There is an old story about a Jewish studies student in the Yeshiva who asked his rabbi, “Rabbi, do you know that you answer every question with a question?” to which the rabbi responded: “Do I?”

            One man tells of growing up in what would now be considered a lower-middle class neighborhood, which was eclectic in its makeup. He was one of 10 children from a relatively devout Roman Catholic family. Next door there lived a mainline Protestant family. A family of black Catholics lived across the street. Next to them on the right side were some evangelical Baptists, and on the other side lived some Italian immigrants, who barely spoke English. Some of the neighbors were relatively comfortable financially and others could have been considered quite poor. There were other Irish Catholics a few houses down the street, but between them were some Hungarians, Polish, Croatians and immigrants from Russia, who belonged to various Orthodox congregations.

            His best friend was a Jewish boy from the reformed tradition whose back yard met his own, so they were easily and often at one another’s houses. And like many other neighborhoods, there were some elderly people as well as some recluses about whom the kids had shared all sorts of rumors, not all of them flattering. But the person this boy found most interesting was his other next-door neighbor, Rabbi Eli Greenfield. He was an ultra-conservative, Orthodox rabbi, who always wore dark colors, never worked on the Sabbath, was hardly ever seen without his yarmulke, and walked just about everywhere he went.

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