One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross

by Harry Kemelman

  “How did it go?”

  “Oh, fine. Without a hitch. He’d had the cantor record his haftarah on a tape, and he played it over and over. I have the room next to him at the hotel, and I could hear it and him repeating it sentence by sentence, the night before. At the Wall, he choked up at one point, but someone nearby whispered the word and he went on. Then afterward back at the hotel, there were lots of high jinks. ‘How does it feel to be a man, Barney?’ That sort of thing. And several of the fellows managed to get hold of some of those old-fashioned fountain pens. He must have got half a dozen of them. I gather that used to be the usual present to a Bar Mitzvah boy. Before my time, but I’d heard of it. And Sophie Katz presented him with a prayer book in white leatherette on behalf of the Sisterhood, and I presented him with a matching Bible, as we do to all the Bar Mitzvah boys. And then afterward we toasted him with champagne—Israeli champagne, but nevertheless champagne. I wish you had been there.”

  “So that I could have made my usual speech to Bar Mitzvahs about his now being responsible for his actions?”

  “No-o, but to show them that you were part of them, that they were your people. I can’t understand why you were determined not to. It’s not such a terribly long walk.”

  “Because it was foolish. I don’t mind foolishness as such. It’s even encouraged sometimes—on Purim, for example. But—”

  “But you’re his rabbi.”

  “Sure, and I was performing my rabbinical function.”

  “By not going?”

  “That’s right. In America, the rabbi is rarely if ever permitted to perform his traditional functions of sitting in judgment on civil cases brought before him, or of rendering a decision on a halachic matter. The one function that he can and that his congregation expects him to perform is to act as teacher and guide in maintaining the tenets of the Jewish tradition, and to keep them from straying from the traditional path. Now in our tradition, a boy becomes a man—that is, an adult—at thirteen rather than at eighteen, as in secular society. As a man, he is presumed responsible for his actions; he can give testimony in a law court; he can sign a contract; and he can serve as one of the ten required for a minyan. That’s all there is to it, although we ceremonialize it by having him take part in a religious service. If there is no ceremony, he is still Bar Mitzvah simply by having reached thirteen, the age of maturity.

  “As teacher and guide in the tradition, isn’t it my function to try to prevent a member of the congregation from perverting this halachic rule to something else, to a kind of confirmation, as in the Reform Synagogue? If he had come to me I would have tried to explain it to him, but since he didn’t, I could only disassociate myself from the action. And that’s what I did.”

  “Yes, but in doing so, you antagonized some powerful people in our congregation. They’ve got it all mixed up, your failure to come to the Wall this morning, not showing up at B.B.’s party later, and now the business with the Goodman boy. You’ve generated hostility, and that doesn’t do the congregation any good, and it doesn’t do you any good. Your contract comes up for renewal—it was you who insisted on an annual review of your stewardship—and they might use the occasion to express their feelings by voting against you. This business with Barney might blow over, but I hate to think what would happen if the Goodman boy goes to jail.”

  “Why, what’s his situation got to do with mine?”

  “David, David, for a smart guy you’ve got some of the damndest blind spots. In fact, it has nothing to do with it. And his folks aren’t even members of our congregation. But our people shop with them, and talk with them as they stand around waiting their turn at the deli counter. People are always happy to hear of anything reprehensible of someone in authority. It makes them feel good about themselves. It doesn’t have to be anything specific, you understand. Just a suggestion of something. Now you did what anyone was apt to do. The police came to you and asked you to identify a man from a photo because he came from your hometown. You couldn’t, so you suggested someone else they might see who was familiar with the town. That’s all. But if that someone else gets into trouble as a result, you’re going to be blamed for it, maybe not directly in so many words. No one is going to accuse you directly. But they’ll think it, or feel it. Look, I really think it’s important that you go on that walk with us tomorrow.”

  When Miriam and Gittel came home, the rabbi told them about Bergson’s visit, and after Gittel had gone to bed and he was alone with Miriam, he amplified his account by telling her of Bergson’s gloomy outlook.

  “Are you worried, David?” she asked.

  “No-o, not really. I think Al Bergson is exaggerating the situation.” Then quite suddenly, he was exasperated. “If the Board refuses to renew my contract because I didn’t attend Barney’s phony Bar Mitzvah, or because I did what any one of them would have done on the Goodman boy, then maybe I ought to look around for another congregation.”

  “You’ve had trouble with the Board before, David,” Miriam observed, “and you’ve fought it. Why would you give up now?”

  “This is different. It was always a matter of principle, of something I was strongly opposed to, or some action I had taken that they objected to, and it was the principle I was fighting. This is just a matter of popularity. I know I’m not particularly well liked. I suppose I don’t have the warm personality that makes for easy friendship. Well, I don’t care What I want is not love from the congregation, but respect. And if I do all the silly things that people would like me to do, I wouldn’t even have my own respect.”

  “Yes, I understand,” she said. “You’re really bothered about young Goodman.”

