all others had elected to stay home. I was all but certain that the Rabbi would cancel the service. Why bother to go through an hour or more of prayer, chanting, reading of Torah, and delivering a sermon for one dutiful preadolescent? But Rabbi Herman went through the entire service. Afterward when I asked him why he had bothered to do so for a single young congregant, he responded simply and memorably, “God does not count the house.”
