Monday the Rabbi Took Off

by Harry Kemelman

  “He asked me, and if I weren’t coming here, I would have gone. He doesn’t go to the Wall. He goes to a little shul in the Quarter, and I like to go there.”

  “He has preferences in shuls, my son. He’s getting to be a regular rabbi. Every day he puts on phylacteries and prays—”

  “So what? You want to remember something, you put a string around your finger. So what’s wrong if I tie a strap around my arm and another around my head—”

  “To remind you of what?” his mother demanded.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe that when I am alone on patrol, I may not be alone. There’s a chance of catching a sniper’s bullet or stepping on a mine. It’s not pleasant to think that it is just a matter of luck, that if you hadn’t taken one extra step, it wouldn’t have happened. It’s better to think that there is a great design of which I am a part, yes, and even of which my being shot is a part. Look, all this business here, the candles, the wine, the challahs, the whole idea of the Sabbath—it’s beautiful. Can something be beautiful and have no meaning? You yourself light the candles at home.”

  “The Sabbath is not really religion,” said his mother stoutly. “It’s a major sociological contribution that we have made.”

  “Aren’t all religious practices sociological contributions?” said the rabbi mildly.

  Gittel canted her head to one side and considered. “Your husband has a curious way of looking at things, Miriam,” she said. Then to the rabbi: “You may be right, but even a major sociological innovation can in time become a mere superstition. Take my son—”

  “Oh, come on, Gittel,” Uri protested, “there must be other subjects of conversation besides me. Did you get to see Sarah?”

  “I saw her, and I saw Avner, too. He was there at the hospital when I came in. And I told him to his face, ‘Avner Adoumi,’ I said, ‘if you want your wife—’”

  “Yes, I know,” Uri interrupted. “He should give up his job.”

  “You still didn’t explain why it’s so dangerous,” said the rabbi.

  “The exact nature of his work, I don’t know,” Gittel said, “only that he’s a high government official—”

  “Come on, Gittel, you know very well he’s in the Shin Bet,” said her son.

  “I know nothing of the sort. Neither he nor Sarah ever told me, and I wouldn’t think of asking. And I should think you, in the Army, would know better than to mention it.”

  “Why? You think David and Miriam are going to spread it around? Maybe I ought to go out and see her while I’m in the city.”

  “When? Tomorrow? You can’t. Your friends, the religious, won’t let you because you would have to ride. No visitors at Hadassah on the Sabbath. Even Avner can’t go see his own wife. By them it’s a terrible crime. So they impose rules on the rest of us. They’re not even true Israelis; they don’t even talk the language—”

  “And the bunch of Anglo-Saxons and Yekkies that run Hadassah and your hospital, too, you call them real Israelis? As for the language, they don’t even want to learn it. Some of them have been here thirty years or more and still can’t read a Hebrew newspaper or understand a Hebrew news broadcast.”

  “So there is a ‘real Israeli’ question here?” said the rabbi pleasantly. “I suppose that’s a sign that the state is fully established. During the formation and founding of a state there’s usually no time for such arguments.”

  “You don’t understand, David,” said Uri earnestly. “You haven’t been here long enough. It’s a matter of principle—”

  “No, Uri, it’s a matter of logic,” said the rabbi firmly. “Anyone who is a citizen of Israel is automatically a real Israeli. Some are perhaps more typical than others. I suppose that a Pekinese is a less typical dog than a foxhound, but he is still a real dog. What else could he be? Your test of language would exclude a lot of people who came here and died to establish the country. Your own father, I understand, did not speak Hebrew.”

  “My husband was a Yiddishist,” said Gittel stiffly. “He did not speak the language out of principle.”

  “So the religious groups, some of them at least, don’t speak it out of principle either,” said the rabbi. “They consider it a holy language and hence not to be used for mundane things.”

  “No one really objects to their not speaking Hebrew or to their strange dress and outlandish costumes for that matter,” said Gittel. “What we object to is that they are less than fifteen percent of the population and they try to impose their customs on the rest of us.”

