What is a Complete Jew: Theology in Action

Keith Huber: great great seeing you

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Tony Caffey: Keith is married to Pat and they have one daughter Aaron and y'all live here in San Antonio Keith Huber one of the first people that I interacted with when I came to San Antonio about a year and a half ago and uh I guess I just want to say thanks thanks for taking an interest in me I'm your pastor and you've been attending church here at verse by verse but right off the bat when we started you know hanging out and spending time together having lunch together you shared your story about being a completed Jew which was really neat just hearing how the Lord um had led you to a place where you came to Faith In Jesus and that's a great place to start I think what what does that mean Keith to be a completed Jew

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Keith Huber: well I'm glad you're glad that I'm a completed you actually I'm really glad I completed you uh actually I was raised Jewish and I'm from New York originally and uh as as time went on I had several things that happened in my life that made me kind of question uh where I was in my relationship with God um to Define completed Jew the way I look at it it is going from the Hebrew Bible and then going into the New Testament or the Christian Bible if you will and carrying some of the Hebrew Bible into the Christian Bible and combining them both but ending up with believing and following Christ so that that's a simple definition but that's what it is

. um but as I as I was growing up in New York um my family we we kind of celebrated different you know Jewish holidays and things like that we did not go to Temple all the time um and you know the way I was brought up is in order to have any kind of formal prayer uh you you had to have ten men with you it's called a Minion Okay and uh and a reason I'm mentioning that because it has some effect on some of my decisions uh so you couldn't Pray by yourself or warning yeah

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Tony Caffey: no

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Keith Huber: I don't think anybody ever said you couldn't but I was always taught you needed 10 men present and it was a formal kind of prayer type type of thing um when I was about I guess ei

ght years old my mother died she had cancer and she uh she was probably one of the bravest people I knew they gave her five months and she lasted five years um and she it would never let anything stop her from taking care of myself and my sister but when she died uh in the Jewish religion the oldest son has to say a certain prayer called the mourinho's kaddish okay and uh I remember parts of it even today and my grandfather who was an orthodox Jew my father on my my grandfather on my father my mother's side excuse me uh would take me to Temple almost every day shortly after she died uh and and be part of the service and three times during the service those who were in mourning would have to stand up and recite this prayer an English Hebrew no Hebrew Hebrew and I mean there was English with it but you said it in Hebrew and um it was really starting to affect me and it was really depressing because every time I'd get up and bring back my mother's death to me and and we brought back also at the funeral uh I had to say it at the grave and you know you picture an eight or nine year old boy having to go through this it was really really gut-wrenching but um it made me start to think and uh even at that age my father put a stop to it because he just realized it was just he saw it was hurting me and it was not doing anything well for me and um I found myself praying at my bed by myself and I would end the prayer with in your name I mean I can remember that distinctly and that's a long time ago um and I you know I think when people say Well when did you become a Christian um I guess I can officially say it was in in February of 1969 as when I when I became a Christian and um but I really think the Holy Spirit started working on me when I was nine

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Tony Caffey: so who whose name were you thinking when you said in your name

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Keith Huber: God just God's name so generically yes just yes Sovereign authority of the universe exactly and um and you know as I as I moved along I'd find myself doing a lot of that prayer now part of the ritual again when my mother passed was uh the family sits does a thing called sitting shiva and that is uh again you have 10 men who come to the house and you all sit on these little stools and uh and and I guess in in ancient

 times uh they would cut a piece of your clothing to show that you're in mourning uh the more modern days they had a ribbon that they would cut and you'd wear this ribbon and uh and I was not considered a man then I was nine I wasn't 13

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Tony Caffey: right

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Keith Huber: so I didn't have to do that but everybody else did and uh men and uh and you know I just saw the the outpouring of of sadness and and it was uh it was really difficult for me so I I kept thinking to myself there has to be a better way I mean it has to be something that's more meaningful and more personal and that's when I started to pray I didn't make a big deal about it didn't tell anybody I was doing it but I did it and uh I did that for quite a while um if you want me to continue I can uh

