He just might be a prophet

Crazy man on the N train on the ride home tonight, preaching up a storm about 1000 years of damnation in hell and other good stuff. I couldn't hear him too clearly - he was at the other end of the subway car, and he had a reasonably thick accent -- but the buzzwords were adequately punctuated so that I could get the gist. I seem to be seeing/hearing a lot more of these folks lately; not sure if it's me, them or the times. I recall walking past a short, stout woman in the Atlantic Ave station a few weeks ago, she belting out a whole lot of religion. "I bet," I remember thinking at the time, "that she'd be a feisty dance partner."

In college, I sort of minored in Religion. Well, we didn't have "minors," but I took enough Religion courses such that if we did, I'd have minored in it. I took two or three courses at Bryn Mawr with this amazing professor named Sam Lachs. He was a professor and an ordained rabbi, and looked a little bit like what you might imagine God might look like (full gray beard, face wreaking of wisdom). And he had a wickedly sharp mind: he'd lecture for three straight hours without a single note or reference in front of him. He'd mix in Letterman references with scriptural analysis, with a booming yet melodic voice that you never really tired of. He retired after my senior year because he found himself having to pause to think of the next word he wanted to use, and that was his sign to himself that it was time to call it quits.

I will never forget Sam Lachs' lecture on the Book of Amos. Ever read it? Amos was a minor prophet whose "book" in the Old Testament is a rant against the sins of Judea. I read it before the assigned class, and found it to be an archaically-worded sermon, as boring as any my own rabbi had delivered at a drawn-out religious service. Then I got to class, and an animated Sam Lachs set the stage...Amos is working the crowd, railing on Damascus for its wicked ways, then Gaza, the Ammonites, and so on, describing the punishment that God has coming for those sinners. The Jews are buying in, nodding their heads, maybe shouting a few "Amens" in agreement...those nasty Ammonites, they've got it coming. After a few rounds of this, when he completely has their attention and support, Amos zings them with a shot to the gut: "For three transgessions of Judah..." and then "For three transgressions of Israel..." What? What did he say? Is Amos coming after us? And Amos takes it from there, and delivers the big warning: shape up, bad Jews, or it is going to get ugly.

It was some of the best theater I had in all of college. Sam Lachs was some good professoring.

The thing about Amos the prophet, like all prophets, is that he likely looked and sounded like every other crazy man ranting on a hillside. You were never unkind to a crazy man ranting, Sam Lachs explained, because he might be a crazy man, or he just might be a prophet.