Called to Controversy (26 page)

*
Daniel probably wanted to prevent friction between two of his staff by not disclosing names, but Moishe felt that anonymtity caused more problems than it solved.

EIGHTEEN

A careful artist doesn't need a big brush.

—MOISHE ROSEN

A
t least we're not late,” Moishe told Ceil, who had gotten up at the crack of dawn to accompany him on the two-hour drive to San Diego. He was half apologetic as he explained that the breakfast meeting to which he'd been invited was actually a luncheon and would not begin until one o'clock. Ceil loved Southern California and didn't mind having extra time to explore beautiful San Diego.

The morning passed quickly enough, and they returned to the church. Moishe had spoken at several such gatherings and was accustomed to an audience of fifteen or twenty area pastors, but this time more than sixty attended. The young missionary was delighted to find the ministers keenly interested in communicating the gospel to Jewish people. After his message, they were eager to hear more. Moishe remained, fielding questions for most of the afternoon.

The following afternoon, Moishe dropped Ceil at the airport and prepared to enjoy the long drive ahead. He was heading for El Paso, Texas, 725 miles away. By 2:00 a.m. he reached Gila Bend, Arizona, low on gasoline and even lower on energy and alertness. He found an all-night gas pump/convenience store, fueled his green Plymouth station wagon and dreamily downed three hot dogs, a glass of milk, and a cup of coffee. He was still 370 miles from El Paso. Fortunately, he did not have to speak that morning.

He was just about to get in his car when he felt a couple of sharp pokes—first in the back of his arm, then in his ribs. A gruff voice demanded, “Give me your money or your life.”

Moishe turned to see a teenage boy who did not look nearly as ferocious as his threat had sounded. But he did look jumpy. Moishe took a deep breath to compose himself and said, “You can have my money; all I have is six dollars in cash. But you can't take my life. That belongs to Jesus, and whatever he wants me to do with it, I'll do, and however long he wants me to live, I'll live. If you use that knife on me, you'll only put me in a far better place than this. But one of these days you're going to die, and then where will you be?”

“Are y-y-you a B-b-baptist?” came the unexpected reply.

“Yes, I am,” Moishe answered, somewhat surprised. He saw that the teenager was shaking and gently but firmly took the knife from him. It was a switchblade. He clicked it shut, and the kid actually seemed relieved.

“Mister, I've never done anything like this before,” he said. “I've gone to church and Sunday school all my life. My parents and grandparents taught me what was right. But you get to be a certain age and well, you know. You get tired of being some Goody Two-shoes.”

A trailer was parked at the edge of the lot, and Moishe saw a man motioning for the would-be mugger to come back. The boy was shaking his head and gesturing for the guy to stay away.

“Mister, is it okay if I get in your car? I promise I won't try anything, but I think I better get outta here.”

Moishe agreed, and they drove out of the parking lot. The boy explained that he had a job in the convenience store and a “real pretty girl” had come in that night and flirted with him. When he got off work that night, she introduced him to her “boyfriend.” They promised him quite an evening and the girl said she'd like to show him a “good time,” but first he had to get the money to pay for the liquor. The girl said she could show him how to get the money easily enough, so he called his parents to say that he was working late. The girl then gave him a knife and assured him that he wouldn't really have to use it. It would be easy enough to scare someone into handing over cash.

Once the crisis had passed the boy could see that the prostitute and her boyfriend/manager were only using him. But of all the “victims” he might have tried to hold up at knifepoint, a Baptist minister? The implications were not lost on the young man.

Before long, the sixteen-year-old was praying, asking God's forgiveness and saying that he wanted to surrender his life to Jesus once and for all. Moishe added his amen and drove the boy home. He was so tired, he didn't even think to ask the boy his name or write down his address. He simply drove on toward El Paso.

When he could go no further, he checked into an economy class motel where he quickly fell into a sound sleep. He awoke just a few hours later. It wasn't until he'd paid for the room that he recalled that something strange had happened the previous night. He remembered the boy with the knife, but of course that couldn't have been real. It must have been some crazy dream, he thought. And so he dismissed it—until he got to the car. There, lying on the front seat was a switchblade knife.

The weapon from this event quickly became a symbol to Moishe—not only of how God intervenes to save people in radical ways, but also of how that salvation transforms lives. And from a symbol, both the story and the knife became trophies, not of Moishe's bravery, but of God's power. Ceil mounted the knife on a wood plaque as a gift for Moishe, and the attached brass plate was engraved: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

That adventure also illustrated Moishe's idea of courage. To him, courage was not fearlessness; courage meant that he couldn't let circumstances deter him from doing what needed to be done. He would have given the kid his money, but he felt compelled to give him an opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel.

For Moishe, the 1960s were a time of building and rebuilding. His years in Bible school had somewhat dampened his natural tendency to tell everyone he met about Jesus. Yet he had learned much about the Bible and about faith. He'd seen God meet so many needs in unexpected ways. And now he was getting back into the habit of telling people about Jesus, wherever he might meet them.
*

In Los Angeles, he had a great deal of freedom to put all he had learned into practice. The move to North Hollywood signaled a new and very successful time of ministry for Moishe. Yet that time had begun with a personal tragedy that deeply affected both Moishe and Ceil.