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Tony Caffey: yeah

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Keith Huber: I finished high school let's say college

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Tony Caffey: yeah

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Keith Huber: we moved we moved well we moved my father met another person a woman and married stepmother and and she had two two girls so um we had myself my sister who was help raising me after I my mother passed and um and she was like five years older than I was and then uh my two stepsisters if you will yeah and then my mother and father or my stepmother and father had two more children a boy and a girl so now we had you know we had a mob scene we had four sisters and a brother I kind of lived in a nylon jungle where you know the nylons hanging all over the bathroom but anyway we moved uh to the suburbs out of New York City and um I started going to high school and it was always kind of searching you know I I just um it was it was strange I'd go to different churches with people but I know I always dated if I was dating dated uh somebody who was Jewish that's just part of the culture you just date someone who's Jewish and I think I dated one Christian girl and I thought my parents were going to you know go insane and die on a spot but um and nothing ever came of it but uh and then I went from that from uh high school I went to college and I went to Boston University and um that a very large Jewish population there several really nice temples and um one year uh young Kippur which is the high holy day it's the day of atonement it's a day when you're you're making up for all the sins that you have committed and because of that you don't eat uh yo

u only drink water if it's necessary you don't use money you don't watch TV you don't do any entertainment that kind of thing and some of the kids I knew in the dorm said you know there's this Temple down the street why don't we go there for for uh Yom Kippur and I said okay so we went down there and the service was begun and this is one of the few times I heard the service partially in English oh so at part of the service everybody stands up and reads out of the The Sitter which is the prayer book um asking for forgiveness for things you've done and is actually a list and I happen to look at the English side and I was you know I actually was upset because it was asking yeah there were things in there I did but there were a lot of things like uh theft and and you know coveting someone else's wife and all this other stuff that um I said you know I have enough that I have to ask for forgiveness for I don't need to ask the stuff I haven't done and I sat down oh and that and uh wasn't planned yeah because you must be standing up and and it wasn't planned it just I just sat down and uh that did not go over real big um and then uh as part at the end of the service uh they I guess they were planning a new building because I I wasn't a member of that Temple or anything but they were going to do a new brand new building and uh they asked for donations for the building and they passed a played around or something and I kept thinking to myself wait a minute we're not even supposed to be using money on Yom Kippur and they're asking for donations for the building so you know it just and maybe those are little things and they probably are but it just really reinforced my my feeling that I had to find something else and I did I did attend some other services other churches and stuff uh in Boston not just once just to see what it was like I would talk to some Christian friends and stuff um when I graduated college I went into the Air Force and uh got commissioned and went to Wichita Falls Texas and that's where I promised land right of Texas that's right I had no idea where it was people kept saying it was in a panhandle I didn't know anything about Texas other than San Antonio where I was went through basic training and everything um but we uh you know so I wasn't going to Wichita Falls Texas and when I went there I I realized what great people were up there I mean it was just really great people and um met some people who meant a lot to me one of them was a man by the name of Tom darling who actually ended up being my father-in-law did not know that at the time I don't even know he had a daughter um but he was very much involved with the you know with the city as he was he was in the oil business but he was uh you know he's chairman of the Air Force Association or president of the Air Force Association and he was chairman of the uh Chamber of Commerce military Affairs committee so because I was a public affairs officer I got got to know him and um really liked him he was a Christian met he and his wife and his wife his name was Eddie and she was a true true loving Christian she lived the Bible she really did and so I really liked them and I met Pat on base she was working on bass did not know who she was and um on our first date she gave me her testimony oh wow we were just talking I mean I didn't you know she didn't say I have to give you my testimony or anything uh it was just we were talking and I was telling her about just like I'm saying now about things that had happened to me and she and so she gave me her testimony of how she came to Christ and how much he means to her and as she talked she had a tear coming down her face and you know I was I really admired her because she's well she's really is smart and she's very practical but when I saw it hearing this I said there's got to be something there and that's where it's that's where the the formal part started so her when she's talking about you know the Lord she's talking about Jesus is these I'm you're familiar I'm sure with Christianity at this point and some of the core beliefs but um you know where were you in terms of your understanding with uh

