The human race survived, as we know, Instancer continues, thanks to Noah and his Ark.
JAKE INSTANCER
Since that time, God has promised: so long as there are Thirty-Six Righteous Men somewhere on Earth, He will never again take action to destroy the human race.
Manning absorbs this.
MANNING
Do we know who the Thirty-Six are? Is there a list?
JAKE INSTANCER
The Righteous Men are “hidden.” In Hebrew, nistarim. Even the Thirty-Six themselves supposedly don’t know that they’re among that number.
MANNING
Who does know?
JAKE INSTANCER
Only God.
The younger man regards Manning thoughtfully.
JAKE INSTANCER
Someone is killing the Righteous Men, isn’t he?
MANNING
Why would you ask that?
JAKE INSTANCER
You’re a police officer. That’s why you’re here. It’s why you’re researching this subject.
Manning makes no reply for long moments.
MANNING
Why would anyone want to kill the Righteous Men? What possible motive could they have?
INSTANCER
To create the conditions under which God is obligated, by His own promise, to bring about the End Times. That’s what the Orthodox believe. They’re terrified.
Instancer’s eyes meet Manning’s.
JAKE INSTANCER
Have you heard of the Lubavitcher Rebbe?
MANNING
I thought he died years ago.
JAKE INSTANCER
The Great Rebbe, the seventh, passed on without a successor in 1994. But the Merkaz, the Council of Elders, appointed an eighth Rebbe in 2024—a renowned scholar of the same ancient line.
Instancer tells Manning that the new Rebbe has achieved in just ten years a stature nearly equal to that of his beloved predecessor.
JAKE INSTANCER
The Rebbe is a true sage. A “Righteous Man” if there ever was one. He’s the spiritual leader of the largest Orthodox community in the United States.
A trio of black-clad Chasidim happen to pass at this moment. Manning’s glance tracks them.
JAKE INSTANCER
There are over a hundred and fifty thousand Chasidic Jews in the city. Most live in the neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Borough Park, Brooklyn. For the past month, both communities have been buzzing with rumors about something terrible happening to the tzadikim. But the police won’t take our fears seriously, and there’s not a mention of the story anywhere in the press.
The professor sees that he has struck a nerve with Manning.
JAKE INSTANCER
The Rebbe is speaking tomorrow night in Borough Park. I’ll take you if you want.
Instancer explains that this is a regular event called a farbrengen, a Chasidic gathering.
JAKE INSTANCER
The Rebbe gives a talk called a sicha before an invited audience, then afterward he may speak privately, offer spiritual counsel to individuals or families. It’s quite interesting actually. Sometimes these events go on all night.
MANNING
Would the Rebbe speak to me? A non-Jew? A cop?
JAKE INSTANCER
I’ll see what I can do. But you can’t bring a weapon—or a cell phone.
Manning and Instancer exit the café. In the hall the professor pauses. “If you can tell me,” he says, “how many murders is your department investigating?”
Manning answers four.
JAKE INSTANCER
The community says six. Some say as many as twenty. The Rebbe will speak about it, I’m sure, tomorrow night.
BOOK THREE
THE REBBE
12
THE REBBE
THE REBBE STARTS SPEAKING before we even see him. There’s a podium on the east side of the auditorium but the sage hasn’t mounted to it yet. Where is he? We hear his microphone-augmented voice, but can’t locate him yet among the throng.
Our party is Manning, me, and Jake Instancer, the young professor Manning met at the Dorot Library.
Instancer has rendezvoused with us at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, having taken the C train down from Cathedral Parkway–110th Street, a few blocks from his apartment in Morningside Heights, he tells us. He has guided us via our self-driver here to Borough Park in Brooklyn, gotten us past security into the community hall, and navigated us through the flock inside to an elevated station from which we can observe the full scene.
It’s quite a sight. At least three hundred black-clad, fedora- and yarmulke-wearing Chasidim—men and boys (with a separate section for women and girls)—pack the converted private school that serves as the Rebbe’s residence, house of worship, and community center.
Besides me, Manning and the professor, who wears jeans and a sports jacket over a black high-neck T-shirt, are the only ones in the room not dressed in Orthodox garb.
I know three things about the Brooklyn Chasidic community. One, their cell phones (the non-business ones anyway) are internet-disabled. It’s an article of piety among the Orthodox to shun the modern world. Two, they love to buy old police cars. My uncle Eugene runs the NYPD’s Equipment Recycling Division. “The Chasidim buy worn-out blue-and-whites for five hundred bucks and drive ’em for twenty years.” Sure enough, when we arrive outside the Rebbe’s, I note three antique cruisers parked at the curb, repainted black.
The final thing I know about the Borough Park community (which I learned two hours ago from research) is that the Orthodox have their own security force, called the Shomrim. Apparently one does not mess with these dudes. They patrol the streets, share radio frequencies not just with the Six-Six Precinct but across the full band of the NYPD. Borough Park is one of the safest neighborhoods in the five boroughs.
