Afternoons, while Jonathan returned from school, played with Shaouli, she went to the Ulpan, the special school that gave an accelerated course in Hebrew. In the evenings, after supper, she would prepare her Ulpan lessons for the next day. Sometimes, she and David would go for a stroll in the evening or, on rare occasions, get a baby-sitter so that they could go to a movie or spend an evening with friends they had made.
For Jonathan, there was the happiness of having a number of children of his own age living in the immediate vicinity, quite different from the situation in Barnard’s Crossing. And he was picking up the language, more rapidly than his mother for all her lessons and homework. Within a few days he had begun to call her Eemoleh and his father Abbele, the diminutives of Emah and Abba, the Hebrew for “Mother” and “Father.” He spoke in English to his parents, even when he knew the Hebrew for what he wanted to say, but more and more Hebrew words crept in, and the common short sentences—“I want a glass of milk,” or “I want to go outside to play”—were apt to be entirely in Hebrew.
Gittel had chosen wisely in the matter of a school. There were three or four nurseries and kindergartens in the area since practically all the mothers worked, but the one she had selected fortunately had several children who were English-speaking—their parents either were on extended visits from the States or the English countries or were new settlers. So the transition to Hebrew was made easier for him. At first he played with the English-speaking children exclusively, but as he began to gain knowledge of the language, he played with the others as well. Shaouli, the little boy from the upstairs apartment, was of course his most constant companion and his best friend.
As for the rabbi, even though he had no routine to adhere to, time did not hang heavy on his hands. In a sense, he had been master of his time all the years he had been in Barnard’s Crossing, too. There had been meetings to attend, committees to consult with, counseling to give, but none of them came at regular hours. He kept no regular office hours and was not subject to a daily routine. So here, his day was not too much different from that at home. In the morning he went to one of the nearby synagogues for morning services, and afterward he might linger on to talk with some of the other worshipers, perhaps even breakfast with them at a handy café. He explored the city. And he read much, finding the many bookstores and the completeness of their stocks a constant source of surprise. And of course, he worked on his Ibn Ezra paper.
They both made friends, the rabbi and Miriam, she at the hospital and at her Ulpan, and he at the synagogue. These they entertained occasionally in the evening and were entertained by them, after the manner of the country with tea and coffee, cookies, and conversation. Once the rabbi overcame his misgivings of traffic conditions and rented a car; they toured the Galilee and spent a few days at a kibbutz. They had met the chaver, comrade, at a party when he had come up to the city to transact some kibbutz business. His name was Itzical. They never found out his surname.
“Come and visit us for a few days and see how the real Israel lives. My next-door neighbor is going on holiday and you can use his cottage.”
“But who shall I ask for when I arrive?”
“Ask for Itzical—they’ll know.”
His child, a youngster of Jonathan’s age, had been given permission to stay with his parents rather than at the Children’s House, where the children of the same age lived together communally, so that Jonathan might have someone to play with. He came with his father the next day, Friday, to take them to the community dining hall for breakfast. The rabbi was reciting the morning prayers when they entered. The little boy watched, his eyes wide with astonished interest.
“What is he doing, Father?”
“Sh—he’s praying.”
“But those things he’s wearing, the shawl and those straps?”
“Those are his tallis and t’fillen. You remember in your picture book of the war, there were some soldiers at the Wall wearing the same things.”
“Why do they wear them?”
“They think it helps in their prayers.”
“But why do they pray?”
The rabbi had finished. He smiled at the youngster. “Because we are grateful and wish to give thanks,” he said.
Itzical smiled, too. “We are a nonreligious kibbutz,” he said. “Maybe even antireligious.”
“You don’t observe any of the holidays or the Sabbath?”
“Not the religious holidays, and the others in our own way.”
“But none of our holidays are purely religious, except perhaps the Day of Atonement,” the rabbi said.
“So that’s the one we don’t observe.”