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Tony Caffey: very mixed up

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Keith Huber: okay uh as a matter of fact you know just to go way back to my childhood the only church I ever saw whatever if you would was in my neighborhood and it was a church I was I happened to walk by it on the Sunday and people were screaming and yelling and they were speaking in tongues is what it was but they were screa

ming and yelling I'm saying whoa what is this that's crazy Christian yeah crazy Christians I don't want to be anything like that but anyway but Pat was showing me the very gentle side of it and it just went on for quite a while with discussion because I was really reaching and she knew I was trying to find something um I would bring Pat home from from a date and I would sit there and talk to her mother to one or two in the morning her mother was a night person uh she'd be up to three or four in the morning either studying the Bible or getting ready to teach Sunday school or watering plants whatever and um we would sit there and just talk and talk so uh Pat you know I kind of followed her lead and she took me she said you know why don't you come to church with me and you know you may you know because I was picturing what happened when I was young okay so we we did we went to church and her pastor was I don't know if you knew I know from Landrum level

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Tony Caffey: Landrum level

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Keith Huber: uh was a uh a phenomenal pastor phenomenal Pastor uh he would speak all over the country he was you know very Southern Baptist he'd pound on the podium you know things like that but pastored in Wichita Falls is

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Tony Caffey: yes First Baptist Church in Wichita Falls was a big church that about six thousand members

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Keith Huber: it was a big church and um Pat said you know maybe it would be good for you to meet Dr Lovell okay and and chat with him you know I mean and I'm saying okay this is the man who is up there doing his thing and uh we did we went and made an appointment went to visit him and I talked to him and told him my story just like I'm telling you and I was very surprised he was very quiet spoken um he gave me some books to read oh you know I I have to tell you I only remember the titles because we're talking you know 50 60 years 50 years ago um but he said I want you to read these and let's discuss them and then we we can just go from there you know no one's pressuring you to walk down the aisle to get baptized you just need to read this and you need to try to understand and I'll be here to answer questions and Pat will be available and you know Pat's mom will be available so that's fine so that's what I did and I'm going to say that was about I guess about five or si

x over four to five months we were doing this and um finally it started to sink in how important it was and we even went Pat's parents would go to church on Sunday morning and we would go Sunday night just so that it was just us it wasn't any obligation to her parents or anything like that so we would go Sunday night and and you know we would talk and and I learned a lot I really did and so uh at some point well in February of that year I uh I said I think I'm ready and I walked down the aisle and uh you know I was baptized that same day too late no no about I think a week or two later okay

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Tony Caffey: I think Landon wanted Dr Lovell wanted to make sure you know that I was sure what I was doing because that's that's kind of a big step oh totally yeah if you if you're Presbyterian you become a Baptist is one thing but if you're Jewish and become a Baptist that's a whole nother world

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Keith Huber: and um so that you know we we did that and um we were married that March now so it was like bam bam bam yeah but you know it's an interesting story there too because first of all I asked Pat I told Pat we were going to get married on a first date oh and went home and said Brave man what in the world did you do and and uh I just felt it it just came out and we ended up you know I think we each went on one or two other dates but we call each other when we got back to our respective apartments or whatever and um people would think I imagine that since I became a Christian uh in February we were married in March it was one of these well you become a Christian so you can get married and one of the things Pat told me and the reason we had some time between when I went down the aisle and when I was baptized she said if you're becoming a Christian to marry me we're not getting married

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Tony Caffey: good job Pat well done