  “Would you deny to a political group the right to use their intelligence to increase their influence and propagate their ideas?” the rabbi demanded. “And remember, with them, it’s a matter of not just political principles. They may be mistaken, but they think they’re carrying out divine commandments.”

  “Fanatics!” said Gittel. “That’s what they are.”

  The rabbi tilted his head to one side and smiled. “Even fanatics have their uses. They form one end of the normal curve that comprises all of us. If they were a little nearer the center, then those on the other end would have been just that much farther away. If a couple of hundred years ago we had all been ‘enlightened,’ would we be a people today?”

  Gittel pushed her plate aside, planted her elbows on the table, and leaned forward, the light of battle in her eyes. “David, you are a rabbi, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not your fault,” she added magnanimously, “you haven’t lived here long enough to know what’s going on. It’s not only in the restrictions they impose on the rest of us on the Sabbath, but there are whole areas in which they have complete control. They control marriage; they control who is a Jew. They practically control our hotels and restaurants. And all on the basis of ancient regulations that have no bearing in a modern society. Because a man’s name happens to be Cohen, they refuse him permission to marry a divorced woman on the grounds that he is of the family of Cohanim or priests, and according to Leviticus or Deuteronomy or someplace, the priest must not marry a divorcée. A woman suffers all kinds of cruelty and abuse from her husband, and she cannot get a divorce because only the husband may grant a divorce.”

  “The husband can be ordered by the rabbinical court to grant a divorce,” said Uri, “and they can even put him in jail if he refuses.”

  “And what if he is already in jail?” his mother demanded. “And how about the children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers who have been declared by the courts to be non-Jews—”

  “But if she converted—”

  “But they decide if it’s a proper conversion,” she ended triumphantly.

  The rabbi leaned back in his chair. “And what law, anywhere, has ever affected everyone exactly the same? There are always exceptional cases which are unfair to the individual. But society tolerates them because a perfect law is impossible and life without law is unthinkable. If there are too many such exceptional cases—that is, if the cases stop being exceptional and become the rule—then either changes are made in the law, or it is bent a little, reinterpreted, to accommodate to the new situation. And that’s what’s happened here in the matter of mixed marriages. But if there were not a group of zealots dedicated to the preservation of the strict interpretation of the law on this matter of who is a Jew and who isn’t, say, how long do you suppose Israel would remain a Jewish state? How soon before it became completely cosmopolitan? And then what justification would there be for having it a separate state?”

  Jonathan yawned prodigiously, instantly drawing all attention to him.

  “The poor child,” said Gittel, “our talk has tired him.”

  “It’s past his bedtime,” said Miriam. “Come, Jonathan, kiss Daddy and Aunt Gittel and Uri and say good night.”

  Jonathan dutifully made the rounds, ending in front of Uri. “Are you going away tonight?” he asked wistfully.

  “Uri will sleep here tonight,” said Miriam, “and if you go to sleep right away, you can be up bright and earl
y and go to shul with him.”

  Much later, when the adults finally decided to retire for the night, Gittel announced that she would sleep on the sofa so that Uri could have the bed in Jonathan’s room. He protested, but Gittel insisted that she preferred the sofa. To Miriam, she explained, “I’d like him to have a comfortable bed for one night at least. Besides, Jonathan will like seeing him in the room with him when he wakes up.”

  As she helped Miriam make up the sofa, she said, “Your friend, this Stedman, has he gone back to America yet?”

  “No, I’m sure he hasn’t. I’m sure he’d call us to say good-bye before he left.”

  “His son, he’s in real trouble?”

  “I don’t know,” said Miriam. “We’ve been worrying about it. We haven’t heard a word from Dan since that night at the King David. He’s probably in Tel Aviv seeing what he can do at the embassy.”

  “Too bad, he is a nice man.”

  “Maybe he’ll drop by tomorrow for kiddush. He usually does.”

