Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet

by Harry Kemelman

  “Thanks, Chet, that is good news. Actually, I figured I had given the cop the right envelope because if the name had been wrong, he would have noticed it. Then yesterday morning I went into the drugstore to get a refill for Mona. I saw that they put the patient’s name on the bottle itself, so I figured even if the Kestlers hadn’t looked at the envelope, they’d certainly notice if there was the wrong name on the bottle. I felt pretty sure, but still I was a little uneasy. Believe me, I appreciate your calling me. It’s a big relief knowing that I had absolutely nothing to do with Kestler’s dying.”

  “Naturally,” said Kaplan. “I’m glad I happened to be home when the coat was delivered. I’m sure Edie wouldn’t have thought to look through the pockets. And I was in the house because we’re going up-country to the retreat. How about coming along? I should think you’d be in the right mood for it.”

  “Gee, I don’t think so, Chet, not with Mona sick.”

  “I understand. Remember me to her.”

  “Will do. By the way, I didn’t get a chance to ask you the other night, how does it look, the retreat business, I mean?”

  “It looks fine, Billy, just fine. We’ve got a good majority. Not all of them are interested in the temple acquiring a retreat, you understand, although it’s in style these days. But even those who don’t like the idea are interested in a campsite where they can come up for a weekend or where their kids can go camping in the summer. Actually, the only opposition as far as I can make out is the rabbi.”

  “Why is the rabbi against it?”

  “Well, you know, he’s a conservative type guy. Who knows, maybe he’s a little jealous of Rabbi Mezzik.”

  “Yeah, but if Rabbi Small should start arguing about it at the meeting—”

  “I doubt if he’ll be at the meeting.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this Sunday is Parents Day at the school, so he’ll be busy with parents most of the morning. Now, what I’m planning is to hold our meeting at the camp. You know, get everything ironed out. Then when we hold our regular meeting Sunday morning, we just put the matter to a vote because we will already have had our discussions. Then, we adjourn.”

  “Gee, that’s slick, Chester. I got to hand it to you.”

  Friday started out badly for Dr. Cohen. Not only was he subjected to Kestler’s phone call but he had the embarrassing experience of knowing that Chief Lanigan had overheard the conversation. The day did not improve when his next patient was late, thus disrupting his morning schedule. As a consequence he was still closeted with a patient at noon, and his colleagues went off to lunch without him.

  He lunched alone at a nearby diner on a stool facing the wall. No sooner had he returned when the hospital phoned to tell him that a coronary patient he was treating had suffered a relapse and he had better rush over. He stopped just long enough to tell the switchboard operator to call his afternoon patients and reschedule them for next week. As an afterthought, he added, “And Madeleine, call my wife and tell her I won’t be coming home.”

  It was half past two before Dan Cohen was able to leave the hospital. He drove straight to the Kaplan house. But when he arrived, he found no cars in the driveway or parked in front of the house. He had come too late. It seemed a fitting conclusion to the day. Nevertheless, he mounted the steps and rang the bell.

  Mrs. Kaplan answered. “Oh, Dr. Cohen, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. I guess they’ve left already.”

  “About fifteen minutes ago. Do you know how to get there?”

  He shook his head.

  “Just a minute. Chet had some maps Xeroxed.” She left him and reappeared a moment later. “You won’t have any trouble following these directions. It’s really quite clear. You might even catch them. They sometimes stop for coffee on the road.”

  19

  They had settled in by the time Dr. Cohen arrived at the camp, a large frame building in a clearing in the woods. Through a corridor in the trees, he could see a lake some fifty yards beyond the building. Hearing a car, Chester Kaplan came bustling out. “Oh, it’s you, Doctor. Gosh, I’m glad you could make it. We got more people this time than we have rooms prepared, so we’re doubling up. Isn’t it wonderful?” He consulted a clipboard. “Let’s see, there are two cots in Room Twelve. I’ll put you in there. You’ll be in with Matthew Charn. Know him?”

  Cohen shook his head.

  “He’s from Salem, but he’s been to most of our retreats. Wonderful man, very sincere, and he’ll be able to show you the ropes. Why don’t you go up and introduce yourself. We don’t stand on formality here.”