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Keith Huber: and and I mean she just said it that to me she just looked me right in the eye and said it to me and I said well yeah I can understand that but that's not the reason so um you know so the marriage went through I you know a size story to that I told my parents you know I told them I'm getting married and when my mother died she left me her engagement ring and it was my father safe and I said Dad I want my the mom's engagement ring because I'm getting

 married he said oh well you know who are you getting married to and and I I kind of told them and I said you need to know also that I've become a Christian and the end was dead silence and he said I'll never forget he said do you know what this will do to your mother me and my stepmother and I said well Dad and no I don't um you know I can imagine but I don't and he said I'm not sure if we can come to the wedding um he said a little more forcibly than that but I'll be nice about it and I said Dad I'm a lieutenant in the Air Force I have a lot of responsibility I'm 20 I'm you know I guess I was 25. I'm 25 years old I can't select who I'm going to marry based on you all being happy about it so I'm getting married I would very much like you and and mom took you know and the kids to to come to the wedding yeah I'm not really not sure well I called my oldest sister the one who helped raise me and and you know told her about it and uh you had to know my sister Doris but she called my dad up and said Keith just talked to me I'm going to the wedding if you're not there you're not my father

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Tony Caffey: wow

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Keith Huber: so and I first thing I thought of oh Lord now you know so now I'm splitting up the family well they all came

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Tony Caffey: good

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Keith Huber: and they fell absolutely in love with Pat and especially her mother and father in fact they stayed a week extra when Pat and I went on a honeymoon to to be with them and you know so even you know no matter what it was uh when they would call I'd get two minutes and she'd get 15. so it was just one of those things so you know the good Lord was in on that there was a lot of prayer but the good Lord was certainly in on that

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Tony Caffey: well thank you Keith it's exciting to hear that story and how the Lord even from your prayers as a young child was starting to draw you to that place at age 25

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Keith Huber: yes

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Tony Caffey: so and the Lord has continued to work in your life you and Pat have been married for many years

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Keith Huber: 54 years last month 54

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Tony Caffey: and I know that you've been active here in San Antonio so I kind of want to Pivot and talk about that because you've had a pretty neat career here working in different locations specifically uh I want to just highlight uh your work with the he butt Foundation here in San Antonio you know HEB is a big company here right ba

sed out of San Antonio and you've had a role in helping um I guess the how would you say it that the uh philanthropical side of the the

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Keith Huber: well you know it really um no the grocery company itself is extremely philanthropical during World War One Howard Senior uh which was my boss's father who and he had he was instrumental in starting the company as it is now or he did start as it is now uh went into the Navy when he came out of the Navy he came to work for the grocery company and he took it over and he developed it and you know it took lots of chances and you know very gutsy moves uh to uh to to move the company forward and finally it took and they started doing well and doing better and they wanted to be able to give back to the community so they started a foundation and that was in the 30s that's what it was uh to to be able to give money to places that needed and um so they they developed that one of Mr Butt's seniors uh goals was he his big treat was when he was younger uh since they had no money um was to go out to someone's ranch or Friends Ranch during the summer and work on the ranch that was like a big treat to him being out there in the outdoors and so forth and so on and so he wanted to find a place where kids could go and so he and uh Mary Holdsworth but his wife um decided they wanted to buy some place that they can use for this type of program to bring kids out and so they could go camping especially inner city kids from anywhere they couldn't afford it that's fine it would go for free and so they bought the ranch which is it was called The Wolf Ranch then up about I think it's about 50 miles from Kerrville uh and bought the ranch and hoped as Miss butt senior said or Mary Holdsworth but said she was hoping to be able to have maybe 100 kids a year go go camping just to tell you how they've developed in the last few years they've had over 24 000 kids go camping for free yeah in their Camp so that was the basis of the foundation um when my boss Howard butt Jr became of age he was very much involved with his beliefs in Christianity and he went to Baylor um he uh wanted to become a pastor of some kind but of course he was in the family so he became a member of the company um he was uh he was a vice pres

ident and became eventually Vice chairman of the board uh but his his love was still in the Lord so what he would do is he would work all week long and on weekends he would go around the country uh doing revivals and I mean all over the country and when he when he'd come back his wife Barbara Dan would meet him at the airport and give have a change of clothes and he'd go right to work at the company

