Highway of the Homeless

  Traveling From North to South as Erv Herman Saw it!  August 2015

   Let me tell you about Erv.  Erv Herman was a human magnet!  People, all kinds of people were drawn to him.  If someone with a sense of humor crossed his path, he matched him joke for joke.  Anyone who wished to discuss politics, Erv had an opinion and never hesitated to share it.  He discussed Bible revealing an uncanny memory and sensitivity.  And he adored children; with children he was a pied piper.  They never left him alone in the swimming pool pushing his very own kids out of the way.  In his religious schoolroom, teens stepped over the little kids to get his attention.

   You see, Erv Herman was a rabbi, pastor to the Jewish community.  I mean community in the truest sense of the world.  Wherever this man was, a community formed around him, members of his own flock, of course, but others also turned to him for guidance and counsel. In his congregation in Scranton, he had heard that the teenagers had not related well to his predecessor.  Without commotion Rabbi Erv Herman installed a pool table in the basement of the synagogue. The teens flocked to the temple, Erv had to lock his door when he needed privacy to work though he preferred to play pool with the kids.

   When Erv arrived at his first congregation in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, among the responsibilities that he shouldered, was the “Fund For the Homeless”.  This meant that he was responsible for handing out small amounts of money to the folks who traveled between the North and South, following the weather, jobless, frequently without family, always with a heart-rending story.  Very quickly Erv Herman ran out of funds and asked for more to distribute.  They tried to take the responsibility away from him because he was “too” generous.  He believed each story he was told.  He looked people in the eye and believed that they were telling the truth, always.

   In as much as no one else wanted the job Erv retained the responsibility.  He continued his generosity until one day in his office in Scranton, far from Winston-Salem his secretary announced that there was a homeless person who wished to talk to him.  Erv welcomed the disheveled man in, gave him a seat and sat down himself, to hear his story.  As the story moved along, the man warmed to his rapt listener, but bells were ringing for Erv Herman.  Bits and pieces of the story became familiar.  Erv suddenly realized that the story was becoming very familiar.  Did so many men have sick, lonely mothers in Florida? The homeless man had received help several years earlier on his way North from Winston; years later on his way back down South he again sat in front of Erv Herman in Scranton, worrying over his sick mother.  He furiously denied that he had ever seen this rabbi before, but the secretarial staff remembered him, there was no mistake.

   This time Erv decided to tell the gentleman what he would have to do to “earn” financial assistance.  The older and wiser rabbi made a call to Jewish Family Service and made an appointment for his “friend” to talk with a social worker to get help and perhaps job.  He also called the local shoemaker (a member of the Temple) and arranged to pay for having the man’s shoes fixed. He gave him money for a meal.   After that interview, Erv Herman lost confidence in the people who ran on the Highway of the Homeless from season to season, the man in question took the few dollars Erv had given him for a meal, never kept the appointments, simply continued on his way begging from rabbis to keep himself fed and cared for.  I guess he figured that no rabbi would turn away a Jew. He was correct.  Erv Herman did not stop giving aid to the homeless, he learned to fill only basic needs and trimmed his own expectations.  It is true that a Jew will not turn a fellow-Jew away, but when one deals honorably with people, one can expect honesty in return.  Erv Herman kept on giving despite his disappointment.