Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet (21 page)

She led him into the living room, but she was still not mollified. “And they might think I was the kind of woman men could come to see by just ringing the bell. Did you think of that?”

“No, I didn’t,” Akiva retorted crossly. “I didn’t think of anything except that I wanted to see you. Look,” he pleaded, “I’m clean-shaven, my hair is cut, I’m all dressed up like a regular square and I wanted you to see me.”

“All right. I see you.”

“Do you like it?” he asked eagerly.

“It’s an improvement. Even if you couldn’t spare the time to phone before coming, why didn’t you call to say you were going away?”

“I – I left kind of sudden. Something came up. But I’m back now.”

“For good?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe you heard? My father got sick –”

“Yes. I heard about it. I’m sorry.” Leah did not bother to say that she had dropped into the store on the chance that he might be there.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” he said earnestly. “When I left, I wasn’t planning to come back, then my mother phoned to tell me what happened.”

“I see, and you changed your style, you shaved because of what I said about beards?”

He was tempted to lie, to say he had indeed done it for her. But what he had appreciated most about their short acquaintance, what he had thought of on the long ride back to Philadelphia and again the many times he had remembered her during the week that followed was the feeling that he could be completely honest and candid with her. So he said, “No, I did it for my father.”

“Oh?”

“He’s my father,” he said. “I owe it to him, Leah. You just kind of suggested you didn’t like it, but with him it would bother him that somebody like me, like I was, was operating his precious store, and it’s not good for him to be bothered. I owe him that much.”

She was momentarily disappointed and yet strangely reassured. “How is he?”

“I went to see him this morning right after I had my hair cut. I was dressed like this, like I am now, he was lying there just looking up at the ceiling and he seemed tired and sort of washed out. I don’t remember ever seeing him that way before. But when he saw me, he perked right up and started to give me instructions – on what to do in the store, and I just listened.” He saw that she did not understand. “What I mean is I didn’t argue with him, I just listened and agreed. You see, it wasn’t anything very important. It never was. Just his special way of billing, or putting up merchandise or typing labels.” He grinned. “I felt good about it, too, like I’d done a mitzvah.”

“And what would your rebbe have said about it?” she teased.

He considered the question seriously. “Well, most of the chavurah probably would tick me off for shaving – those who don’t have beards use a depilatory or an electric razor, which is supposed to be all right for some reason – especially for shaving and having my hair cut on the Sabbath and for working on the Sabbath, but the rebbe himself would approve, I think, he’s not like the ordinary chasidic rebbe, he’s very modem. I know it’s all right because I felt good about it. Sometimes, you feel good about something you do for yourself, like lying in the sun, or when you make it with a girl and it’s just right, but when you do something for someone else – not just a favor, but something you’ve got to give up like a sacrifice – then you feel good in a special way.”

She asked how long he planned to stay in town and he said, “I don’t know. My mother said it would be three months before my father could go back to work. I’ll probably be here at least that long. I gave up my apartment in Philly.”

“Was your job there so much better than you can do around here?”

“No. I settled in Philly because I’d gone to school there, so I knew the city, and then again. I wanted to be far enough away from home to feel free.”

“And now?”

He grinned. “Well, how free was I if my mother could bring me back here with a phone call?”

Leah pressed him. “So you might stay?”

He shrugged. “I might have to – and I might want to.”

Aware that his mother would probably not go to sleep until he got home, he left at eleven, at the door, he said, “I’ll probably be working every night except Sundays. By the time I get through, it’s too late to go anywhere – to dinner or a movie, but I’d like to see you –”

“I don’t go out much because of Jackie. You can stop by when you get through if you like.”

He had had enough experience to realize how unusual was her honesty. “Expect me,” he said.

The phone rang, and Rabbi Small reached for it. “David? Mort Brooks. Can you give me a lift to the temple? I got a flat.”

“All right, but don’t keep me waiting.”

“I’ll be out front when you drive up.”

Sure enough, the Hebrew school principal was waiting on the curb as the rabbi, with squealing brakes, brought his car to a halt. “When are you going to trade in this junk heap?” Brooks asked derisively as he climbed into the passenger seat.

The rabbi glanced at the sporty convertible parked in the driveway and replied pointedly, “I’m giving you a lift and not you me.”

“A flat tire can happen to anybody.” Brooks was wearing flared slacks and a houndstooth sport jacket. His collar was open at the throat, which was encircled by a silk neckerchief knotted at one side.

“You going to a garden party?” the rabbi asked sourly.

