound like a compliment.
“The Torah doesn’t tell us what happens after we die,” he said. “It tells us to worry about the here and now. Your bar mitzvah. That’s a good example of the here and now. That’s what I suggest you focus on.”
“Can you at least tell me your opinion?” I said.
He took a deep breath. “Here’s my opinion, Mr. Twerski. I believe in heaven, and I believe in hell. I think heaven and hell are full of people just like us, except without elbows. The people in heaven and hell are sitting in front of long banquet tables—like at the reception after your bar mitzvah. But these tables go on and on forever, because heaven and hell are much bigger than one bar mitzvah reception.”
“Why don’t the people in heaven have elbows? That seems unfair.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“I mean, I can understand why the people in hell don’t have elbows—”
“Focus, Mr. Twerski!”
“All right,” I said.
“So the people in heaven and the people in hell are sitting at long banquet tables, and the tables are loaded up with the most delectable food in the world—kosher, of course!—but no one has elbows, so they can’t get the food to their mouths. But here’s the difference. In heaven, the people feed one another, so everyone feasts. But in hell, the people are concerned only with themselves, so everyone starves. That’s heaven and hell, in my opinion.”
I rolled that over in my mind, tried to picture it. “Couldn’t the people in hell just stick their faces in the food?”
“No!”
“Why not?” I said. “If they’re sitting at the banquet table, and the banquet table is loaded up with food, why couldn’t they just stick their faces straight into the food and eat that way? It would be real messy, for sure. But what do they care? They’re in hell. How much worse could things get?”
Rabbi Salzberg stared at the ceiling and folded his hands together as if he was praying. After a couple of seconds, he looked back down at me. He had that sour-pickle expression again. “Mr. Twerski, you asked me my opinion, and I told you. Now go home, and study your haftarah.”
“But—”
“Go!”
I turned around and walked toward the door.
Once I was out the door, he called after me, “I’m sorry about your friend, Mr. Twerski.”