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Tony Caffey: High motor huh

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Keith Huber: High motor high motor and how did you get connected with Howard and then how did your relationship well development interesting story um I was working at Methodist Healthcare uh at at the company here in San Antonio yes and um we uh I as one of my jobs I was I was vice president for communications for the system so um one of my jobs was to relate with the community obviously and I had a dual purpose here because I was going to Trinity Baptist Church at the time and Buckner Fanning was the pastor and he announced that Billy Graham was coming to town to do a Revival and what year was this that gosh that had to be late 79 80 and okay

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Tony Caffey: maybe a little later than that okay

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Keith Huber: in that time frame and um I was the Lord kind of led me to think well you know I may want to help with this so I put my name in as a volunteer I said I'll do anything oh sure I don't care and again showing you how the Lord Works uh the person who was the chairman of all this was the president of the Baptist Health System and I knew him because of working with Methodist Healthcare and um I have received a call from him one night and he said um are you interested in working with the communications committee radio television people whatever and I said well yeah that's what I do for a living and he said um why don't you come to this meeting and I went to the meeting and um thought okay I'll sign up I'll volunteer for that I'll be one of the committee people and help and as it turned out he called me again and said you know we've been interviewing all these people to be chair of that committee and none of them really fit the mold of what we want um he said would you be interested in applying for it and I said well if it you know I prayed about it and said yeah if that's what you want and I did and they did so I became chair of that organization

 which really had a one-year commitment to it now that didn't excuse you from work that just said you had a one-year commitment to it so I spoke to my CEO and he was very gracious about it and said yeah you know as long as you can do your job and everything that's fine I encourage you to do it so we did and we you know plan things did things uh Mr Graham's uh PR person from a firm his name was Larry Ross he's up in Dallas and Larry came to town and we got to be good friends and you know I set up meetings with him with the media and we did all those things and that lasted a year getting all that ready when we finally were getting close uh Mr Graham came to town and um we uh you know we got to meet him at a function and and that was great we one of the things you do is have a press conference yeah and he meets with the media it's usually on the Thursday before no the Tuesday start on Thursday so the Tuesday before the actual Revival starts and uh I came in to you know fully prepared and and you know it was I mean you have probably a hundred media Outlets there but some of it is pre-planned so you so it gets organized you don't go go crazy with all kinds of weird questions and stuff so you have some of the folks who you know who follow him around who we were going to select so I was meeting with the chairman of the thing and he said uh would you uh he said would you mind meeting with Mr Graham and Bobby they call him Mr Graham I have to tell you this is his insistence my pastor my pastor not doctor he his Doctorate is an honorary doctorate and he refuses to use that as a title so he uses Mr Graham and some people call him Reverend Graham and and that type of thing because he has you know he has been with some Churches but um he uh anyway so I walked in and the first thing he said to me was uh forgive me for not standing up but I hurt my back a while back and I and I said Tony don't worry about it so we shook hands we sat down and he said uh tell me about yourself you know how did you come to Christ so I told him I'm a completed Jew yeah I did I told him that and and I imagine it wasn't as long as this but it was about 15 minutes 20 minutes because he kept asking questions yeah and then he said uh would you mind praying with me and I said of course not you know so we we prayed and you know it just it was just magic it was magic time as a matter of fact it was Soul magic just before we went into the press conference I went to a pay phone we had pay phones in uh in in at the arena and I and I called Pat and I said I just gave my testimony to Billy Graham and which is one of my well one of the highlights of my life obviously so we we went through the press conference couldn't tell you a detail about the press conference I was such a fall I went through the press conference we went through all of the events um work I worked on the floor worked with the media on the floor um you know we're directing them along with Larry Ross his person anyway this went on for the three days it was just magical just absolutely magical no one got any sleep but it was absolutely magical and went through all that and then he left and I'm going to say about six months later I received a phone call from a Headhunter and I was still working at Methodist Healthcare uh and he said your name was given to us because an unknown organization uh I can't tell you what he said what he said was I can't tell you the name of the organization but it's a not pro non-profit christian-based organization and they're looking for somebody to begin or start a Communications office would you be interested in a kind of piqued my interest a little bit because I gotten calls before but for some reason this really piqued my interest and said well I guess so uh what can you tell me you know and he said well they're outside of San Antonio but uh you know the per the people are well known and he just went through some basic stuff I said what do I need to do and he said you need to go through some testing about uh your personality testing and and then he said um and an interview a telephone interview so I said all right isn't all right I told my boss you know the CEO what I was doing and he said that's fine it doesn't hurt to do those things and uh went through it uh did the testing the interview was supposed to take 15 minutes uh unfortunately I was there for 45 it was done on by phone and um and then I was notified and they said Well we'd like you to interview with this organization and I said okay do you want to give me a hint of who this organization is and they said it's the uh he butt foundation and laity Lodge now we had been going to Lady Lodge through our church oh okay

