Called to Controversy

by Ruth Rosen

  The young man nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “Yeah, I think so.” I smiled inwardly. Not many kids could call their parents by their first name without seeming disrespectful.

  The side of Moishe that Biola students saw that day was very much a part of his persona, in one-to-one interactions as well as when he spoke to groups. But in addition to the “relatability” factor, there was a toughness that Moishe felt responsible to maintain in his role of executive director.

  Once Jews for Jesus became an organization, standards, goals, and accountability became a primary focus of the ministry and of Moishe’s leadership. He not only had to raise funds to support the missionaries, but he also felt responsible to ensure that he and the other missionaries were worthy of that support. He was never content to trust that things were happening as he thought they should. He always felt that people, including himself, had a tendency to do less than they ought if left to their own devices. So he looked for principles and procedures to keep himself and others on track. He explained,

  You don’t invent principles; you discover them. And principles really don’t help you get things done; they keep you from doing what’s wrong. They keep you on target, but you have to propel yourself forward. It takes a personal application of energy to do what you know you ought to do. And it is procedures by which you accomplish things, not the principles.

  When Jews for Jesus became an organization in 1973, I had to set standards. . . . And I had all of these volunteers who were now professionals, and I had to move their attitudes from being volunteers to understanding that there were professional standards. When I use the words professional minister, I’m talking about somebody who has standards. There is a big difference between a missionary and a witness. A good witness tells [about Jesus] as much as he can and whenever he can, but a missionary schedules his life so that he’s available to tell people [the gospel].

  You give yourself to volunteers—and all that they give back is appreciated because they don’t have to. You still give yourself to staff, but mainly to train them to give to others. What they give is expected, and they are to be accountable for maintaining a standard of professionalism. If they only do what is expected, they are considered minimalists.

  Moishe added,

  The role that I never liked was that of being an enforcer. But the problem is that once you have principles, once you have policies, once you have procedures, if the top man is not willing to be the enforcer, then, everything collapses. And one of the big problems I’ve seen in other missions was that the enforcer got caught up in the “Nice Guy” complex. On the one hand, he was expected to keep the rules, and on the other hand, because he was a nice guy, he made excuses for people when they did not do their duties. I must admit that was a temptation I also had. But the head of any organization has to set up rules of enforcement to see that the principles, policies, and procedures are followed. If you don’t do that, you’re not the head of the organization.

  Add to this an excerpt from one of Moishe’s leadership lessons to the senior staff: “A leader does not enjoy discovering a subordinate in a mistake, but a leader must continually test subordinates for errors. For, if you fail to test, then you fail to strengthen.” As far as Moishe was concerned, continual vigilance, testing, enforcing, and the expectation of accountability were aspects of his responsibility as a mission leader.

  In holding people accountable for their work, Moishe never based his assessment on people’s word alone. He therefore believed it his duty to check up on staff because not checking would encourage them to slack off—which he believed most people, including himself, were inclined to do at times. If Moishe suspected (rightly or wrongly) that someone was slacking and/or exaggerating or falsifying the amount of work done, the level of accountability he required could become painstaking and meticulous. Some former staff felt deeply wounded because, they pointed out, Moishe seemed to believe the worst and to regard people with whom he had once been so close with suspicion and mistrust. In certain cases, his suspicion and mistrust proved to be well founded. However, in other cases, there never was a meeting of the minds about what had or had not happened—and as a result, before the decade was over, one of the founding couples of the ministry left feeling that they had been grossly misjudged.*

  Years later Amy Rabinovitz noted, “There were a lot of subtle changes when he [Moishe] left the ABMJ, both in terms of his personal fears and his personal strengths. Later, for a period of time, he grew very self-protective, but it’s been too long since I’ve seen him to know if that was just a phase or if that became part of him. I suspect that it was a phase and considering all the kinds of pressures coming at him, [it was] probably predictable.”

  Part of that self-protection probably reflected Moishe’s ambivalence about what he felt was necessary in his role as executive director. As he later explained,

  Unfortunately, once we became an organization, I felt some strange sense of accountability that I had to be much more serious, much more demanding than I had been up to that time.

  In the 1970s, Moishe frequently used the word control in dealing with the staff, yet he never considered himself a controlling person. One of Moishe’s sayings was that he wanted “to control little but influence much.” He often added that he wanted that influence to be through his ideas and his humor, and it often was.

  When Moishe talked about control, he meant to make sure the staff adhered to principles, policies and procedures. Adherence could only be measured through accountability, and means of accountability often overlap with means of control. Moishe saw such control as an objective necessity, not a personal hunger for power.

  In a discussion about structures of leadership and what he learned from the military, he said,

  One kind of structure is hierarchical: the chief approves everything; nothing happens without the chief. If a chief insists on being that much in control, boy, he’d better not try to do too many things. If he goes to war, maybe he can train archers and swordsmen, but he can’t train archers, swordsmen, and catapult operators and sappers, etc. You are very definitely limited when you have that kind of autocratic leadership.