  Startled, he stared at her. Then with a sheepish smile, he said, “Well, I can’t believe he actually murdered the man over some old quarrel. I’ve seen him twice, and I wasn’t particularly taken with him. I certainly don’t feel in any sense responsible, and still—”

  “You’re probably thinking of his parents,” she said matter-of-factly. “If anything happened to him, they’d never forgive themselves for having asked you to look him up.”

  34

  Many, perhaps most, of his congregation did not normally see their rabbi except on the New Year, Rosh Hashonah, and the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, when he sat in his traditional place beside the Ark, and even the more devout were apt to see him only when he presided at the Friday Evening Services, which normally were suspended during the summer months. So Rabbi Small did not interpret the coolness with which he was greeted when he met them at the King David as being critical of his behavior.

  “Hello, Rabbi. Feeling better? Glad you could make it,” was the usual form of greeting. From which he concluded that Al Bergson had let it be known that he had been ill, presumably as explanation for his failure to appear at Barney Berkowitz’s Bar Mitzvah. Barney himself was most solicitous. “These summer colds, they can develop into something serious, Rabbi.” And because to deny that he had been sick would give the lie to Al Bergson, he merely smiled and nodded.

  But he did express his annoyance to Bergson when they were seated together on the bus that took them from the King David to Jaffa Gate in the Old City, where the walk was to begin.

  Bergson was not at all abashed. “Sometimes, David, a man has to be protected against himself,” he said. “As president of the congregation, I’m not going to let a split develop over something as silly as B.B.’s Bar Mitzvah. No matter what you think, a lot of the guys have the idea that it is a religious ceremony that every Jew has to undergo, even women. Mollie Berkowitz was going to do it, too, until she heard if they did it at the Wall, there was no service on the woman’s side. It has become a tradition, and there’s no accounting for traditions. Look at all those youngsters, and older men, too, who walk around with those little crocheted yarmulkes held in place with a bobby pin. Try telling them that there is no commandment that dictates it. As far as they’re concerned, it indicates that they are observant. It has become a tradition, and you’re not likely to
laugh or argue them out of it. And now what’s the story on the Goodman boy?”

  The question was repeated again and again by various members of the party as they trudged behind the guide, usually prefaced apologetically with, “See, Rabbi, his mother heard I was going to Jerusalem, and she asked me …”

  To each of them he explained that the system was different here from in the States, that arrest did not have the same significance in Israel, where it was apt to be the beginning of an investigation rather than the end. He explained, “The police have the authority to hold anyone for forty-eight hours without a warrant. After that, if they want to hold him longer, they must appear before a magistrate and ask for a remand. In the case of a young man like Goodman, unattached, without a family or job, who is free to come and go as he pleases, he is apt to be remanded, and the magistrate will go along if they have any sort of evidence against him. It is while he is safely in custody that they work on their case. Only a small percentage of those remanded ever come to trial. The vast majority of them are released.”

  One of them began his inquiries by saying, “I know you’ve got some connection with the police, Rabbi, because back home you’re pretty chummy with Chief Lanigan, and some of the guys think that’s not entirely proper, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m glad my rabbi stands in good with the authorities, and I tell them if the rabbi’s got a drag with the police here, it’s all the better for young Goodman, on account of the rabbi will use his influence for him.”

  While the congregants did not confront him as a group, for which he was profoundly grateful, their attitude, as he sensed it from individual remarks, was most disturbing. They seemed to feel that he was in some way responsible for young Goodman’s arrest, or at least was in a position to do something about it. The facts of the case had been kept out of the newspapers, so they knew little about it, not even what he had been charged with, but the belief was strong that it was something very serious, perhaps even murder.

  Curiously, they did not appear to be concerned as to whether or not the young man was guilty. The feeling seemed to be that it could not be terribly reprehensible because “we know his parents.” Perhaps the general picture they had evolved was that there had been a fracas of some sort in which the students of the yeshiva—and, of course, Goodman—had been involved. They had heard that yeshiva students did become rowdy on occasion in spite of or even because of their religious dedication. Something serious had resulted, and the police had latched onto Goodman because—because he was an American and a foreigner. “But most of the other boys are American. It’s the American Yeshiva.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sure his being an American has something to do with it, and the rabbi as a fellow American should do something about it. At least he knows the language and can talk to the authorities.”

  They trailed after the guide, clustering around him whenever he stopped to point out something of special interest. They nodded to show their approval, or that they understood, as he took them from the Tower of David through the streets of the Old City to the Western Wall and up through the Jewish Quarter to Mount Zion, where the bus was waiting to take them back to the hotel. They came abreast of a couple of Arab masons sitting on the ground patiently trimming blocks of stone, occasionally getting up to fit the stone in its intended place, removing it to break off another chip, and then inserting it once again.

  “I don’t get it,” said one of the group.

  “What don’t you get?” asked the guide.

  “The whole business. Here you’ve been showing us a whole bunch of buildings and each one was built on top of another, and that one was built on top of another.”

  “So?”