In the late summer of 1961 they were surprised to find out that Ceil was pregnant. Originally they had talked about having four children, but their second daughter's life-threatening condition at birth changed that. Doctors explained that additional pregnancies would exacerbate the RH incompatibility and could result in fetal death. Despite conscientious birth control, Ceil was expecting. She could tell by comparing it with the first two pregancies that something was wrong. Moishe kept reassuring her that everything would be okay, but in the beginning of her ninth month, Ceil went into labor and their little boy was stillborn.

In this excerpt from a letter that Moishe wrote to his friend Paul Liberman, he explained the event and its aftermath more than four decades later:

Both of us went numb. I backslid. I didn't run around and get drunk. I didn't do anything different at all. It's just that I emotionally shut down. I threw myself into the work. I stopped praying. I didn't read the Scripture. When it came to sensing any presence of God, I was just numb. But the day after [the baby died] I preached in two different churches.

Here's the surprise: that [backslidden state] lasted most of that year, and it was my most successful year in ministry. I prayed in public like I had always prayed. I preached what I'd always believed. But I didn't have any strength, or to use the Yiddish word,
coyach
. It was like sleepwalking. I just went from one thing to another. . . .

Then something happened, I became spiritually awakened. . . . I feel that God reached down and lifted me. I feel that the many achievements were just due to the fact that I did my duty. And God spoke through me, even though [for that period of time] I was not acquainted with Him.

The baby boy, who would have been named Jonathan Edward Rosen, was born and died on April 7, 1962, a day before Ceil's birthday. Moishe and Ceil never saw the baby. Friends arranged an unattended burial in a nearby Burbank cemetery. Ceil never ceased to regret the lost opportunity to say good-bye. Weeks later she visited the small grave—alone—without ever telling Moishe.

The tragedy affected husband and wife very differently; they had opposing theological views concerning the death of a newborn. That, along with the difference in their personalities, resulted in their need to mourn in separate ways. And like many couples who lose a child, their contrasting ways of managing the shock and grief put them at somewhat of a loss for how to comfort one another.

Devastated by the loss, Ceil comforted herself with the thought that the child she would never hold was not hers but God's—and that though he was in heaven, he was still an instrument to work God's will in her life. Her great sadness was very apparent for more than a year, though she did not talk much about it. Moishe, as indicated in his letter, went on outwardly as though nothing had changed, while inwardly, nothing remained the same.

For Moishe, the tragic experience was almost the polar opposite of his joyous discovery of God's care for him during Bible school. Having experienced such wonderful provision and protection, Moishe was shaken by the firsthand knowledge that truly terrible things not only can, but do happen even to those who trust God. He had known it intellectually, but now he knew it personally and was shaken to his core.

There was no single event that reconnected Moishe's emotions to his intellect, no particular revelation that restored his spirit. What he described as “God lifting me” others might call healing. Even so, he never again responded to an impending crisis by assuring himself or others involved that everything would be okay. Eventually the tragedy enabled him to minister in a deeper way to those who were grieving.

Moishe's personality was not charismatic in the traditional sense of the word. His mild stammer disqualified him from being a “smooth talker.” But his genuine interest in people, combined with his sense of duty and enthusiasm for his work drew people to him.

For the most part, the San Fernando Valley years were very good to Moishe and Ceil. During the Pico years, Ceil had never complained about the weekly meetings that took precedence over their home life and privacy or of Moishe's being “at work” whenever he happened to go into his little office or whenever the phone or doorbell rang. But after the move, even though she was happy to entertain guests, she loved having a home life that was distinct from her husband's work.

The house had a large backyard with a peach tree, a fig tree, and an apricot tree. The front yard had numerous rose bushes, which Moishe learned to tend. Describing his interest in roses he said,

There were lots of things growing at the house in North Hollywood, including the roses. I got a book on roses and how to train them and make them grow. It wasn't that I planted so many things; it was mostly that I kept things growing that were already there. This reflects on my creativity in general—I tend to develop what is already there, or what I find happening around me.

In keeping with his interest in “whatever was at hand” Moishe made a brief foray into the world of art—because he happened to have an artist living in his garage. The artist, unlike the roses, had not been there when the family moved in.

His name was Darwin Dunham, and Moishe met him at First Baptist Church of Hollywood. An artist from childhood, Darwin wanted to use his talents for God but wasn't sure how. The following is an excerpt from a 2009 e-mail sent by Darwin:

I went to Art Center School in Los Angeles to become a successful illustrator. My whole life was aimed in that direction. [Then] one Sunday . . . Rev. Martin Rosen [taught] our Sunday School class. He spoke from John 4—the woman at the well. I had never heard of a Jewish believer in Christ. Nor had I ever heard the Scriptures expounded from so Jewish a perspective. He spoke directly and honestly without syrupy spirituality.

. . . I determined to get to know this guy better. I thought that if an intelligent Jewish man like Rosen could believe in Christ, he could answer my questions. My first impression did not change on getting to know him. It deepened. His life was marked by singleness of purpose, steadiness, maturity and sincerity. He had no phoniness about him. As a creative thinker he was bold and willing to try new things. He made ministry look exciting. I've never met anyone quite like him.