  He tucked his hand in the doctor’s arm and, gesturing with the clipboard that he held in the other, he led him up the stairs to the porch. “If the weather is nice, we sit out here a lot. Of course, at night if the bugs are bad …”

  Kaplan steered Cohen inside the house and with a wide sweep of the clipboard he introduced him to the room in which they found themselves. “This is our chapel, meeting place, assembly hall, recreation room, you name it. This is where we hang out most of the time.” The room was bare except for a table at one end and a number of folding chairs scattered about. It ran the full two stories of the house and above could be seen the peaked roof with slanting joints that met at the rooftree.

  “Like a church, huh?” Kaplan commented. “I mean the roof—it’s almost Gothic.”

  “Yeah, very nice,” said the doctor.

  Another sweep of the clipboard at a balcony railing that ran along one side of the room. “The bedrooms and bathrooms are up there on the mezzanine. You just go up those stairs and Room Twelve is at the end. But first,” he pointed the clipboard to the back of the room, “the dining room is beyond those folding doors. If we need to, we can push them back and make one big room. The rebbitzin is in there right now preparing for the Sabbath meal. Come and meet her.” He steered the doctor to the partition and the clipboard hand somehow managed to turn the knob and open the door. “Mrs. Mezzik,” he called out cheerily, “we’ll need another place setting for Dr. Cohen here. Dr. Cohen, Mrs. Mezzik, our rabbi’s wife.”

  She was a short dumpy woman in her midthirties. She acknowledged the introduction with a sad, tired smile. To Kaplan, she said, “No trouble, and there’s plenty of food. You want to arrange the place cards?”

  “You’re going to have a Sabbath meal that you’ll remember for a long time, Doctor. Wait till you taste the rebbitzin’s gefilte fish—just like your mother used to make.”

  “I chop it. I don’t grind it,” she admitted shyly.

  Still clutching his arm, Kaplan turned him around and moved him toward the door. “Why don’t you go up now and get acquainted with Matt Charn? I’ve got to arrange about the meeting.”

  Dr. Cohen mounted the steps and made his way along the balcony until he came to Room Twelve. Although the door was ajar, he knocked and in response to “Yeah” from within, he entered. Save for two cots and a painted bureau, the room was bare. In the middle of the ceiling, dangling by its own electric cord, was a single fly-specked light bulb. A heavyset man with a big belly and pinkish jowls lay on a cot. He was dressed only in socks, underpants and undershirt.

  “Matthew Charn? I’m Dr. Cohen. I guess I’m supposed to bunk with you.”

  The other man pushed himself up to a sitting position and held out his hand. “Glad to know you, Doctor.” He explained his state of undress. “I always change in honor of the Sabbath. My mother made me when I was a kid.” He had a guttural raspy voice, as though it needed clearing.

  “You a regular medical doctor? Reason I ask, I got a nephew that’s a doctor, but he isn’t worth a damn if you got a bellyache, because he’s a doctor of economics.” He laughed heavily. “And he ain’t much good on the stock market either. This is your first time here?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then let me tell you, you’re going to get a real religious experience. I’ve been to almost every one Chet has organized. The first time I came here I
was all broken up. I’d just lost my wife, see. I guess the Man Upstairs wanted her more than He thought I needed her, and I tell you I just couldn’t function. But I was glad for her sake because it was the big bug that got her.”

  “The big—”

  “CA,” Charn explained. “Bad medicine. Bad, bad medicine. With what she went through for almost a year, and then the end, I just couldn’t cope. Then Chet decided he was going to have this retreat and he asked me if I was interested. Well, you want to know the truth?”

  Cohen nodded politely.

  “I wasn’t interested. That’s the truth. I wasn’t interested in anything. But I came anyway, and that first Friday night service, well, it made a difference. You know you’re supposed to greet the Sabbath like it was a queen and rejoice over it like a bridegroom over his bride. That’s what it says right in the prayerbook. Well, I’ve been to any number of Friday night services in a lot of temples and synagogues, but this was different. In the synagogue, maybe there’s one or two who really mean it, religious types like Chet or the rabbi of the congregation, but you take the rest, and they’re just going through the motions. But here we mean it. That first time when we greeted the Sabbath, I got so worked up that when we turned around to face the door it was like I was expecting some highclass broad to come sashaying into the room. Right then, I knew she was still there, my Charlotte. She’d been with me all along, but I hadn’t felt her presence because, because I hadn’t tried.”

