Every year on Yom Kippur, Jews seek atonement from God and ask people to forgive them for the wrongs they’ve done, but what if someone’s life depended on righting your biggest wrong?
My next novel “The Rabbi and the Condemned” takes the theme of atonement to death row, but this isn’t like any prison on Earth.
Here’s the debut of the book jacket blurb from my novel, which will be released later this year by Silver Leaf Books.
For 31 years Rabbi Samuel Rabinowitz has known Jameer Pace was innocent of murder and he has the bloody t-shirt to prove it. With his bully of a brother now dead, he finally hopes to tell the inmate in person before setting him free. But in 2053, Florida’s death row is Stark Station in the asteroid belt, where the condemned inmates are forced on deadly missions to mine radioactive rocks.
The radiation weakening him by the day, Pace doesn’t have much time left. Rabinowitz quickly realizes that achieving redemption would come at a terrible cost. Setting Pace free would have harsh repercussions for the rabbi, especially from the station’s vindictive warden. Yet, he can live no longer with the horrible secret. Upping the stakes, Rabinowitz tells a journalist that Pace is innocent and shines the spotlight on the abusive practices in Stark Station.
The more Rabinowitz sees how Pace has suffered, the harder it becomes to ask for forgiveness. With a near-suicidal mission on deck for the inmates, the rabbi’s gates of atonement may close forever.
This will be my fourth novel with Silver Leaf Books, but it’s the first one where a character has religion as a primary motivation. Asking for forgiveness is hard. Not only does it require humility, it often means making yourself vulnerable. In this story, Rabinowitz doesn’t have anyone to protect him on Stark Station. The warden has final say over everything, and anyone who opposes him can take a walk out the airlock.
Why set my death row novel in the asteroid belt? Besides having cool scenes with inmates in space suites bouncing across space rocks with sharp drilling equipment, it enhances the urgency of freeing the inmate. Pace is withering away from radiation exposure, and any mission could kill him.
And, of course, a Shawshank Redemption moment of tunneling to freedom is out of the question.
But there are still tough questions for Pace. Even if he could return to Earth a free man, what’s the point when his body has been ravaged beyond repair? How can a man who has been devastated by the system and spent most of his life wrongly imprisoned find a purpose in the rest of his days? That’s where faith comes in. The rabbi must liberate Pace from both death row and his prison of hopelessness.
Obtaining atonement and asking for forgiveness doesn’t have to wait for Yom Kippur, and it’s not too late if you didn’t seek them this year, or the last 31 years. Whether you’re Jewish or not, there’s never a wrong time to set things right.
Stay tuned for the official release date for “The Rabbi and the Condemned” and a schedule of speaking appearances.
