The Story of Richard Gurinsky’s Book
H. Richard Gurinsky wrote
only one book, which received little fanfare.
He didn’t live to see its publication.
Yet his book, with the
unpretentious name, Learn Well This
Tablet, is sure to garner increased recognition with the passage of time. Consisting of a phrase-by-phrase study of the
Tablet of Ahmad – one of the most widely used Writings of Bahá’u’lláh – Learn Well This Tablet offers a wealth of insights and practical relevance.
For Bahá’í
readers in the West, the two primary sources of information on the Tablet of
Ahmad have been ‘Abu’l-Qásim Faizí’s article, “A Flame of Fire,” first
published in The Bahá’í News in 1967,
and Adib Taherzadeh’s 1977 overview in The
Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, Volume 2.
Richard Gurinsky drew on these two excellent sources and,
moreover, decades of prayers, fact gathering, relentless cross-referencing with
the Bahá’í sacred Writings and the Qur'an -- turning over ideas, asking questions, and
discussing the translation, (from the original Arabic into English), of various
words and concepts in the Tablet of Ahmad. The result is that Gurinsky has left
us a work of transcendence that is more than a book of commentary. With its constant interspersion of the
Creative Word and its brief focused sections, could it not be used as a
supplemental daybook for meditation?
With its fearless survey of covenantal fundamentals, factual integrity
and broad vision, is it an inspired textbook?
Parts of the book are so taken with the story of the mystic relationship
between the revealer of the Tablet of Ahmad, Bahá’u’lláh, and its recipient,
Mírzá Ahmad Yazdí, that it captivates the reader like a taut mystery thriller.
Richard Gurinsky’s story
is fascinating in its own right. He grew up suffering from a rare disorder that
impaired his vision, hearing, and kidney function. Being born to a Jewish family and raised on Long Island, New
York, he
attended Hebrew school on weekends, learning prayers and songs in Hebrew. He went on to attend Swarthmore College and Northwestern University. In 1970 he became a
Christian. The following year, in the precincts of the Bahá’í House of Worship
in Wilmette, Illinois, he discovered and enrolled in the Bahá’í Faith
and promptly began teaching the Faith.
In 1972 he attained his
Master’s degree in Materials Science, (applied physics), at the age of 27. Later that same year he married Margaret
Loring Giebitz, and he and his bride, who had been a Bahá’í just four months,
left New York to homefront pioneer on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation
in New Mexico.
Lacking permanent
employment and responding to the need there, Richard went back to college to gain
his teaching credential. He garnered the title “Education Specialist” from New Mexico State University in 1974 and began teaching at the Mescalero Elementary School. Also
around this time, he and Margaret assumed care of an Indian baby with fetal
alcohol syndrome, (they later legally adopted this little boy), who had been
brought to their dwelling “for the weekend” by a social worker.
During the ten years they
lived on the reservation, Margaret gave birth to two of the three children born
to them, with the two oldest of the four children going on to start school
there.
Life on the reservation
was difficult, but from his earliest days as a Bahá’í, Richard had developed a
deep reliance upon prayer and an attachment to the Tablet of Ahmad in
particular. The couple was also
sustained by their activity and travels as members of the District Teaching
Committee and streams of loving encouragement that flowed from cohorts Richard
and Pauline Hoff and Bobby and Annie Mitchell.
After Richard Gurinsky
and his family moved to nearby Alamogordo
in 1982, they continued with the Indian teaching work and Bahá’í service. Meanwhile, in 1984 Richard began working at New
Mexico State University—Alamogordo,
where he became an assistant professor of physics and mathematics. In 1989 the students elected Richard to the
school’s highest faculty honor for his teaching excellence.
In the early 1990’s,
Richard was thrilled to take part in summer teaching trips to Russia
for three consecutive years as a member of the Marion Jack Teaching Project.
In 1993 Richard and
Margaret separated and, in the next year, were divorced.
At Bahá’í Unit Convention
in 1996 he met Linda Kehoe and subsequently remarried. By this time, his fragile health had
deteriorated and he required peritoneal dialysis multiple times daily. Using special equipment for the visually
impaired, he was able to perform this procedure independently at home.
Through all of these
changes he continued to study, research and meditate on the Tablet of
Ahmad. His first version of a book on
the subject was strictly a compilation of quotations from the Bahá’í
Writings. However, Brent Poirier, a
trusted friend, pointed out that readers would require help in connecting the
quotations with understanding the Tablet of Ahmad. Once Richard was reconciled to the
distinction between offering insights and information for consideration, as
opposed to presenting one’s own thoughts as authoritative, the book began to
assume its current form.
