My Faith Was Where I Found It
My Faith Was Where I Found It
"One of the first things he said to me was 'I won’t sit here and tell you God has a plan because you would never set foot inside a shul again. What kind of benevolent God takes an 18-year-old child?'"
By Barry Kluger
I’ve lived a pretty secular Jewish life, with the usual regimen of Hebrew school, bar mitzvah, and confirmation, having gone beyond age 13, primarily to meet girls. That’s kinda holy, I think.
I remember the seder dinners with family in my early years, wearing itchy woolen pants to a relative’s house with one goal: finding the afikomen.
After my divorce in 1987, I tried to balance faith for my daughter Erica on the weekends she came to visit, attending a synagogue on East 35th Street in New York City. Adherence to the ritual dinners was spotty as I did not always have her on the High Holy days and when Hope and I got married and moved to New Jersey, I did my best to keep tradition in my life. It wasn’t always easy.
When I moved to Arizona in 1999, synagogues were mostly centered around families and school, so while we kept tradition when possible, we were unaffiliated.
That ended a short 15 months later when Erica was killed in a freak car accident here in Scottsdale. I needed someone to officiate at the funeral and local friends suggested a rabbi here in town, affectionately referred to as the “Head of the Arizona Rabbinical Mafia.”
Erica died on Passover eve, 2001. We could not hold a funeral for at least five days to allow time for Erica’s mom, stepdad, and her brother and sister to come in, as well as my family.
I remember visiting the rabbi that Saturday after services, dressed respectfully but with no socks, a trend of mine and one the Rabbi always thought funny.
One of the first things he said to me was “I won’t sit here and tell you G-d has a plan because you would never set foot inside a shul again. What kind of benevolent G-d takes an 18-year-old child?”
The rabbi and I became fast friends. He ‘insisted’ I go to the mortuary, not to see Erica, as that is something I would not do. Rther, he explained that I needed to see this through; the pain and the reality. He was right.
I remember that Saturday when I went with my friend Steven to Starbucks. That’s when I became ‘the whisper’ – the one people nodded in my direction and spoke about in hushed tones. I was the guy they whispered about; the one who had just lost a child.
The funeral was well attended, a testament to the friends that we and Erica had made in our brief time living here. Her best friend from camp back East and now an ASU student, spoke. To this day, I cannot imagine the strength and sadness that enabled her to speak to a crowd of people. Erica’s stepdad spoke, and I did.
My dad had stayed in Florida, the dialysis he was going through prevented him from being able to attend. But his rabbi later told me that my dad went to his shul with anger and bewilderment. How could a G-d do this? It was then that my dad started saying “I love you” at the end of every phone call. The love between us had always been evident, but speaking those words became important to him – and vital to me.
Over the next two years, the rabbi here would invite me to sit on the bimah. He knew I was not going to build an Erica Kluger Wing to the temple. Someone told me that despite his outsize reputation, Erica’s death affected him deeply, as it was out of the lifecycle of things. We became friends and would have lunch now and then.
Twenty-three years later, faith is more important in my life, but I don’t go to a synagogue. Faith is a deeply personal thing.
I observe the holidays as best I can. Being a Jew means different things to many people. For me, it is pride, solace, and part of my fabric, rarely much pain but a ‘sigh’ now and then. My faith has made me a better person, on my terms. And because of Erica, that light continues to shine.
BARRY KLUGER is a veteran Senior Corporate Communications Executive at MTV Networks and Author of the Klugertown: Boom-bastic column on Substack.
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