“You go out of your way not to observe it, or you disregard it—which?”
Itzical shrugged. “You know how it is. Most of us just disregard it, but some of the enlightened ones tend to be doctrinaire, and you could say they go out of their way to disregard it.”
Nevertheless, the evening meal, the Sabbath dinner, was festive. All the kibbutz members had spruced up, the women wearing dresses instead of jeans and the men in white shirts open at the throat. The meal was the traditional meal of gefilte fish and chicken, and there were even candles and wine on the table.
The Smalls sat at the same table as Itzical and his family, and the rabbi looked around the large room. Over in one corner he saw several couples at a table, and all the men wore yarmulkes.
He nodded. “Who are they? Are they members of the kibbutz?”
“Yes, they are members. They are religious. No one minds; we even have a separate kitchen for them. They joined us a few years ago. We were glad to have them. It was a little dangerous in those days. Would you feel more comfortable eating with them?”
“No, I’m completely comfortable right here,” the rabbi said. “But would you mind if I put on my yarmulke? It’s a matter of habit as much as anything with me. And it will save Jonathan asking questions.”
“By all means.”
“And do you mind if I say the blessing for wine and for bread?”
“Go right ahead, Rabbi. I understand. Of course, I don’t believe in it myself—”
“It’s showing gratitude for the food one receives.” He smiled. “The ability to express gratitude is one of the ways in which man differs from the lower animals, and it’s good to manifest the difference occasionally.”
Itzical shook his head. “I can see you don’t know much about animals, Rabbi. Believe me, they can express gratitude, too.”
The rabbi considered, and then he nodded and smiled. “Well, it’s also good to show the similarity with the lower animals now and then.”
Itzical laughed. “You’re all right, Rabbi. I see that no matter what, you’ll find an excuse for saying the blessing. Go ahead. I’ll even stand while you say it.”
As they started on the long drive back to Jerusalem several days later, Miriam asked, “Do you think you would like living on a kibbutz, David?”
“Yes, I think I might. If we were to stay on here, I’d give it serious consideration. It used to be a kind of heroic thing to join a kibbutz, and I guess it still is in some parts of the country. But for most of them, it seems to be the best deal in the country on a purely economic basis.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you know things are not cheap here.”
“Food is—at least certain things are cheaper than in the States.”
“Yes, but everything else is apt to be more expensive-housing, clothes, a car, electrical appliances. Most people seem to have them, even though it would seem impossible on the salaries that are paid.” He shook his head. “How people live on their salaries—that’s the big miracle of Israel! I keep asking people, but I haven’t got a convincing explanation yet. As far as I can make out, you borrow to buy the things you need, like an apartment, and then if you don’t keep up your payments, it’s almost impossible to evict you. So they just add the missed payments to your debt, and you just sweat it out until the currency is devalued or the gov
ernment passes some sort of relief law. Well, in the kibbutz, you don’t have to worry about such things. Everything, all expenses are taken care of. And it appears to be a good life. Yes, if we decided to settle here, I’d give it a lot of thought.”
“A religious kibbutz, of course,” Miriam pointed out.
“I’m not so sure. Or perhaps I should say that I’m not so sure that the nonreligious ones aren’t really religious. You know, the Sabbath we just spent, it could be that was the way it was supposed to be celebrated. And I imagine that it’s quite possible that in Biblical times, they celebrated the various holidays the way they celebrate them in the nonreligious kibbutz. Some of them are nature festivals like Shavuoth and Sukkoth. Well, the people who live close to the earth, as the kibbutzniks do, probably celebrate them the way those primitive people of Biblical times did and for the same reason—because it’s natural.”
They had left the irrigated fields of the kibbutz and were now traveling through desert, the land parched and dry, stony and barren, save for an occasional clump of low, dusty bushes that marked the path of a wadi. The bright sun was reflected off the hard-baked ground in a yellow glare. The oppressiveness of the lifeless scene silenced him. And then, in an effort to throw it off, he began talking again.
