Fiction

My next guest is known throughout the world as the Holy Sabbath. He’s written a new book called Shabbat: Make My Day, and I’m very pleased that it brings Shabbat back to our show...

Yesterday, shiva over, the rabbi had said, “It’s time for you to go out.” Time was so unforgiving; Becky was not ready...

I’m not interested in a heritage of pogroms and persecution and annihilation. I don’t want to hear about all the suffering of the Jews. And why should I have faith in a G-d who allowed my father to abandon me and my mother? And mysticism? A bunch of nonsense...It’s just a way to fool people into believing...

They continued their walk along the water, passing fishing boats, ferry docks and cruise ship ports along the way...

It would take just one click. It was simple. One click and it would all be over . . .

“Who are you?” Jeremiah asked.

“My name is of no importance,” the old man answered. He brushed off the dirt on Jeremiah’s shirt and arms. “Why were you following me?” “Why were you running away?” the old man asked back...

Without ten men, the Amida, the eighteen universal prayers, with a 19th thrown in for extra measure, could not be said out loud. Without ten men, Michael Fein, the richest Jew in town and president of the synagogue, could not say kaddish, the mourner's prayer, for his dear departed mother...

Could others see the countless tiny strands of their separate anxieties silently knitting them together? Did anyone notice how, though they sat on separate chairs not touching, they sat as close as two people could without touching?

I was in a great hurry that morning. I was heading a delegation slated to meet with the German Minister of Education, and had only 30 minutes to get to the station...

Morgenstern drove slowly, carefully surveying the suburban neighborhood. Night was when a creature’s true colors were revealed. If they were a predatory species, these humans would use the cover of darkness for their darkest deeds . . .

Rabbi Levi looked down at the old man and sighed. It was sad to come to this, he thought, dying all alone in a hospital room, with no family or friends to give testimony to the life he led.

Gabriel stared back at the rabbi, not liking to be ordered around. But when he once again saw the tears streaming down the rabbi's face, tears he felt responsible for, his anger dissipated...

"G‑d, I am sorry," Yussie began. "I want to go inside to pray, but I haven't eaten anything for a day and a half, and I am afraid I will pass out and embarrass myself. So, please, G‑d, would you mind hearing Yussie's forgiveness prayer out here?"

He pounded until his hands hurt, but still, no answer. He rammed his body into the door until his shoulder ached. Finally, he managed to break the door open. "Yussie?" the rabbi called out. "Yussie, are you here?!"

The sole method we had for giving blood was a direct transfusion from one person to another.

One morning, when Paul was seven, I received a stat call to the emergency room . . . “Oh G‑d,” I pleaded in my thoughts, “Please, not this one. Not him.”

After fifteen frenzied minutes, the Finkel cousins returned to the living room. Kevin turned in the report. "Sorry, Dad. For a small house, there's a lot of places to hide a matzah"

When Yossele the Ganif timorously opened the door, there was a collective astonishment. What had brought the notorious town thief to the Rabbi's house on the night after Yom Kippur?

He proceeded to the end of the hall and knocked on the bedroom door. He heard the whimpering of a dog inside. The rabbi took a deep breath and turned the doorknob...

"Being Jewish stinks!" Zach shouted as he stomped up the stairs to his bedroom, kicking his bedroom door closed for punctuation.

"I could not feel worse than I already feel, Rebbetzin," Or explained. "When I spoke to her last, she was in the hospital..."

Michael had spent those precious two days moping around his heavily mortgaged home, dwelling on the millions he'd lost in the stock market the preceding Thursday...

Excitement welled up in the small congregation. What had started out as a calamity suddenly seemed fresh, real, and full of wonderment. Miracles could come at anytime. And suddenly there was a bright flashing light!

Dad, he thought, your time is coming, and I can't get out of this straight-jacket you put me in. There are words that are locked in my heart and will not form on my lips. Fifty years and we're still strangers...

There was a flood of memories now where his father tried, as best he could, to be a father. After a while, Solomon thought, "enough already." It is time to put the pain away...

"Every father wants his children to grow up and be better than him. I just didn't expect it so soon," he said. Solomon could not see his face. It was framed in shadows. His father bent down and kissed Solomon on his forehead...

There was no one event that caused it to happen, but at the age of 55, after almost ten years to the day of my caring for, and feeding, my beard, I shaved it off...