For the last two years of
his life Richard was legally blind.
However, with the help of Linda, who read the drafts aloud to him, he
continued with increased urgency to press on with his work on Learn Well This Tablet. When the New Mexico Commission for the Blind
was able to provide voice recognition software, it enabled him to work
independently and was a tremendous boost toward completing the project.
On April 5, 1999, Richard sent his manuscript – the product of
hours and hours of consultation and innumerable rewrites – to the publisher for
the third and final time. The following
day, he received a phone call informing him that, at last, he was to travel to Dallas, Texas for a kidney transplant. He received the
transplant the next day, on April 7th.
While still in the hospital, he was able to sign the book contract with
George Ronald, Publisher. He returned
home to New
Mexico on
May 25. Richard Gurinsky died a month
later on June 24, 1999. Learn Well This Tablet was published the
following year.
Among the speakers at his
funeral was a longtime friend, Meredith Begay, a Mescalero Apache who was the
first of her tribe to embrace the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. In a gesture of the highest respect, she
presented a beautiful Indian blanket that was draped over Richard’s coffin and
buried with him.
*****
When we hold Richard
Gurinsky’s book in our hands, it is obvious that such a book should have been
written. What is not obvious – in common
patterns of mortal thought – is that a mathematician of Russian Jewish descent
from New York with physical disabilities, already living a life
of service in the desert, should make the sacrifice for which the writing of a
worthy study of the Tablet of Ahmad called.
Richard didn’t consider it a sacrifice.
It is here that we turn to the overarching universality
and power of the Tablet of Ahmad itself.
The original Tablet, written in small fine Arabic script in
Bahá’u’lláh’s own hand, is on a rectangle of thick, now discolored, paper of
less than 4 x 6 inches, with a slight ink smear on it. It is about the size of a medium-large
postcard we would send nowadays. Yet,
the world will come to recognize it as among the single most potent and
precious messages in religious history.
The excerpt below from Learn
Well This Tablet, which follows an account of Ahmad’s life in Chapter 1 and
a meditation on the meaning of Ahmad’s heroic life in Chapter 2, constitutes
half of the third chapter of Learn Well
This Tablet. This is one of many
passages that refer to the effect the Tablet of Ahmad had on its initial recipient:
Several features of Ahmad’s story
merit our attention. Foremost among them
is Ahmad’s obedience to the teaching mission Bahá’u’lláh entrusted to him. Ahmad tells us he studied his Tablet until he
discovered its purpose and once he found out what Bahá’u’lláh was calling him
to do, he immediately arose to carry out the bidding of his Lord. This is even
more significant considering that Ahmad could no longer bear being separated
from Bahá’u’lláh at the time he received this Tablet. Ahmad’s decision to give up his intention to
visit Bahá’u’lláh and [instead] return to Persia
to teach suggests that within this Tablet Bahá’u’lláh placed a great
power. Such was this power that it also
enabled Ahmad to carry out his arduous teaching mission for the rest of his
long life.
Another aspect of this story is
Ahmad’s age and the very great distances he walked. Ahmad was not a young man when he decided to
leave Baghdád and visit Bahá’u’lláh.
Since Ahmad was born about 1805 and he received the Tablet in 1865 or thereabouts,
we know that Ahmad was about 60 years old when Bahá’u’lláh sent the Tablet to
him. Ahmad had just walked the entire
distance from Baghdád to Constantinople – more
than 1100 miles or 1700 kilometres – when he received this Tablet. Adrianople is another
160 miles, 260 kilometres, from Constantinople. However, Ahmad did not choose this easier
path. Instead, he directed his steps to Persia. From Constantinople,
Ahmad walked another 1400 miles, 2240 kilometres, to reach his
destination. Such a feat is almost
unimaginable today, although, of course, it was more common in the 19th
century. Yet once he arrived in Persia,
Ahmad did not rest. He continued walking
around the country, teaching the Bábís.
Gurinsky goes on in Chapter 5 to enumerate twenty themes
“that appear to be included in the Tablet of Ahmad.” He states point blank: “To study this Tablet
is to undertake a concise course in the fundamental verities of the Bahá’í
Faith.” He then confirms and illustrates
this statement throughout the rest of the book.
