THE THREE-INCH CROSS

Ian came home for break, halfway through his first year of college. He had been my student, pensive, serious, inquisitive. His questions were deep, and our discussions were lively. They would often overflow class time and continue at the local IHOP.

What a pleasant surprise, then, that Ian wanted to visit with me during his brief visit home. Looking across the table at him at IHOP, I noticed something peeking out from below the left sleeve of his tee-shirt.

“Did you get a tattoo?” I asked him. At the still-tender age of 18, that in itself was disconcerting . . . and, conditioned by my mother’s pronouncements in my youth . . . very goyische, a Torah violation that many pious people consider with special gravitas, a mutilation of the body and the stuff from which idolatry is spawned.

OK, but it was Ian, serious, pensive Ian, so I conveyed a look of grief and consternation, and was ready for the heavier conversation to ensue.

“At least let me see it,” I requested.

“Er . . . you don’t want to see it.”

“If you don’t want to show it to me, that is all right. But little in this world still shocks me.”

Wrong. He tugged at his sleeve and sheepishly displayed an elaborate three-inch Gothic-style cross. Emblazoned in the middle was the word “Shema” in bold Hebrew letters.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” I hissed out the words. “How could you have done that? Have you renounced Judaism at the tender age of 18? Do you know enough to know what you’re renouncing?”

No, he said. He hadn’t renounced Judaism; he was still proud to be Jewish.

“And do you believe that you have been saved?” I asked him.

“Saved is too strong a word. Let’s just say that I feel more comfortable.”

“Comfortable.” Not too Jewish an aspiration, especially when the prophets and teachers of old maintained that the role of faith was to afflict the comfortable even more than it is to comfort the afflicted.

“Do you go to church?”

“No, it’s all in my heart.”

We sparred a little more, and then I reminded him that a tattoo is indelible, that he will have to go through his life with a graphic symbol of an indiscretion he committed at the tender age of 18. Would teshuvah remain a possibility? How will it feel one day to wrap his tefillin over that garish cross? I reminded him, too, that tattoos on the arms of Holocaust victims were the embodiment of immeasurable tears and grief and suffering.

As Ian departed, I did the “Jewish” thing: self-recrimination. What had I done wrong? What had we collectively done wrong, so as to sustain the oxymoron of Ian’s Jewish pride at the same time as his Christian comfort? The answer might be “nothing.”

Even so, Ian’s story, like too many others, should be a cautionary note as to what we are, and are not, doing to strengthen Jewish ties – Sustain our day schools and religious schools, provide substantive youth activities and Jewish camping through high school and beyond. Foster the vibrancy of community centers, adult education and Israel opportunities. Encourage the outreach work of Chabad and Kollel.

In schules, let Shabbat services enlighten and stimulate the spirit through robust participation. In homes, a real Jewish feel and substance: everyone together for Shabbat dinner, kiddush, motzi, birkat ha-mazon, no bolting from the table, leave the TV off.

Ian did not have many of these opportunities in “little Greenville.” But he could have had more and better than he got. Stories like his should be a wake-up call to strengthen Yiddishkeit, not a denial that “Sometimes things like that just happen.”

Would all things working for the best prevent stories like Ian’s from happening? Not entirely. But, a Judaism that assertively touches the mind, heart, and muscle – in family and community – would minimize the opportunities. For Ian, I will klop an Al Chet for not reaching out sufficiently, for not being a sufficient role model and teacher. It awakens me to give my students more and better. If Ian’s story means anything to you, let it shake you, too, and give you the impetus to cherish each Jewish soul and somehow be the guarantor of its safety.