  “So maybe I’ll see him. Maybe I can help. I know lots of people.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-EIGHT

  It was no accident that Marty Drexler and Bert Raymond stopped in at the Deutch house Saturday morning; they knew the rabbi would be at the temple, and it was the rebbitzin they wanted to see.

  She came to the door in response to their ring. “Oh, Mr. Raymond—and Mr. Drexler. The rabbi is in the temple.”

  “Oh. Yes, I guess he would be, wouldn’t he?” Raymond sounded disappointed, but he did not turn away.

  There was an awkward pause, and then to fill it, Mrs. Deutch said, “Won’t you come in? Was it something urgent?” She stood aside for them. “I’m just having a second cup of coffee. Would you care to join me?”

  “That would be very nice, Mrs. Deutch,” said Marty.

  She motioned them to the table and brought cups for them. They sat and chatted as they sipped their coffee. They both refused a second cup. Marty held up his hands to emphasize his refusal and said, “It’s good coffee, but one’s enough for me. What we wanted to see the rabbi about is if he’d come to any decision on a matter we talked to him last week. Did he tell you about it?”

  “Yes, he mentioned it,” she said cautiously.

  “I guess you’re concerned as much as he is. How do you feel about staying on here, Mrs. Deutch?” asked Raymond.

  “The decision rests with Hugo.” She removed the cups. “I’m sure you understand that, Mr. Raymond.”

  “Sure,” said Marty. “I make the decisions in my house, but my wife tells me what to decide. I got an idea it’s the same in most households. Now I got an idea that the rabbi listens and sets store by what you got to say.”

  “Well, of course—”

  “I mean, that if you don’t like the idea, if you think the rabbi is too old to undertake a new job or you got it in your head to retire to Florida, then we’re barking up the wrong tree, and the sooner we know it, the quicker we can start making some alternate plans.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, I like it here. And I know Hugo does. Whether he’s too old is up to you and your board to decide. I know he doesn’t think so. And I don’t think so. As for retiring to Florida, I’m sure it’s the farthest thing from his mind.”

  “Well, if we’ve got you in our corner—”

  “But I can tell you that what concerns him most,” she went on, “is whether there is really a job here.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Raymond earnestly, “and of course, I explained to Rabbi Deutch that we were approaching him because we had reason to believe that there is a job here.”

  “Look, Mrs. Deutch,” said Marty Drexler impulsively. “Let me lay it on the line. When Rabbi Small took a leave of absence, and I mean took it, because Lord knows it wasn’t offered, as far as I was concerned, the job was available right then and there. If it had been in my office, I would have had a replacement before the guy had cleared his whiskey bottle out of the desk drawer. And I don’t think I’m tough; I’m just fair. I don’t mind giving the other guy what’s coming to him so long as I get what’s coming to me. But a lot of guys on the board, they took the view that it was different with rabbis. So all right we agree to hire somebody temporary, namely, your good husband, while Small takes off for three months or so. But in all that time, we haven’t heard a word from him. Not one word. Not so much as a line saying, ‘Be seeing you soon.’ Let alone any letter asking for what’s happening here. So now a lot more guys have come around to my way of thinking—that there is a job here, and that we can take a hint that’s like a knock on the head with a hammer as good as the next guy.”

  “Have you written him?”

  “No, we haven’t, and if somebody suggested it in the board, I’d get up on my hind legs and holler loud and clear, because I don’t think it’s dignified for us to write him and beg him to tell us what his plans are.”

  “And on top of that, Mrs. Deutch,” Raymond added, “a couple of our members were in Israel and spent a day with Rabbi Small, and they got the impression—I want to be fair—that he wasn’t coming back, and might even leave the rabbinate altogether.”

  “Well, I’ll admit that we thought it strange that Rabbi Small hadn’t written to us,” said Mrs. Deutch.

  “That’s good enough for me!” exclaimed Marty. “As far as I’m concerned, Rabbi Small is definitely out of the picture.”

  “Now, Marty …” Raymond temporized.