Learn Well This
Tablet is replete with scholarly analysis. (See especially the book’s
extensive footnotes and the learned introduction by Todd Lawson, which include
a survey of the Islamic roots of the Tablet of Ahmad.) However, do not think that it lacks in warmth
or practicality. Consider this example
of application for the individual from page 280:
In the Tablet of Ahmad
Bahá’u’lláh assures us that ‘God will dispel his sadness, solve his
difficulties, and remove his afflictions’.
In this verse He gives us three specific promises of divine
assistance. The order and sequence of
these three promises may be particularly significant. He may be suggesting that God leads us
through a spiritual process, a series of steps in helping us overcome
problems. If this is so, then He says
the initial step is for God to help us dispel
our sadness. Next He will help us solve our difficulties and finally He
will assist us to remove our
afflictions. Bahá’u’lláh appears to be
suggesting a specific approach to spiritual problem-solving.
This passage suggests that
Bahá’u’lláh is telling us that we must first gain control over our own emotions
and mental state. This frees us to
figure out what the real problem is and take appropriate action.
Here is a sample of the book’s personal tone, from its
Epilogue:
A particular feature of this
Tablet is its call to Ahmad. ‘Ahmad’
derives from the Arabic verb ‘to praise’, ‘to exalt’ and is translated ‘most
praiseworthy’. So when Bahá’u’lláh calls
out ‘O Ahmad!’ He is addressing Ahmad of Yazd, for whom the Tablet was
revealed, and, at the same time, each one of us.
‘O Ahmad’ may be understood as an
appeal to the person reading the Tablet, meaning “O thou who desires to be most
praiseworthy in the sight of God’. For
example, when Bahá’u’lláh says ‘O Ahmad! Bear thou witness that he is God’, He
may be telling us that if we desire to be most praiseworthy in the sight of
God, then we must bear witness in our
own lives to the fact that ‘there is no God but Him’. Similarly, when He calls out ‘O Ahmad! Forget
not my bounties while I am absent’, He may be telling us that if we truly want
to be most praiseworthy in His sight, then we must never forget how much He
loves us and cares for us. We must also
never forget His bounties to us and how He is ever ready and willing to pour
His grace upon us. And finally, when He
counsels ‘Learn well this Tablet, O Ahmad’, He may be counseling each one of us
to read and study this Tablet regularly so that we, too, like Ahmad before us,
may find out what our Lord desires of us.
In a very real sense each one of
us is an Ahmad…
If Learn Well This
Tablet: A Commentary on the Tablet of Ahmad, is reprinted, as it richly
deserves to be, perhaps the following points will be considered for future editions:
- The Introduction to the book needs some
corrections – it currently does not correlate with the chapter numbers in the
published version. On page xvii Todd
Lawson refers to a ‘discussion of the “path of God” in chapter 48 and “witness”
in Chapter 46.’ However, the “path of
God” is actually discussed in chapter 47.
The reference to “witness” may refer to the discussion in chapters 34,
35, and 36. Page xix of the Introduction
refers to a discussion of the Nightingale of Paradise in chapter 7. However, this discussion takes place in
chapter 8.
- On page 8 of the book, one finds the following
passing reference: “In the final, untranslated, paragraph of this Tablet,
Bahá’u’lláh intimates to Ahmad that he should return to Baghdád.” An English translation of this passage of the
Tablet of Ahmad, even a provisional one, would prove of interest.
- Many readers of the book have no doubt looked
for the complete text of the Tablet of Ahmad in contiguous form, expecting it
to be included within the covers of Learn
Well This Tablet.
These considerations aside, the excellence of Learn
Well This Tablet reflects the caring and humility of Richard Gurinsky. The opinions and exegesis he shares are
invariably coupled with qualifying terms and expressions such as “this may
be,” “this appears to,” “this suggests,”
“it is possible,” “it seems that,” “if this is so,” “in one sense,” “in another
sense,” “on one level,” “on another level” “one way of looking at this…” As one
of Richard’s friends interviewed for this article put it, he had “a loving
tenderness with the Word.”
Whether in independent study, study circles, or deepening
classes, individuals around the world will continue for years to come to engage
with the reverential exploration of the Tablet of Ahmad found in Learn Well This Tablet. This ever-expanding readership will confirm
the aptness of a line inscribed on the gravestone of Richard Gurinsky:
BELOVED SERVANT OF
BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