“As a rabbi, I’m a professionally religious person. I pray at stated times and in specific ways. Some of it is a matter of habit, like brushing my teeth. And some of it I have consciously practiced because I thought it important for the preservation of the religion and the people like the Englishman who was supposed to dress for dinner in the jungle. But things are different here. You don’t have to follow strict observances here because you don’t have to make the point. I imagine that same Englishman was a lot less meticulous about dressing for dinner when he was back in London. It may be all that we’ve added over the years, the prayers, the special ceremonials, were done to make that same kind of point and were necessary for that reason. But now it may be that the reason is gone and they are no longer necessary.”
“It’s funny,” Miriam said softly.
“What’s funny?” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, remembering always to watch the road.
“That you should come to the Holy Land and find that all the holy things aren’t really holy.”
“I see what you mean.” He smiled. “But it could be like my friend Bill Abbot who doesn’t feel like a Jew because he’s among Jews. Maybe holy things are out of place in the Holy Land. I don’t think I’d be very comfortable if it were a holy land in the strict sense of the phrase. You remember how shocked you were when you read your first Israeli newspaper and saw stories of burglaries, and thieves and prostitutes. It didn’t seem right that there should be theft and prostitution in the Holy Land.”
“It wasn’t so much that,” she said, “so much as it was that the prostitute was named Rachel and the thief Baruch.”
“And yet, if there weren’t a prostitute named Rachel and a thief named Baruch, it would not be a society that had been established here but rather a museum like Colonial Williamsburg where people are paid to parade around in Colonial costumes. Like a museum, it’s all right for a brief visit, but you couldn’t live there. Now, here it is just the opposite. I don’t think I’d care to come here for a brief visit, but I think I might like to live here.”
“You’re really thinking seriously of it then?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And the rabbinate?” she asked quietly. “Are you thinking of giving that up?”
He did not answer immediately, and they rode for some little while in silence. Then he said, “I’m not afraid to face up to the possibility that I might have made a mistake.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Regularly, every Sunday afternoon when the weather and road conditions made it at all possible, Al Becker stopped by at the home of his old friend Jacob Wasserman to take him for a drive. Wasserman was the first president of the temple, indeed its founder, and Becker had backed him during the trying period when the organization was aborning and had then succeeded him in the presidency. They used to meet at the Sunday board meetings, but since neither of them now attended, the drive was by way of substitute. They talked of temple affairs largely; it was the one interest they had in common.
It was a mild day, the occasional mild day in March that was a forerunner of the lovely spring weather that sometimes comes to New England, and Wasserman was already in his overcoat, waiting on the porch when Becker drove up.
“I got a card from the rabbi,” Becker greeted him.
“Me too.”
“What did yours say?” Becker was a short, stocky man with a deep, gravelly voice that always carried a note of belligerence, an effect heightened by his tendency to twist his face forward when he spoke, as if to challenge the listener.
“What you say on a picture postcard. It was a picture of the Wall. On the back it said he was having a nice time. To tell the truth, I think it was the rebbitzin that wrote it and he signed it.”
“Same here. You know, sometimes I don’t understand the rabbi, Jacob. Now we’re his strongest backers in the temple, and we’ve gone to bat for him I don’t know how many times, and yet all he can think to send us is a lousy postcard which his wife wrote at that.”
“So? When you go on vacation, do you write letters?” Wasserman’s English was not so much accented as it showed a special effort to pronounce each word correctly.
“That’s different.”
“You send postcards, like when you went to California last summer. And it was Mrs. Becker that wrote them. Am I right?”