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Tony Caffey: so uh yeah I was familiar with it

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Keith Huber: we had gone there but at least once a year and I said fine and they said um your uh what do I need to do and they said well your first interview is going to be at Mr Butt's house Howard butt JR's house uh with some of the staff said okay and they gave me time and date and I got there and uh sat in one of the chairs in the library and Mr Butt came in and barbered him Mrs Butt came in and I think their vice president and about I think David Rogers his son-in-law that they they all came in and we sat and we chatted and it was really an inspiring time it was exciting time for me actually and they said okay the next thing you're going to do is you need to go up to their offices in Kerrville were you willing to do that yeah I was willing to do that went up there and and talk to them for a while I mean while they were doing a national search uh which which I knew which was fine I mean I just kind of left it up to the Lord I mean I I was doing what I was supposed to do and if it worked out that's what he wanted me to do if it didn't work out that's what he wanted me to do so we you know just went through all these different things and um I was notified you know I don't know it took about eight weeks of these interviews and then I was notified saying that uh we are interested in bringing you on board so I you know in my mind I had to think about several things um one was um I was a vice president at Methodist Healthcare System and I was going to be a director at the foundation and I'm saying well that's going backwards a little bit but okay that's not a big deal um they at first they wanted me to move to Kerrville I would have to move to Kerrville because the offices are there and because that's where the camps are outside of Kerrville you know so you're going to be going all those places and I said I don't think I can do that because I'm on boards and whatever stuff here I'm involved with the other community things here and and I said but I'll be willing to commute uh which I think

 shocked everybody including me um because that's about a 55 minute drive each way yeah it's a good way uh once again the Lord interceded and they said that'd be okay which really worked out for everybody's benefit because I spent a lot of time with Mr Mrs Butt at their house uh traveled with them so if I was in Kerrville I'd have to drive back to do those things and um I I maintained some of these other boards and stuff I was with and because of major meteor out media Outlets were here in town not in Kerrville so we agreed I would do that and the blessing out of that besides being able to work with everybody was that um those that one hour going up and back from Kerrville I was always driving against traffic so traffic was always going the opposite direction I used that time I could pray uh I could listen to radio at that time make phone calls I mean whatever I had to do while I was driving because it got to be a habit after a while so I was driving so I was doing about 110 miles a day but it was a blessing to do that

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Tony Caffey: how long did you work with the foundation

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Keith Huber: I worked with them for about uh 11 years okay um one of one of the big highlights for that was um every two years a foundation sponsored a thing called the late Lodge Forum which was designed for Fortune 500 CEOs board chairman board members of national companies to talk about faith at work because that was Howard's goal in life is to expose everybody with the concept of Faith at work and um in order to do the Howard wrote has written several books which was one of the jobs I had to help

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Tony Caffey: just to clarify Howard is this Howard Junior of the founders of

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Keith Huber: yes yes he was the son he was the one that would work during the week and then weekends go and do revivals um I don't think people really know that HEB has that history yeah and and they really are separate you know the family is very gracious about it they do keep them very separate and the the grocery company has always supported the foundation but they never make a connection to where gee look what we're doing kind of thing that's just not the that the personality of either the company or the foundation so everybody's proud of being part of the family that family but not necessarily connecting them and maki

ng one one individual music and it's one of the largest privately owned companies still in the country that existence in the country