Shabbat is a precious oasis after six fast-moving, multitasking days. Leading Friday-night services as the senior rabbi at Central Synagogue in Manhattan never feels like work; it fills me with a buoyant Sabbath spirit. The rest of my Shabbat includes lively meals with friends and family that linger until sundown. Shabbat is a sacred luxury; it releases me from errands, email, and exercise, and gives me the freedom of knowing that there is nothing else I should be doing beyond communing with people I love.

But one Saturday morning—January 15, 2022—nothing went as usual. I had broken my no-phone rule to check on my parents; my father had COVID, and my mother was worried. As I listened to Dad catalog his symptoms, a call came in from a Texas number I didn’t recognize.

At first I ignored the call, assuming that whoever it was could wait. But my phone transcribes the first part of any voice message, and when I glanced at the screen, the words unspooling were hard to believe: Rabbi. Gunman. Says he has bombs.

“JACOB!” I yelled to my husband. He came running. I hung up on my parents and played the voicemail: “This is Rabbi Charlie Cytron‑Walker. I am the rabbi of Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. This is not a joke. There is an actual gunman here and he wants to speak to you. Will you please call us back at this number?” He repeated: “This is not a joke.”

I did not know the rabbi, but a quick internet search revealed that he had graduated from the same seminary as I had, a few years after me, and was indeed leading a congregation in Colleyville. The news said nothing about trouble at a Dallas‑area synagogue.

This article was excerpted from Angela Buchdahl’s forthcoming memoir, Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging.

It felt too surreal to be true, but I called the head of security at my synagogue; he urged me to call back the Texas number and said he would alert our security partners.

Jacob stood beside me as a second set of ears, and called 911 at the same time. On my third try, someone picked up in Texas. “Hello, this is Rabbi Charlie Cytron‑Walker.”

“This is Angela Buchdahl returning your call. Are you okay?” I asked, feeling foolish for even asking.

“Not really,” he said. “There is a gunman here holding four of us hostage. He wants to talk to you. Would you please speak with him?”

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The gunman’s voice came on: taut and agitated, with a cadence that lurched from overwrought to coolly detached. He issued a chilling warning: “You should know: I love death more than you love life. Do you hear that?” He repeated that phrase many times on the call: “I love death more than you love life.”

He told me he’d been born in Pakistan, grown up in England, and traveled to Texas on a mission. “You are an influential rabbi,” he said. “I need you to use your influence and do as I say.” He’d been searching for the chief rabbi of Ame