Mitch Albom’s Have a Little Faith is an inspirational and enjoyable read.   It is the true story of how the author’s eight-year back-and-forth journey from Detroit, where he now lives and works as a sportswriter, to the home of his youth in New Jersey, enables him to spend time learning about the rabbi in whose synagogue he grew up.

Rabbi Albert Lewis, eighty-two years old, asks Mitch to write and deliver his eulogy.  As he grows closer to the rabbi of his youth, gaining a mature respect and love for the rabbi, he encounters a black minister who is as unorthodox in his approach to Christianity as Mitch is in his Judaism.  Pastor Henry Covington has put his criminal past behind him to assist the homeless and others like himself before he became a born-again Christian.  Mitch becomes instrumental in helping Henry achieve his goals.  He learns that with just “a little faith,” whether it is Christian or Jewish—or perhaps any faith—much is possible.

The book is at times very touching and engrossing, at times humorous and will leave you in stitches; but you will leave with a renewed faith in your own religion.  Albom makes no distinction between religions, but his nonfiction work attests to a deep respect for one’s personal choice.

ISBN:  978-0-7868-6872-8

Reviewed by Lee L. Peoples