Called to Controversy Read Online Free

was not real. She compared him to a character in a fairy tale. But that didn’t satisfy Moishe.
    So Rose very carefully began to separate childish fiction from the realities of life. As Moishe listened, he began to accept that some things he’d heard about or imagined did not exist. For the first time, he began to wonder about other realities he had taken for granted. His thoughts turned to a special Someone Else that people talked about, Someone from whom people seemed to expect good things and who mysteriously knew everything about everyone. Okay, so Santa was made up. “But, Ma,” he asked, “is there a God?”
    Rose paused thoughtfully, and then, as though answering the question as much for herself as for him, she said, not quite as emphatically as he would have liked, “I’m pretty sure there is.”

    That was the first conversation Moishe recalled regarding the existence of God. Rose did not often talk about such things, but she held certain beliefs that showed through in her outlook.
    Moishe said, “My mother believed in rectitude, that God saw everything and would ultimately make sure justice was served. I know that she believed in hell. She was certain that Hitler was there. But she never exactly said if she believed in heaven.”
    While his mother’s concept of God was rather remote, her vision of right and wrong was close at hand and very practical. Moishe remembered her saying, “You may be forced to lie to an outsider, but never lie to yourself. If you’re doing wrong and you tell yourself it’s right, even when you want to do right, you’ll continue doing wrong. But if you can admit to yourself that you’re wrong, then you stand a chance of someday changing and doing right.” Moishe never forgot that lesson: know right from wrong, and remember that right and wrong involve truth.
    His mother spoke in aphorisms such as, “The person who lies to himself is the biggest liar in the world.” Some of her sayings seemed cynical, such as, “Advertising is all lies,” but that was her way of protecting herself and her family—because she didn’t merely mean the advertising of shopkeepers and other merchants. She meant people who would “advertise” their own good qualities. She was fond of saying, “I’m from Missouri. You have to show me.” Moishe once said, “My mother was an antiperfectionist. She thought something was authentic if she could see the flaws in it.” Some of Rose’s ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, may have been subjective, but there in the middle of it all, the focal point was honesty.
    Rose was never insincere. She cared nothing for the good opinion of someone she didn’t like. And she was a profound friend to her friends, among whom her reputation was not so much as a woman of manners, but as one who was kind-hearted, generous, and loyal.
    Rose Rosen was an intelligent woman with a highly inquisitive nature. An overflow of her enthusiastic pursuit of knowledge was her love of sharing information, and it was a way of relating, an indication of fondness for those with whom she exchanged facts or points of view.
    She also related to people by feeding them. She was known to all her friends and family as an excellent cook, and as the economy improved, she exercised her culinary talents with gusto. During the high holidays, * her kitchen became something of a strudel factory. She’d make large quantities to give away, and still there was plenty for the family. To her, Jewish holidays were not so much religious events as occasions to cook and have company.
    She was not tremendously demonstrative when it came to physical affection, yet Moishe always knew her as a very affectionate and loving person. He recalled, “On rare occasions, she would kiss us [his brother or him] on the cheek, and she didn’t ordinarily hug us. But when I was a little kid, when I hurt