  Cohen nodded sympathetically.

  “The big thing,” Charn went on, “is to let yourself go. The first time I cried like a baby. I still do sometimes, but nobody notices. You’re all alone and yet the whole damn world is with you. And say, Doc, when you go downstairs, pick out a seat near a window. That way you got the sill to lean on, because if you don’t have something to lean on, that meditation can be a sonofabitch.”

  A bell rang, and Charn said, “Uh-oh, that’s the signal for the first meditation. Why don’t you go down now? No sense waiting for me. I might be a little late, but it makes no difference because Rabbi Mezzik begins with a little talk and I’ve heard it before.”

  The others had evidently not waited for the bell, since they were all seated when Dr. Cohen entered the assembly room and, mindful of Charn’s warning, made his way to a chair near a window. He was surprised to see that they had all brought prayer shawls. Standing behind the table was Rabbi Mezzik, a theatrically handsome man with a Guards moustache and a Vandyke. Cohen thought he might be a little younger than the rebbitzin. He was resplendent in a high velvet cantorial yarmulke and a long silk prayer shawl draped over a black academic robe. Rabbi Mezzik called them to attention by rapping on the table, which served as the reading desk.

  “I want everybody to put on his tallis,” he said. “Those of you who didn’t bring one, we’ve got some spares that you can use.”

  Dr. Cohen took one and draped it around his shoulders, but he wondered about it, since he had always thought that the prayer shawl was used only for morning services.

  As if to answer his unspoken question, Rabbi Mezzik went on, “We don’t usually wear the tallis except in the morning service. The reason for that is a lot of halachic tomfoolery that we don’t have to go into at this time. Take my word for it, it’s all right to wear it here and now. What’s more, we’re going to wear it every time we come together as a group, day or night. And even when we go for this walk through the woods that Chet has planned for tomorrow afternoon, you’ll put it on. Because the tallis is really a cloak like the toga that the Romans used to wear, except that ours has fringes to distinguish us from the other nations.

  “Now before we start our program, I want to give you some idea of what it’s all about, especially the new people. Those who’ve heard it before, well, it won’t do them any harm to hear it again. What this program is all about is religion. And what’s religion all about? Any religion? It’s about God, about the effort of people, all kinds of people, since the beginning of time, to make contact with God. That’s religion. What’s not religion is gathering together in a special place, a synagogue or church or mosque, to say certain words in an old-fashioned archaic language. That’s socializing. That’s making contact with your friends and neighbors and with society. It’s not a bad thing in itself, but it’s not making contact with God, so it’s not religion.

  “Now I’ll tell you something funny,” Rabbi Mezzik went on. “At one time that was religion. When? Back when they first made up those prayers, when the language in which they were set was not archaic, when it was the normal way of talking. But now, it’s just the preservation of tradition, also not a bad thing in itself, but not religion, because it’s not making contact with God. So what happens? The need to make contact with God is there, but we’re not getting through. And what’s the result? I’ll tell you: our people, especially our young people, are going elsewhere in an effort to make contact. They go to Zen Buddhism, to Meher Baba, to Krishnamurti; some go to Chabad, and some try to do it with drugs. That’s the result.”

  He paused and looked about triumphantly, as though they had been arguing the matter with him and he had just presented the clincher. “And does it work?” he asked. And he answered himself. “Of course it works—for some of them. They don’t just tell you this is right and this is wrong the way the traditional religions do. They provide a method for acquiring the one and scorning the other. In other words, they don’t just tell you where the place is; they tell you how to get there.

