My granddaughter Mia, who had just turned four, overheard me talking on the phone. Someone had drunkenly fallen asleep at the top of the outside steps leading down to our church’s shelter entrance.

There is a piece of Jewish lore about a group of Jews praying in a synagogue. The setting is Eastern Europe during a time of great antisemitism. On Rosh Hashana, as the Jews take out the Torah and ...