The event tonight, Jake Instancer is telling Manning as we settle into our viewing spot, is something of a special occasion. Normally the Rebbe’s audience would be all-male due to the patriarchal nature of the community. One evening a month, however, women and girls are welcomed as well. The Rebbe will speak tonight for an hour or two, Instancer tells Manning, then receive visitors upstairs in his residence for individual or family consultations.
In fact, Manning has already shared a few words with the Rebbe, immediately after our arrival. The Shomrim security team had ushered us in. They secured our weapons and phones. At that moment the Rebbe happened to pass. He drew up to welcome Manning.
The Rebbe appears to be in his eighties, dressed in black from top to toe, with a bushy white beard and eyes of striking blue, set wide within a kindly face. Here’s the exchange, verbatim, from my lapel cam:
REBBE
(in Yiddish to Manning)
Welcome! You are a Jew?
The younger of the two elders translates.
MANNING
I’m Catholic, Rebbe.
REBBE
(hard of hearing)
Eh?
ELDER
He says he’s a Catholic, Rebbe.
The Rebbe switches to English.
REBBE
No. He is a Jew.
Manning flinches slightly. The sage smiles and places a hand warmly on the detective’s shoulder.
REBBE
Don’t look so stricken, my friend. It is your Jewish soul that will save you.
The Rebbe smiles and moves off. Instancer guides Manning and me to the place where we will stand. I hear Manning, who does in fact look a bit stricken, ask Instancer what the Rebbe meant when he said Manning “is a Jew.”
INSTANCER
The Rebbe sees things that others don’t. Perhaps he meant that you struck him as a soul in exile. That is a very Jewish thing to be.
Where has the Rebbe gone? The central well of the auditorium is wall-to-wall with a welter of foot-stomping, head-bobbing Orthodox humanity. The space is filled with a press of beards and black fedoras, black jackets, black trousers, black socks, black sh
oes. A song in Yiddish or Hebrew, more like a chant, actually, is being sung by the rocking, swaying congregation. Everyone seems to be having a great time.
Ah, there he is!
The young professor nudges Manning’s elbow and points across the cavern. The Rebbe is picking his way among the flock. He’s already giving his talk, his voice projected via a clip-on microphone.
MANNING
What’s the difference between a rabbi and a Rebbe?
INSTANCER
There are a million rabbis but only one Rebbe. He’s like the Pope but without the apparatus of the Vatican.
Manning’s eyes track the Rebbe’s path through the throng. The congregation is simultaneously ecstatic at their leader’s apparition (my notes begin with a single word: “Elvis”) and merrily oblivious to his presence.
ME
Is he speaking Hebrew?
INSTANCER
Yiddish. The Chasidic movement originated in Eastern Europe in the 1700s. I’ll translate for you.
The Rebbe continues to cross toward the speaker’s platform. Instancer is explaining to Manning that the Orthodox community is notoriously impoverished. All time and passion go into studying Torah.
One of Manning’s standing instructions to me is to take notes on any individual I encounter in the course of an investigation, whether that person is “of interest” or not. “Don’t think,” he says. “Just record your impressions.”
My impression of Jake Instancer is I desperately want to fuck him. I don’t dictate this into my notes, however. Instancer is lean and charismatic, with dark eyes set deep beside a hawkish nose. He looks simultaneously scholarly and athletic. The male of the species, I confess, has never been my thing. But if anybody could pull me back across the line, it’s this dude. Standing a body-width away from him, I have to call on all my resources to keep my voice even and professional. His shoulders. His hands. But the most powerful thing about him is his smell. At first I’m not even sure the scent is coming from him. Is it some kind of cologne or musk? I find myself actually edging closer just to get a noseful. Whatever this hombre is radiating, it is high-octane male mojo.
The Rebbe has mounted to the speaker’s platform. He is expounding on a portion of the Torah. Instancer tells Manning that such study progresses through the five books of Moses—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy—taking sections of each in sequence throughout the Jewish calendar year. Tonight’s talk is on the subject of “manipulation by evil.”
The Rebbe speaks for twenty minutes, thirty, forty. The audience listens with total immersion. Many nod in concurrence, others appear to be praying silently. The tone of the Rebbe’s speech is cerebral but also intensely personal. At least that’s what I’m getting from the snatches of translation I catch from Instancer. The Rebbe’s concern is not only for the souls of his congregation but also for the wider world, for whom in his faith the devotion of these pious Jews carries the hope of salvation for all mankind.
INSTANCER
(to Manning)
Are you getting a sense of how the Rebbe teaches? He calls upon every Jew to live as if the preservation of the entire world depends upon his godliness alone. Can you feel it?
The Rebbe is telling a tale of the founder of Chasidism, the beloved Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer, commonly called the Baal Shem Tov—the “Master of the Good Name.” In the story the young Baal Shem Tov, an orphan, travels from town to town studying under various masters. He is learning the mysteries of the spirit, becoming closer each year to attaining the status of tzadik, a Righteous Man.
Now the Rebbe introduces a new character, a personage of evil.
This character’s name is HaSatan.
REBBE
HaSatan means “the Satan.” He is called “the Adversary.” HaSatan is the master manipulator. He may assume any shape or appearance. He plays with our minds, seeking to seduce us from our virtue. HaSatan’s object is more diabolical than to steal our souls. His aim is to make us donate them of our own free will.