  “Look, Bert, that’s not just my attitude. I’ve sounded out the guys on the board, and a clear majority of them say that if they have to pick between Rabbi Small and Rabbi Deutch, they’re going to pick Rabbi Deutch, even if it means a fight. He’s our kind of man. He’s what the temple needs. And I’ll tell you something, Mrs. Deutch. Bert here feels the same way, but he’s a lawyer, so he can’t say anything without putting in a lot of wherefores and whereases. But I’ll lay it on the line to you, Mrs. Deutch, the job is open, and your husband can have it if he wants it; but he can’t sit back and let it drop on him. He’s got to reach for it.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Sure you do. He’s got to show he wants it. There never was a job or a deal that was all clear sailing. There’s always some little bind. That’s life. You got to expect that. And in this case, I don’t see it as any big problem. But Rabbi Deutch got to show that he wants the job. Otherwise, when Rabbi Small comes back, there are going to be people who will say that even though they prefer to have Rabbi Deutch, still and all, Rabbi Small is a young man with a family and all that kind of thing. And the first thing you know, we’ve got a fight on our hands, and things kind of sour, and some of the mud hits your husband.”

  Mrs. Deutch nodded. “Yes, I think I see your point.”

  “So is it a deal, Mrs. Deutch?”

  “Well, as I said, the decision is up to Hugo, but I’ll undertake to talk to him.”

  “That’s all we ask,” said Marty. He rose, as did his colleague. “If I happened to run in to Rabbi Deutch, I wasn’t planning to mention that I’d been here.”

  “Yes, I think that’s good strategy,” she said. “I won’t mention your visit.”

  “That way he’ll think it all comes from you.”

  She smiled. “Yes, I think that might be better.”

  When they were back in the car, Bert asked, “Do you think she can bring it off?”

  “It’s in the bag,” Marty chuckled. “I’m no philosopher or psychologist or anything, but in my business I’ve had a lot of experience sizing up couples—you know, they come in together for a loan—and I can usually tell who wears the pants. Believe me, in that household, she does.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-NINE

  Uri had left to go to his girl’s house; Jonathan had already changed from his “good” clothes he wore to the synagogue into his regular shorts and jersey and was playing in the yard with Shaouli; and the Smalls and Gittel were dawdling over wine and cake and nuts at t
he kiddush table when Dan Stedman arrived. He had the copy of Haolam with him and thrust it into the rabbi’s hand.

  “You see, the propaganda machinery has already been set in motion. There will be more in the days to come, and when the trial comes, the verdict will already have been decided in the press.” He looked haggard, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  The rabbi glanced at the cover picture and then flipped through the magazine. “This is a monthly,” he said, “and must have gone to press some time ago. Besides, it’s a picture magazine like our own Life. They’re apt to print any picture that’s interesting. Did you notice that one on page thirty-two? That aerial photograph must have been taken right after the Six-Day War. Now this one of Memavet is interesting just as a piece of photography.”

  “I suppose so,” Stedman agreed wearily. “I’ve been so involved that I’m probably not thinking straight. I imagine I’ve become paranoid on the subject. And there was no one I could discuss it with—”

  “What happened?” asked Miriam.

  “I—” He paused, uncertain, and looked from one woman to the other.

  “If you don’t want to talk in front of me,” Gittel offered, “I can go into the kitchen.”

  “No, it’s all right. In a few days at the most everyone will know.” He giggled hysterically. “You might as well get my side of the story first.” As he began to talk, his voice grew calmer, and soon he was speaking matter-of-factly and objectively as though he was recounting to a rewrite man. He kept interrupting the flow of his narrative with editorial comments—“I can see where the police might come to this conclusion” or “It was terribly stupid of Roy.” The eyes of both women were fixed on him while the rabbi stared at the magazine cover on the table in front of him. Dan finished with, “I can’t believe that Roy did this terrible thing,” and then weakened it somewhat by adding, “I’m sure they don’t have the evidence that would be needed in a regular trial.”