  “So how come if someone is planning on putting up a building in a special place and there’s already a broken-down building there, or part of a building, and say he doesn’t want to use the walls that are left, so wouldn’t he just knock them down and at least use the old cellar? I mean, why would he fill the cellar with all kinds of junk and build on top of that?”

  “Oh, I see what you mean. You’re wondering how a city can be built on top of another, older city. Well, it doesn’t usually follow immediately after. What happens is that a city, or a section of a city, is destroyed by an earthquake, or by an invading army, or it may be a series of floods. The inhabitants escape or move away, and the place lies neglected for years, perhaps centuries. Sand and dust from the desert blow in and cover the area, and by the time someone comes along and decides it’s a good location to build, there’s very little showing except that it seems to be a little higher than the surrounding territory, which usually is regarded as an advantage. So they lay their foundation on the new surface and—”

  “Wouldn’t they go down to bedrock?”

  “Sure, they put down a footing, and if they strike part of an old wall, so much the better.”

  “But why wouldn’t they excavate?”

  “What for? It’s easier to build from the ground up. We don’t run to cellars much here, and when I was in the States, I noticed that a lot of houses there were being built without cellars.”

  “Yeah, but the government or whoever is running these digs, they dig out cellars.”

  The guide laughed. “Oh, you mean archaeological excavations. But that’s a new science. To the archaeologist, a potsherd, an old copper coin, a bit of broken glass can be of enormous significance, but to the man building a house it’s just junk, like a broken soda bottle or rusty tin can would be to you.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “There’s the bus,” Bergson called out, and to the rabbi, “You coming along?”

  “The bus? Oh, you mean to take you back to the hotel.” He seemed to be curiously abstracted. “No, I think I’ll walk back.”

  “It’s a long walk, David.”

  “Well, if I get tired, I can always take a bus.”

  “Okay. Hey, but look, we go to Eilat tomorrow. How about you and Miriam and your aunt if she wants, coming to dinner at the King David, or someplace else if you’d rather, tomorrow night?”

  “No, Al, I’m more or less a resident, and you are a visitor. You come to us for dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  “Around seven.”

  “Fine.”

  The rabbi set out briskly, but no sooner had the bus passed him, the group on his side waving to him, than he slowed down to a leisurely stroll, his eyes focused on the sidewalk, deep in thought. He made the sharp descent from the Old City and the long upward walk toward the Rehavia section. It was only when he reached the top of the rise that he realized he was tired.

  Just ahead was the Hotel Excelsior. It occurred to him that he might stop off there, and perhaps if Perlmutter was free, he might have a cold drink with him. He entered the lobby, looked around, and approached the front desk.

  “Is Mr. Perlmutter around?” he asked the clerk.

  “Aharon? He went up to Haifa for the Shabbat. I took his morning duty for him.”

  “Oh. Then he won’t be coming in today?”

  “Oh, sure. He should be in around one. Is there a message—”

  “No, no. I’ll be seeing him later in the day, I expect.”

  35

  The telephone call came just as the Rabbi finished the lunch that Miriam had left him. It was Rabbi Karpis.

  “Rabbi Small? Er, Rabbi Karpis. Er, something has—er—just come to my attention concerning er—the matter we are both interested in. I have asked our attorney, whom you’ve met, to come and see me about it. I thought that perhaps you, too, might be interested.”

  “When is he coming?”

  “He should be here shortly.”

  Although the day had been hot and he was tired from his long walk, he said, “I’ll come right over.”

  But he had to wait for a bus, and it was half an hour before he arrived. Shiah Goldberg was already there, and he greeted him with a wide wave of the arm. Rabbi Karpis brushed aside Rabbi Small’s attempted explanation of why it had taken him s
o long.

  “Sit down, Rabbi. Sit down. I can have coffee brought?” he suggested.

  Both his guests shook their heads no.

  “Well, I’ll come to the point. I have heard through—well, no matter. Let’s say it has come to my attention that the medical examiner has some rather startling new evidence. As I understand it, Dr. Shatz was away when the body was found, and the preliminary examination was made by a young and I gather inexperienced assistant. He attributed the death of the unfortunate Professor Grenish to a rupture of an aneurysm. He found no signs of—er—violence on the body. No marks of blows having been struck. That sort of thing. I gather that the public prosecutor was going to take the line that since the death had not been reported and the body had in fact been concealed, the rupture of the aneurysm had been due to a fight or that some kind of violence had been done to him. And our position was that since there were no signs of violence, death had been due to natural causes, but that our Ish-Tov had panicked and had buried the body for fear he might be accused of having killed the man.”

  “That’s right,” said Shiah.

  “Well, then as I understand it, Dr. Shatz made a more thorough examination and found evidence that the man had been bound and gagged. A patch of adhesive tape had been put over the victim’s mouth. There were microscopic traces of the adhesive substance, as I understand it. And also his hands and feet seem to have been bound with the same material.”

  “Oh, the son-of-a-bitch,” Shiah exclaimed.