The Rebbe, for the first time, alludes to the current murders. He mentions no names and cites no specifics.
REBBE
I know many of you are aware of the recent rumors of tzadikim meeting violent ends. Remember, the Righteous Men are nistarim, “hidden.” No one, not even the individuals themselves, knows whom God has chosen. I don’t know. We cannot know. What we sense is that wickedness is loose in the world on a scale, perhaps, that we have never seen.
The congregation has become totally silent, held spellbound by the Rebbe’s words.
REBBE
How does the Almighty communicate with His children, the human race? He does not call us together into a great hall and address us from a high platform. Rather, He chooses a solitary individual, often obscure, and employs this soul as a stand-in for all of humanity. Job whom He afflicted, Jacob who wrestled with an angel. Not to mention Noah, Abraham, Moses. The Almighty tests these individuals. He sets them trials.
Something makes me glance toward Manning. To my astonishment, his eyes are welling.
REBBE
How this solitary individual responds affects the entire nation of Israel—in metaphorical terms, all of humanity. The instrument God uses to test this man is HaSatan, the Adversary. HaSatan’s role is to force him to choose. To embrace the Almighty or to reject Him.
Forty-five minutes in, the Rebbe breaks off his discourse. “Intermission,” says Jake Instancer.
The Rebbe retires up a rear stairway, accompanied by three women, apparently his wife and daughters, to his living quarters, where he will rest for a few minutes, perhaps have a cup of tea and a bite to eat. Several of the broad-shouldered Shomrim men follow. The Rebbe will be back to finish his talk, Instancer tells Manning, in about a quarter of an hour.
“You guys want something to eat or drink? Use the bathroom?”
The professor excuses himself and moves off. He’ll meet us, he says, back here in fifteen minutes.
Tea and wine, pastries, and little cheese pies are being served in a partitioned section, the women’s, apparently, off to the side of the auditorium. I’ve been in this place for less than ninety minutes, yet already I feel like I’ve lived here my entire life. The Chasidic garb that had appeared so alien when we first entered now seems completely normal. I half expect to look down and see myself dressed like an Orthodox woman.
A glance from Manning snaps me out of this. His expression says, Go circulate.
I watch Manning move off to do the same. He crosses to a table serving tea and cakes. Within thirty seconds he has attracted a trio of Orthodox matrons. He won’t interrogate them overtly, I know. He’ll charm them. I can see him working already.
My style is different. As a young female and clearly a guest, I can be more direct, particularly with my peers. My notes from the next ten minutes:
To Shomrim Bodyguard #1: “Does the name Nathan Davis mean anything to you? Michael Justman?”
Answer: “Never heard of ’em.”
To 2 women: “Righteous Men being murdered?”
Both: “Yes!”
“Where? Who?”
“Don’t know but it’s terrible!”
“How do U know? Know victims? Told by friends?”
“Just feel it.”
After ten minutes I drift over toward Manning, who’s now with a different threesome of women. I come in on the tail end of him telling a joke, apparently about an assimilated American Jew denying his religious identity.
MANNING
“. . . I am not a Jew, my father is not a Jew, and my grandfather, olev ha-sholom, is not a Jew either.”
The ladies laugh, but with an edge.
ORTHODOX WOMAN #1
(to Manning)
How do you come to speak “olev ha-sholom” so perfectly? You are not a Jew?
MANNING
I’m Roman Catholic, ma’am. My wife was Jewish.
The women absorb this soberly. They don’t literally glance to one another, but th
at’s the sense of their reaction. I have joined the group fully now. I’m standing with the three ladies, facing Manning.
ORTHODOX WOMAN #2
You said “was.” Did your wife cease to be a Jew?
Manning blanches. I myself know only that Manning’s wife took her own life after the tragic death of her young son. Manning was put on leave immediately after, and later entered rehab. I know no further details, as I’ve said, and have deliberately not put myself in the way of acquiring any.
The three women clearly intuit the significance of Manning’s use of the past tense. Their reaction is one of compassion.
The females are in their forties, all attractive, clearly wives and mothers. Despite living in an intentionally isolated community, they do not appear sheltered or cut off from the realities of the city or the world. The first woman asks Manning, gently but pointedly, if he has been listening carefully to the Rebbe’s discourse.
ORTHODOX WOMAN #1
Did you understand what he said about HaSatan? The Evil One changes form. He can inhabit even our own hearts without us knowing it.
Manning regards her uncertainly.
ORTHODOX WOMAN #2
By taking your wife from her people, you took her from God.
Manning smiles uneasily.
MANNING
Well, perhaps a different interpretation of—
ORTHODOX WOMAN #2
No. From God.
Suddenly from across the auditorium comes a woman’s scream.
Every face in the congregation spins toward the door at the top of the stairs, the chamber to which the Rebbe retired. One of the Rebbe’s daughters stands in this space. She cries something in Yiddish, then collapses and plunges in a tangle of limbs.
36 Righteous Men Page 6