  “And each has a different way of getting there. Is that so strange? If you wanted to go to Chicago, is there only one way? It would depend on how you wanted to travel, and where you came from, wouldn’t it? Well, we all come from different traditions and different societies with different lifestyles. We dress differently, we eat differently, we live differently, so why shouldn’t we pray or meditate or make contact with God differently? In India, they sit on the ground to eat, and to show respect they get down as near to the ground as possible—” To illustrate, he suddenly crouched down beside the lectern as though about to receive a cut from the whip of a master. He sprang to his feet once again. “So it’s only natural for them to meditate in the lotus position. But it doesn’t have the same effect with us, because it’s alien to our tradition and lifestyle. We don’t touch our foreheads to the ground the way the Muslims do and we don’t kneel like the Christians, to show respect. We stand. Nor do I believe in the rocking and shaking of the Chasidim—their interpretation of ‘Love your God with all your heart and all your might’—I think that’s alien, too.

  “The main prayer in our liturgy, the Shimon Esra, the eighteen blessings, that is part of every service, is also called the Amidah, the Standing, because we always stand to say it. So to make contact, we stand in silent meditation, each one making his contact direct, without channeling through some saint the way the Christians do, or for that matter through a rebbe like the Chasidim do. We stand, in token of our manhood, in token of our superiority to the lower creatures, in token of our having been created in His image. As it is unthinkable for Him to kneel, so we must not.

  “Now, while an adept can make contact, can meditate, almost anywhere, under almost any circumstances, most of us need the support of others. And that is why we pray in a group, as individuals but in a group, a minyan, a congregation of ten or more adult males, with no women or children to distract us. There’s nothing puritanic about it. It isn’t another example of male chauvinism. It’s as natural as life itself. You all know that children have a short attention span. After a few minutes, they begin to fidget and ask questions and want to go to the bathroom. And just as you don’t want them around when you’re computing your income tax, so you don’t want them around when you’re trying to make contact with God. And women are distracting in another way. It doesn’t mean you’re a sex maniac if you get a little warm thinking about a woman. That’s natural. That’s the way God made us. And if we weren’t that way, the race would die out. He wants us to react like t
hat. It’s what He meant when He told us to be fruitful and multiply. But when you’re trying to make contact with Him, it gets in the way. And pretty soon, you’re thinking of it rather than of Him. Some of the very pious, especially the Chasidim, wear a girdle around the waist to separate the upper part of the body from the lower. Personally, I don’t think it’s any more help than the belt you wear to keep your pants up. The best way is not to have them around.” He smiled at them. “Now, I ask you, is it male chauvinism to admit you think so highly of women that you confess they can distract you from God Himself?

  “All right, then, I want you all to rise now and cover your heads with your prayer shawls. That’s the idea, get it right over your head. That way, you shut out everything and you can be alone with your thoughts. You’re shutting out the world, you’re isolating yourself in order to make contact with God. You’re going to stand in silent meditation for half an hour. If you get tired standing, then sit down and rest for a while, but keep it up as long as you can. And don’t look at your watches. I’ll tell you when the time is up. Then we’ll have our regular Friday evening service and then the delicious Sabbath meal that Mrs. Mezzik has prepared.”

  20

  Friday afternoon Rabbi Small paid his condolence visit to the Kestlers. Over the years he had performed this melancholy parochial duty many times, but he had never grown sufficiently accustomed to it to be anything but uncomfortable for the half hour or so that it usually lasted. If the deceased had been young, a child perhaps, the grief of the immediate family was apt to be overwhelming, and he always came away with the feeling that he had obtruded. On the other hand, if it were an old person, like an aged parent, the atmosphere was more subdued than sad. He knew that before his arrival, conversation had flowed easily as at any other social occasion, with perhaps an occasional joke offered. He had indeed heard the muted laughter as he approached the door which was kept ajar so that the family would not have to respond to the constant ringing of the doorbell. As soon as he entered, however, faces became sober and conversation was reduced to philosophical platitudes, as unruly school-children quiet down when the teacher appears. And he resented this dampening role in which he was cast as the professional condolence purveyor of the congregation. In his own mind, he was never at ease with it. While it was only fitting and proper to grieve over the dead, the mourning period was also intended to help the bereaved overcome their grief, and he was perhaps doing them a disservice by plunging them into it again by his very presence. Moreover, he believed that it was wrong to simulate a grief that one did not actually feel. Nevertheless, he was taken aback when he entered the Kestler house and found Joe and his wife playing cards.