The Way to HeavenEvery year with approach of Rosh Hashanah, the Holy Rabbi of Nemirov disappeared. Non-believers chided the rabbi's followersconcerning his disappearance. His followers insisted that the Rabbi went to heaven to defend and plead for Jews accused of doing wrong.Once, a Jew, who was not a follower of the Holy Rabbi, visited thesynagogue. When he heard about the disappearance of the Rabbi, he decided to investigate the whole thing. He wanted to prove that the Rabbi was a fraud.This man trailed the Holy Rabbi far out of the town into a forest. Here he saw the Rabbi chop some firewood. The Holy Rabbi carried the firewood to a small hut in a clearing. He knocked. The door opened, and he entered.The doubting Jew ran to the window and looked inside. He saw the Rabbi light the stove, heat some water and make tea. He saw the Rabbi carry the tea to a woman, who looked sick and cold. As he went about his tasks, the Holy Rabbi chanted the evening prayers in a low voice.The man who had doubted the Rabbi’s sincerity became one of his staunchest supporters, When asked what he had learned and whether the Holy Rabbi really went to heaven, he replied:“Who knows – perhaps even higher.”The disciples are like the man in this story. They understood Jesus and his message. They were excited about the prospects of Jesus being the Messiah who would inaugurate the Reign of God. They were also anxious about who would be first in that new order. But Jesus tells his followers that he is to suffer and die and rise again. To them this didn’t sound like a Messiah. This didn’t sound like a “kingdom.” The Word of God today challenges our understanding of Jesus’ mission and, therefore, our own.The mission of Jesus demands that those who would follow him would have to seek to be the last and the servant of all. Mark adds the incident with the child to reinforce this contention. A child in those days had no rights; a child was totally dependent on the surrounding environment for survival. Like the sick woman in the story of the Holy Rabbi, those who are the weakest are the ones through whom we will reach heaven. Jesus' example of the child in the Gospel story is the challenge of discipleship. In his Letter, James states that, as disciples, our own ambitions and self-interest must be put aside. We can then defend and serve those who have little or no rights or importance. We leave off selfish ambition and embrace the invitation to be last of all and the servant of all. James sees the fruit of such a conversion as a commitment to peace through justice. The contemporary aphorism, “If you want peace, work for justice,” attributed to Paul VI, may very well have its roots in this Epistle of James. Clearly both Pope Paul and James saw the source of peace in our hands. Praying for peace, they would say, is working for justice. The place to start, going back to Jesus’ image of the little child, is with the most vulnerable, the most insignificant in our society.This will not be a task free of struggle and sacrifice. With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test, is not only the fate of the just one, but also of everyone who would follow in his footsteps. The Book of Wisdom understands that the world does not look kindly on those who would question the status quo. To defend the poor is often to indict society for the root causes of that poverty. To welcome the immigrant is seen as a lack of patriotism. The discipleship described today calls us to real conversion, to a genuine change of heart. We are called to serve the least before we serve ourselves, to embrace with understanding and compassion the alienated and marginalized. It’s a call to the kind of service that will build the New Creation Christ came to establish. It’s a call to the kind of service that will lead us, like the Holy Rabbi, to heaven, or “who knows -- perhaps even higher!”* The Tzadik (Holy Rabbi) of Nemirov, adapted from a story by I. L. Peretz and quoted in The Joy of Jewish Living by Saul Spiro and Rena Spiro. Cleveland: Bureau of Jewish Education, p.57.