Called to Controversy

by Ruth Rosen

  Juanita recalled, “During one of our walks, I asked, ‘Celia, have you ever really been saved?’ She looked at me—and it was quite late in the evening—but she just stopped walking and turned to me and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean. Am I in danger?’ Then I realized that I was speaking a different language and she had no frame of reference to understand what I meant by ‘saved.’”**

  Moishe decided the conversations had crossed a tenuous boundary that lay between an interesting exchange of ideas and attempts to convert him. As Orville recalled, “At one point he told me, ‘I really don’t want these talks about religion to get so personal anymore.’” Later Orville commented to his wife, “My friend Martin will be the last person in this world ever to be saved.”

  The Christian couple had said all they could say on the subject and would not try to force an unwelcome conversation. They stopped talking to Moishe and Ceil about God, but they never stopped talking to God about Moishe and Ceil, praying every day that the couple would come to know and follow Jesus. They continued on friendly terms, and the Freestones attended Moishe and Ceil’s wedding. They were, to Orville’s recollection, the “only goyim present.”***

  Ceil had graduated a year before Moishe and had a job as a secretary in a law office while Moishe was still studying and working part time at the sporting goods store. But when he finished school the following spring (1950), they decided they would marry at the end of that summer. At eighteen both of them were eager for independence.

  They set the date: August 27. The guest list consisted of some two hundred people, mostly from Moishe’s side of the family. The wedding was a simple affair. Ceil borrowed a gown and veil from a friend who’d recently married. Moishe wore dark slacks and a rented white dinner jacket.

  Ceil recalled, “Moishe promised to take me as his wife according to the Law of Moses, and I didn’t say anything. I was not required to say anything. I just stood there under the velvet chupah* and smiled. Of course, neither of us expected to observe the Law of Moses in our new home. That was just part of the ceremony. We had already agreed that tradition was fine if we didn’t take it too seriously. We would not be entangled in Orthodox rules and regulations. We would just be modern American Jews.”

  They lived a short time in a basement apartment before moving to another house that had been divided into apartments. Moishe and Ceil, along with another couple and their new baby, shared one upstairs bathroom with the older man who owned the house. Moishe and Ceil were glad to have the tiny space; affordable postwar apartments were hard to find.

  Ceil was quite taken with the baby next door, and with the shadow of the draft looming she and Moishe decided to start a family. If Moishe were to be drafted, which they rather expected, the baby would keep Ceil busy and help ward off loneliness. If she couldn’t manage alone, she could move in with her in-laws, who were always kind and supportive. To the couple’s surprise and relief, however, Ceil’s pregnancy earned Moishe a draft deferment.

  It was a happy time. So happy that Ceil felt a surge of gratitude welling up inside her. But gratitude to whom? She realized, with a start, that it was gratitude to God. For some time she’d been far less vocal about her atheism, less secure about what she didn’t believe. Now that she had her own home and was free to examine her beliefs, she realized that denying God’s existence had been, more than anything, a way to break away from her strict upbringing.

  Many years had passed since she’d spoken to God in her own words, and during most of that time, she had not even used the traditional Jewish prayers to reach out to him. Now she focused her mind and heart outward as she shyly and silently told God, I’m sorry I said that you don’t exist. I know that you are real. Thank you for all the good things you have given us. Please let our baby be healthy and strong.

  It was the first of several prayers that would ultimately change everything.

  * prayer shawl

  * This statement so impressed Moishe that in later years, he came back to it time and time again, including it in many of his sermons and lectures.

  * When asked what he meant by “radical,” Orville mentioned how, after the Freestones moved, Moishe wrote him letters addressed to “Comrade Orville Freestone” and signed his letters as “Comrade Martin Rosen.” This actually made Orville somewhat nervous. He knew that Moishe was no Communist, but his references to socialism, even in jest, could certainly have been taken amiss in those days.

  * “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; / And your sins have hidden His face from you, / So that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

  ** The concept of being “saved” or delivered from one’s sins or guilt can be found in the Jewish Bible (for example, Psalm 51), but for many Jewish people it is not a widely known or discussed concept except during Yom Kippur.

  ***Goyim literaly means “nations.” It is used both in the Bible and in contemporary Jewish culture to refer to nonJews.

  * Wedding canopy.

  TEN

  If things are going easier, maybe you’re headed downhill.

  —MOISHE ROSEN

  How much do I owe you?” Ceil asked.

  “It was sixty-nine cents,” Dorothy replied, handing Ceil a brown paper bag. She was too good a friend to raise questions about the contraband it contained.

  Ceil counted out the coins. “Thanks so much,” she said and smiled as she placed them in Dorothy’s hand.

  As soon as Dorothy left, Ceil hastily pulled the thick black book from the bag. The gilt letters said “Holy Bible.” She had carefully specified, “Be sure to get a whole Bible. You know—both the Old and the New Testament—but don’t tell anyone!” Dorothy had raised an eyebrow, but didn’t voice any surprise.

  Now, hands trembling, Ceil fumbled past the parts she recognized from years of Hebrew school. And then, there it was, about two-thirds of the way through the Bible: the New Testament.

