Grief for my good friends?

The evening progressed. The rubicon had been crossed, there was no going back. Once breached, the fragile barriers that separated the Jewish people in that room, mended themselves slowly, though the scars remained. From then on the discussion was on the more mundane level. Work, money, pension plans, chicken soup, Arsenal football team, golf handicaps, catering, sex. All these things were covered in between mouthfuls of eggs in salt water, kneidlach and roast chicken.

All except the most important things.

I'm sure that, deep down, Dave must have been so troubled. I could feel for him. I felt helpless that there was no way I could have helped him in defending his God, the Jewish God, our God. But the very idea that we would be worshipping the same God would be an anathema to him. Ever since I had become a messianic Jew, ten years ago, he hadn't spoken to me once. Even though he had known me my whole life and had overseen my spiritual development between the ages of ten and thirteen, when I was placed under his wing for Hebrew instruction leading up to my Barmitzvah. But, then again, perhaps that was his main reason, my conversion being his personal failure in not preparing me sufficiently.

I grieved for him and his frustration. But I also grieved for the others, for Jonathan the Zionist, Gerald the atheist, Miriam the rationalist and Sadie the new ager. I particularly grieved for Morry, my dear friend, caught up in this world and its fears, whose twin gods were money and food.

I grieved that all six of them, perhaps representing a cross section of the Jewish world today, were each, with the possible exception of David (to a degree), far away from the loving arms of a loving God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who had created them and commissioned their forefathers to be a beacon to the world. But now they were lost souls, though each would deny it. They all thought they had found the truth, in their own way and were secure in that knowledge. What could I do, what would I do? I wanted to touch them, to reach them to share my faith with them. But how?