  Although many would equate Moishe’s leadership with that description, somehow he never saw himself as being as much in control as others did. He did his best to train leaders who could be in authority over those in their branches. But while the level at which the branch leaders were accountable to Moishe may not have seemed so great to him, it loomed very large to those under him. That made it difficult for him to be friends with anyone he supervised, including Avi Brickner, who had joined the staff of Jews for Jesus in 1976. Avi had looked forward to having Moishe as a mentor and he also looked forward to continuing the collegiate type of relationship they’d had for so many years, but sadly that was not to be the case. While the two remained friends long after Avi left the staff of Jews for Jesus, the relationship was never as close as it once had been.

  An interesting aside is that Moishe had many friendships that were not only sustainable, but grew deeper over the decades. Herb Links, a Jewish believer in Jesus and a Presbyterian pastor was one such friend—perhaps in part because he was never interested in Moishe’s overtures to recruit him to work with him.

  At any rate, while Moishe continued to see himself as Avi’s friend after Avi left Jews for Jesus, Avi recalled, “I know that he still had regard for me, but . . . that regard was expressed in ways that were not easy to take.”

  Avi also observed that whereas Moishe had been such a good listener in the earlier years of their friendship, it seemed that in their latter conversations, Moishe did most of the talking.

  Nevertheless, Avi concluded, “Even with the regrets I have about the negatives [in the later years of the relationship], there is also a lot of appreciation and gratitude for the way the Lord has used Moishe to bless [my wife] Leah and me. [As for] what I think about his [Moishe’s] contribution to Jewish evangelism, it is immense and seminal.”


  Avi’s observations and feelings certainly did not characterize all of Moishe’s friendships, but neither were they unique. When it came to conversations, Moishe always enjoyed listening to others as long as they engaged his interest, but if he heard something that set off his instinct to solve a problem or teach a lesson, he would jump in and sometimes lose track of the other person’s part in the conversation. Moishe joked more than once, “I’m always interested in what I have to say.” But then, most people prefer to hear themselves talk. If Moishe had a problem in conversations, it was usually not an issue of control. He was either trying to “fix” or solve something or forgetting that he was not the only one who liked to hear himself talk.

  Moishe was not unaware of his faults; he mentioned and occasionally apologized for them in council meetings. In one such meeting he stated that he realized how, at times, he had been a trial for the leaders of Jews for Jesus because of his impatience and anger, adding that these were qualities that he didn’t admire in himself or in others. Pride and ego were present in him, as they are in any human being. Yet he believed strongly in the importance of humility and openly acknowledged that his attitudes were not as far along as his convictions and ideals in that area.

  Between 1976 and 1978, Moishe had a growing sense that the ministry was lacking in certain areas. One was training. Another was the sense of community that he felt was dissipating as the staff grew larger and people were spread farther apart. By 1978, Moishe had introduced a radical idea at one of the Jews for Jesus council meetings: close down all the branch operations for the better part of a year and bring the entire staff back together in San Francisco.

  He explained that he felt the group was lacking not only in community, but also in the godliness promoted by community and having to put others first. He wanted to bring in some of the very best pastors and Bible scholars* to teach the staff and to be with them for a minimum of a week, so that the staff could learn by observing how to have a stronger spiritual life. Members of the staff were alternately excited, skeptical, and once again excited. They agreed on Avodah (a Hebrew word pronounced “ah-voh-dah” that embodies the idea of work and worship as one) as a name for this special time.

  As Moishe explained it back then,

  We have been leaders so long that we don’t have peers, and we are a group who needs peers. It [Avodah] will also be a blessing for those who are not leaders or not yet leaders. It will be a blessing for those who need a supportive community. It will be a help to married people. It will be a help to those who are single. It will be a help to those who have children. Community can give many things to many people. . . .

  Avodah is to be a time of growing together, a time of sharpening our techniques, and a time of innovating in evangelism. Avodah is not a time when we will try to relive 1971, but it is an attempt to foster the same spirit and enthusiasm we had back then.*

  Moishe lived and learned far more than he could have ever imagined between 1970 and 1979. Avodah was a transitional period that closed out that era—not just for Jews for Jesus, but for the one who was changing and developing along with the ministry he’d begun.

  * Some three decades later, this couple returned to the Bay Area to celebrate their wedding anniversary and visited Moishe in his home following one of his chemotherapy treatments. Moishe was thrilled to see them after so many years, and they seemed equally happy to have the opportunity to share fond memories with him.

  * Such notable pastors and scholars as Chuck Smith, Chuck Swindoll, and Walter Kaiser took part in Avodah.

  * These goals were not restricted to one period of Moishe’s ministry. He continued to feel the importance of bringing the staff together for times of retraining and strengthening community, though never for an extended period like Avodah. Seven years after Avodah, he gathered the staff for retraining at a retreat center in Northern California and then again in another seven years.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  If mistakes could sink our ship we would have gone down at the beginning.

  —MOISHE ROSEN

  This way, Moishe!” Jhan pointed to some small boats on the river. He then darted to the other side of the road before his boss could reply.