  Now she would find out who those Christmas carols were really about and why Jesus was described as the one in whom “the hopes and fears of all the years” resided. She began with the first verse of the first book of the New Testament: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” What’s wrong with that? she thought. It’s saying that Jesus was Jewish!

  She read voraciously until it was time to prepare dinner, then she hid the Bible beneath some papers in a desk drawer. From then on, whenever she had a few moments alone she read it. The more she read, the more impressed she was that it was a Jewish book about a Jewish person who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah.

  No Christian had ever suggested anything like this to her; none had even suggested that she read this New Testament. It was, she thought, her private discovery. And she intended to keep it that way.

  But it was not in Ceil’s nature to keep silent about her enthusiasm—and the more she read, the more she was drawn to Jesus. She just knew that he was real, and she longed to talk to someone about the discovery. But just as she knew that Jesus was real, she also knew that parents, in-laws, friends—even her husband—would be furious if they knew what she was about.

  She finished the first four books—the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—each one a different perspective on Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. She started the next book, Acts, but when she saw that after the first chapter, Jesus had departed from the center stage, she stopped. She went back and reread the first four books.

  Paradoxically, reading about Jesus seemed to satisfy and yet intensify an inner hunger that Ceil never knew she had. And her growing belief in him presented another paradox: it seemed to complete the near perfect life she now enjoyed, while at the same time threatening to destroy it.

  Marriage and motherhood had begun a wonderful new era in Ceil’s life. Born Rita Shirley Elfbaum on April 8, 1932, Ceil had nearly died at birth. She and her twin brother, Jason (Jay), had been
premature. Though they survived, their mother died before they were a year old. Their grief-stricken father, Harry Elfbaum, was responsible for the sole support of his aging parents. He was also plagued with epilepsy. Lacking the emotional, physical, or financial resources to care for his children, he sought temporary foster care.

  Jay went to one family, and Rita went to an Eastern European Jewish couple his wife had met. David and Mamie Starr were eager to care for the baby girl; however, Mamie would not take the child home until Harry signed certain documents. Harry was frightened that Rita, who was not well, would die if she did not receive the immediate care he could not provide. Under duress, he signed the documents—which to his dismay later turned out to be adoption papers. Rita’s name was legally changed to Celia, after her dead mother, and she was no longer an Elfbaum, but a Starr.

  Harry slowly rebuilt his life. He married Shirley, a wonderful, tenderhearted woman. He took his son out of foster care, but as far as the Starrs were concerned, Celia was legally theirs. A deeply religious man and highly sensitive, Harry felt it would not be in his child’s best interest to disrupt her life by fighting for custody. He believed that eventually they would be reunited—and faithfully prayed for that day.

  The Starrs were also very religious, though in a different way from Harry Elfbaum, whose abiding love and trust for the Almighty touched each of his relationships. Nevertheless, the Starrs loved Ceil after their fashion, just as they worked out their Jewishness in their own way. They lived a frum (very observant) lifestyle and saw to it that Ceil had a strict Jewish upbringing and education.

  As a little girl, Ceil believed in God and used to pray to him in her own words. In synagogue whenever she looked at the ark where the Torah scrolls resided, she felt a mystical awe. When the men in their striped prayer shawls drew aside the velvet curtain to bring out the Torah, Ceil squeezed her eyes shut. She thought that God was behind the curtain and sensing that he was too holy, was afraid to look.

  At age five, Ceil was taught to repeat the Hebrew prayers each day, which she obediently did, though she did not know what they meant. Prayer became a duty rather than a way for her to connect with God. At the age of six, she began Hebrew school, and before long, she knew what the prayers meant. But they had already been instilled in her as mere sounds she was supposed to make, regardless of their meaning.

  As she grew older, Ceil realized that as strict and observant as her family was in its Jewish lifestyle, others kept even more rules and regulations. At the same time, most of her friends’ families were far less Orthodox. Those discrepancies confused Ceil. Why did her family observe some regulations but not all? Why did other Jews get away with doing less? Were all those rules really from God? Before long, her confusion turned to apathy. By the time she graduated from Hebrew school (age twelve), she figured that if God existed at all, he was a rather unpleasant authority figure who exacted a heavy toll from Jews for the privilege of being his chosen people.

  She knew that she had been “chosen” by her adoptive parents as well, and as far as she could see, their choice had not been the best thing that ever happened to her. When Mamie told Ceil that her natural father had not wanted her, she suspected that it might not be true. But when her mother told her two conflicting accounts blaming different people for her childlessness, Ceil began seeing a pattern of discrepencies. Sadly, her adoptive mother proved to be an unhappy, emotionally damaged woman who believed her own fabrications and blamed others for her misfortunes and discontent. Ceil’s adoptive father, Dave, was kind, but he seemed to lack the fortitude to defend himself or his daughter from his wife’s manipulative ways.