“Sure, but this is different. With me, it was just a matter of friendship. But with him, it’s business. He goes away for three months, which in itself is not such a good idea, not when you’ve got a board and a bunch of officers that are trying to screw you. When you’re in that position, you should stick around so you can fight back. Then he goes away without any contract. Now that ain’t smart, especially when you see them putting in a real hotshot as your replacement. Of course, we only got Marty Drexler’s say-so that that was what he wanted. I wouldn’t put it past that little bastard to maneuver the rabbi into a position where to save his self-respect he had to refuse a contract. And having agreed, he’d be too proud to come to us and tell us that Drexler had played him for a Mickey. So you’d think he’d be writing to us, to the guys who’ve been backing him, asking questions—what’s going on? What’s happening? Making suggestions on strategy. At least letting us know when he’s coming back so we can make preparations.”
“Ah, Becker, you’re a smart man, but not smart enough to understand the rabbi.” He rose slowly to his feet, and Becker held out a hand to help him down the stairs. “You’ve never understood him. The rabbi never plays tricks, and usually he says just what he means. He said he wanted a leave of absence; he was tired and wanted a rest. So that’s what it was—like a vacation. For people like us, when we take a vacation, what does it mean? It means if it’s the winter, we go to Florida to get a little sunshine. If it’s the summer, we go to the mountains maybe to get away from the heat. We see new people. We get away from business maybe. The wife doesn’t have to do any housekeeping or bother with meals. It’s a little rest. But with a man like the rabbi, it’s something more. A rest like me and you need, he don’t need. When he stops working, it’s because he wants to take stock.”
“Take stock? What kind of stock has he got?”
“You’re thinking like in a warehouse? No. Or maybe yes. His stock is himself. So when he takes stock, he is asking himself how much of himself he’s used up. Did he get a good price for it? How much he’s got it left? And should he go on peddling it like before, or should he change his method of operation?”
Becker, helping the older man to the car, stopped and faced him. “Honest to God, Jacob, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“No? Tell me, would you want to be a rabbi?”
“A
rabbi? Hell, no.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Well, for one thing I like to be in business for myself. From the time I was a kid peddling papers, I been working for myself. I don’t want to have to take any crap from some boss. And if it had to be from some of the guys we’ve had on the board, and yes, as president, there ain’t enough money in Fort Knox to pay me.”
“And for the money we pay Rabbi Small?”
Becker, his hand under the other’s arm, urged him forward again. “You’d have to tie me hand and foot.”
“So you think you’re smarter than the rabbi? In the old country, it used to be different. There the rabbi was the biggest man in town. In the shul there was a president, but the rabbi was like president of the whole community. In some places he was rich; in some places he could barely make a living. But it didn’t make any difference; he was the headman. If the rabbi made a decision, who would dare go against him? Not even the richest man in town.” Wasserman eased himself onto the car seat. “So here’s a young man, and he feels capable he should run the operation. So he goes into the rabbinate. But here it’s different. Here, a rabbi is not such an important person. Here, he has a bunch of bosses like Marty Drexler or Stanley Agranat or Bert Raymond. He sees right away it’s not like what he thought, but he keeps on because he keeps thinking maybe it’s improving a little, maybe he’s beginning to get control. Comes a time when he thinks maybe it’s always going to be this way-one year a little better maybe, the next year a little worse. Then he’s got to decide what to do. Of course, it he’s a rabbi like Rabbi Deutch—”
“What’s wrong with Rabbi Deutch? I’m sold on Rabbi Small, but I got to admit Rabbi Deutch is a good man.” He leaned forward to start the motor.
“Rabbi Deutch is a good American rabbi. For doing what an American rabbi does, he’s one of the best I’ve seen around. He looks nice, he talks nice, and he don’t get into any trouble with the important people. Maybe when he was the same age as Rabbi Small, he had the same questions in his mind and decided it wasn’t worthwhile fighting, that by bending a little here and there he could have a peaceful life.” Wasserman waved a blue-veined hand to illustrate Deutch’s probable flexibility. “But Rabbi Small is a little different. So that’s what I’m afraid of, that he might decide that it isn’t worth it.”
Monday the Rabbi Took Off Page 12
