Dazed and confused? Not me. I’m just Lost in the Cheese Aisle.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

SURREAL MOMENTS

Shalom Lewis - our rabbi - has had a few surreal moments in the past couple of weeks.

Two weeks ago, he, his wife, and his mother flew to Detroit to attend the premiere of the latest Hallmark Hall of Fame production, a Teevee-Movie based on Mitch Albom’s best-selling book Have a Little Faith. As documented in an earlier post, the movie concerns itself, in no small part, with Rabbi Albert Lewis - Shalom’s late father.

Surreal moment number one for him was sitting in the theatre and seeing his father portrayed on the screen, with the actor who played his father - Martin Landau - sitting right behind him. Nearby were his mother and the actress who played her. Also there was Laurence Fishburne, who played Pastor Henry Covington in the movie. But Shalom couldn’t look at him without seeing Morpheus, Fishburne’s character from The Matrix. (Perverse as I am, I would be thinking of another of Fishburne’s characters, Cowboy Curtis from Pee-wee’s Playhouse.)

Surreal moment number two was when he had the opportunity to speak at the I Am My Brother’s Keeper church, Pastor Covington’s spiritual home in Detroit, with the congregants tacking on the random “Hallelujah!” to his sentences... and with Landau, Fishburne, et al., in the audience.

The movie was broadcast this past Sunday evening. If you missed it, it will go on rotation at the Hallmark channel next week.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a beautiful story. Your Rabbi is a lucky man to have been a mentored by such a thoughtful man. I wonder if his father sang as much as it noted i.e. greeting people? I recall my dad loved to whistle. You don't hear men sing and whistle tunes like they once did...what a shame. h~

Elisson said...

Martin Landau's portrayal of Albert Lewis was right on the money... including the singing! At least, so says Rabbi Lewis the Younger, who oughta know.