  Ceil’s experience of Orthodox Judaism often reminded her of her mother: arbitrary, heavy-handed, all-consuming, and never satisfied no matter how hard one tried to comply. Eventually, Ceil wanted no part of it. And because her only knowledge of God came from Orthodox Judaism, she thought she wanted no part of him, either.

  By the time Ceil was married, she’d had it with being chosen and was ready to do some choosing of her own. She still identified as a Jew but was thankful to keep her own household where there was no need to follow the many rules and regulations. She was very content with her husband and new baby, and she was very thankful for her in-laws, who treated her like she truly was their daughter.

  All these positive circumstances melted Ceil’s rebellion and left her feeling so grateful that she could no longer deny the God she had trusted as a very little girl. She wanted to know him, and she wanted her child to know him. But when she reached out with that first prayer, she never imagined that there would be more prayers or that the answers to them would lead her to Jesus. Now with that forbidden black book challenging her, what was she to do?

  On October 18, 1951, Moishe Rosen became a father. Linda Kaye (who later preferred to be called Lyn) was born safely, speedily, and only one day later than anticipated. In those days, fathers were not allowed in the birthing area but were often seen pacing the floor while their wives were normally rendered unconscious with drugs. Moishe didn’t have much time to pace. Having gone out for a cup of coffee, he was hastily summoned as Linda was quickly arriving, only four hours or so after their break-of-dawn ride to the hospital. Ceil described Moishe as “kind of awed by this screaming, squirming little wet thing—but happy to be a father and glad to take on the responsibility.” The new parents were only nineteen and a half years old.

  Lyn was the first grandchild for the Rosens as well as the Starrs, and both sets of grandparents doted on her. When the senior Rosens vacated Moishe’s childhood home on Federal to move to a slightly nicer neighborhood eight blocks away, Moishe, Ceil, and the baby moved right in.

  It was a happy time for the young couple. Moishe was doing well at work and often looked for opportunities to surprise Ceil with a gift. Music was one of her chief joys, and not long after Lyn was born, he brought home a record player and a collection of 45 rpm recordings. The collection contained some songs by Mario Lanza, a popular tenor. Among his vocals was a selection of Christmas carols, which Moishe knew that Ceil particularly loved.

  He had no idea that a Christmas carol had once caused Ceil to consider what no Jewish person was supposed to consider. Ceil had taken high school chorus for class credit, and the group had a major role in the school’s Christmas program. She would either have to sing in the concert or fail the class. She really wanted to sing, so the fact that she had to in order to pass provided the perfect excuse to do so despite her parents’ wishes. (They had never allowed her to attend, much less sing in, a Christmas program.) She concocted a half-truth about having to be at school that night, smuggled her costume out of the house, and went to the performance.

  Ceil later recalled, “We moved across the stage in a kind of slow dance, singing, ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.’ Though we had rehearsed the song many times, I suddenly found myself pondering its meaning. The song seemed to be saying that Jesus was somehow for Israel, for us Jews. For a moment, I was deeply impressed by this possibility. But then I quickly shrugged it off. What did it really matter? I didn’t even believe in my own Jewish God, so why should I believe in Jesus, the gentile God?”

  Three years later Ceil, at home with a newborn, put on the Christmas collection. Suddenly the words of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” struck her as they never had before. She wondered what was meant by “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Did the hopes refer to the Messiah? But who would fear the coming of our Messiah, and why?

  Ceil knew the Gentiles believed that Jesus was the Messiah. Were her own people afraid to think about Jesus because it might be true? She listened to another song, “We Three Kings,” and thought about the miraculous star that supposedly led the wise men to the baby Jesus. Might it have actually happened? Song after song seemed to challenge her to consider whether its message might be true until she felt driven to ask God.

  And so, Ceil prayed once again, but this prayer was far more radical
than the last: “God, I’m ready to do what you want now, even if it means going back to all those rules. I’ll keep kosher, observe the Sabbath laws, and be an Orthodox Jew again if that’s what you want. But please show me. Do you want that? Or is there truth to what the Christians are saying about Jesus? What should I believe? What do you want me to do?”

  When summer came and she still couldn’t stop thinking about Jesus, she asked her friend Dorothy, who was also Moishe’s cousin, to get her a Bible at the dime store. Almost from the moment Ceil began reading, she was captivated.

  She could barely hide her growing excitement. Occasionally she would blurt out some tidbit she’d learned to Moishe or Dorothy: “I just found out that the Lord’s Prayer my grade school class used to recite every day came from the New Testament,” or “Guess what? I never knew that the term ‘salt of the earth’ came from something that Jesus said, did you?” Moishe and Dorothy were the only two people on earth to whom she would admit that she had read, much less believed, part of the New Testament. But her “revelations” provoked little more than a quizzical look or an uncaring shrug from them.

  By the end of summer, Ceil was fairly bursting to discuss Jesus. She remembered Orville and Juanita (once the baby came, they had not done much to keep up the acquaintance.) and casually asked Moishe if he’d heard anything from Orville lately. She was crestfallen to learn that Orville and his family had recently moved to Gallup, New Mexico. She silently offered up a third prayer: Oh, God, please help me find someone to talk to about Jesus.