  It was a small town in Thailand, but even so, Moishe looked both ways to be sure it was safe to cross. He paused as a Vespa whizzed by. The riders, catching sight of Moishe, pulled off to the side of the road as they screeched the motor scooter to a halt. Two diminutive men quickly dismounted and came running back to Moishe. Smiling shyly, first one, then the other, reached out to rub the large, American tummy. They laughed—not derisively, but with delight—ran back to their scooter, and quickly rode away. Jhan, watching from across the street, stood shaking his head in disbelief. Moishe, hands aloft and both eyebrows raised, shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Who knows?”

  Once on the other side of the road, Moishe allowed himself to be steered by Jhan (or Moskowitz, as he was more commonly called) who negotiated a trip upriver to see one of the local sights.

  Moishe generally suffered from severe motion sickness on the open sea, but this little river ride proved quite pleasant. He stared at the scenery in wide-eyed wonder. “And it’s not just the place that is beautiful, but the people,” he commented. “They are not only outwardly attractive but so friendly.”

  “Well those guys who rubbed your belly certainly were friendly.”

  “I wonder what that was about?” Moishe’s expression was somewhere between thoughtful and bemused.

  “Well, you know how they say it’s good luck to rub the Buddha’s belly?”

  “You mean the laughing Buddha? Well, I know I’m fat, but do I look like the laughing Buddha to you?” He pulled his face into a caricature of a glower.

  Moskowitz laughed. “No, Moishe, I don’t think anyone could ever mistake that face for a laughing Buddha. But you’re probably the closest thing they’ve seen to those statues, you know?”

  Moishe shrugged his noncommittal response. He acted as though he didn’t care about his weight, but of course he did. He’d lost quite a bit in the early 70’s—perhaps a hundred pounds. But eventually, he’d regained all the weight he’d lost, and more.

  Before long, the small boat arrived at the dock and Jhan and Moishe clambered out.

  “This looks like a multipurpose river,” Moishe observed, looking up and down the shore.

  “No kidding. Those people are bathing, those guys are swimming, and that guy over there—what’s he doing? Ugh, I don’t want to know.” Jhan wrinkled his nose in disgust.

  “I wonder what they are cooking?” Moishe nodded his head to indicate people who were squatting next to small grills.

  “I dunno, Moishe, c’mon, we want to go that way.” He pointed to an elaborate structure in the distance. But Moishe was still focused on the barbeque.

  “Whatever it is, it smells pretty good.”

  Jhan sighed as his boss made his way to the closest grill. The owner smiled up at him. Moishe pointed to the meat on the grill, then to himself, held up the requisite number of fingers and said, “Two.”

  The man, still smiling, gave Moishe two portions of whatever it was in exchange for the bats Moishe pulled from his pocket.

  “Here,” he said, offering Jhan half the grilled meat.

  “C’mon Moishe, you’re not really gonna eat that.” But Jhan knew that he would.

  “Moskowitz, where’s your sense of adventure? Wasn’t it just yesterday that you rode an elephant?”

  “Yeah, well riding an elephant is one thing. Eating monkey guts is another.”

  “Monkey guts?” Moishe repeated scornfully. And he stuffed the mysterious piece of barbequed something into his mouth.

  “Are you crazy man? How can you eat that?”

  To which Moishe replied through a mouthful of BBQ, “If it won’t kill him,” (gesturing to a Thai man who was eating with obvious relish) “it won’t kill me.”

  Jhan watched with concern to see if the food would have any adverse effects. I
t didn’t.

  After their sightseeing excursion, they headed back to the hotel.

  “It’s so much cheaper to get a tailored suit here than back home,” Moishe commented. “I think I’ll get measured for some shirts and a couple suits at the hotel.”

  “No, no!” Jhan protested. “They’ll rip you off. Look, I found a place downtown where the guy’s making me shirts for five dollars each. It’s just a two-dollar ride downtown.”

  Soon they were in a taxi, heading for the tailor. It was a small shop. High above the bolts of material was a shelf and on it sat a picture of the king and queen of Thailand, as well as a small statue of Buddha, with a few pieces of fruit set by as an offering. This seemed standard in most Thai businesses.

  Moishe appreciated the people’s loyalty toward their royals, but the ubiquitous altars for Buddha made him uncomfortable. Nevertheless he approached the proprietor and smiled. “My friend tells me you’re making five-dollar shirts.”

  Horrified, the tailor looked at Moishe and said, “No, no, no, no!”

  “No? Are you telling me that you didn’t agree to make my friend shirts for that price?”

  “Yes, yes, for your friend, five dollars. For you, big man, I’m sorry, seven dollars and fifty cents.”

  “Oh, I see,” Moishe replied, realizing that a shirt for him would require considerably more fabric than Jhan’s. “Well, that’s still a very fair price.” The tailor smiled, obviously relieved, and Moishe ordered several items of clothing.

  When they left the shop, Moishe pointed to a tuk-tuk, “Want to try one of those?” he said. “It looks like it would be cooler than the taxi we took on the way here.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jhan agreed. The taxis were not air conditioned, and while the tuk-tuks had a roof overhead, they were pretty much open on the sides and back.