“Right, after Sunday school, at least, a cookout.” He twisted in his seat to catch a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror and bestowed a self-satisfied smirk at his reflection. “Sundays I think of as my day of rest and I like to dress for it.”

“Not Saturdays?”

“Saturdays, too, with modern tensions and pressures, you need two days a week.”

“What tensions are you under?” the rabbi asked.

“Are you kidding? With a schoolful of spoiled brats and their doting mothers and fathers to contend with?” He shuddered delicately. “When I get home, I’m a positive wreck. Caroline is after me to give it up.”

“And go back to the theater?”

“Right,” Brooks said. “But you know how things are on Broadway these days. Women are so impractical.” He slewed around to face the rabbi. “And they’re not the only ones, David. I have it from the grapevine that you’re planning to challenge the board on their vote last week to sell the Goralsky Block, that’s not very practical, not practical at all.”

“This grapevine of yours –”

“You mean it isn’t true?”

“Oh, it’s true enough,” the rabbi said. “I just wonder how this grapevine works.”

Brooks smiled. “You told Kaplan and he told various members of the board, which includes my neighbor Cy Feinstone. It was a unanimous vote, so do you think you’re going to change it?”

“It was unanimous.” said the rabbi, “because Kaplan railroaded it through. It doesn’t mean there was no opposition. I know how these things work, a vote is taken and then someone says, ‘Let’s make it unanimous,’ so they vote again and it comes out unanimous.”

“Don’t kid yourself, David. Cy normally doesn’t vote with Kaplan, but he voted for this. Why? Because it’s a natural. What does the temple want with a block of stores? It’s just a lot of trouble, and here someone comes along and offers them a terrific price. Naturally, they’re going to take it.”

“But they also voted to buy the New Hampshire property,” the rabbi objected.

“Well, why not? What are they going to do with all that money around? Raise salaries? Lower dues? The mortgage is paid off, the buildings are in good shape. Some temples, I understand, set up reserve funds to draw on in case of necessity, but people feel that’s just an invitation to the rabbi and the cantor and the teachers in the school to ask for more money. Besides, Kaplan very cleverly tied the two motions together in one package, the only way you could have stopped it was with plenty of political muscle, and it’s even going to be harder to reverse it.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Be practical, David. Who’ve you got on your side? On the board, nobody except a couple of past presidents, and most of the time they don’t attend meetings.”

“Well, maybe not on the board, but in the congregation –”

Brooks shook his head and said pityingly, “Most of them don’t even know you.”

“Oh, come now.”

“I mean it, David. Of course, they know who you are, but that’s it, they see you only on the High Holy Days, so that’s a couple of days a year, maybe those who come to the Friday evening services regularly know you, but you never draw more than seventy-five – a hundred tops, and you’ve got to consider that knowing you doesn’t mean liking you, David. It’s a fifty-fifty proposition at best, because you’re not an easy man to like. You know what you really got going for you? Inertia, that’s your ace in the hole. Firing a rabbi is trouble, it means taking positive action, and people are mentally and emotionally lazy, they won’t fire you, but that doesn’t mean they’ll back you in a fight with the board, and this year, remember, it’s even worse than other years.”

“Why is it worse this year, Morton?”

“Because other years you could count on the Orthodox element, but that’s Kaplan and his crew, and it’s him you’re fighting.”

The rabbi smiled. “So what do you advise?”

“Don’t fight them. Let it go. David, they’ve beaten you, so take it like a good sport. You know, let go of the rope.”

“Why are you so concerned, Morton? How are you affected?”

Brooks stared at him in amazement. “I’m your friend.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, over the years we’ve adjusted to each other. How do I know what another rabbi would be like?”

As the secretary read the minutes, the rabbi counted twenty around the table in addition to himself. It was five or six more than normally attended board meetings, suggesting to him that Kaplan had been actively politicking. Even in the early days, when the board had consisted of forty-five, anyone who was interested or might be induced to become interested was elected to the board. Rarely, however, did more than fifteen attend any one meeting. Now that the board consisted of eighteen elected members, chai, as well as the officers and all past presidents, fifteen was still the most they could muster at a meeting, with the advantage, however, that it constituted an undisputed quorum.

Of those present, the rabbi recognized half as close associates of the president, they were on the slate that Kaplan had presented when he ran for the presidency; they attended the minyan; in all likelihood they accompanied him on the retreats in New Hampshire, he recognized several others, like Dr. Muntz and Paul Goodman, as Kaplan’s personal friends even though they did not necessarily share his religious views, he did not know about the others, but he was sure that the very fact that they were unexpectedly there meant that they would certainly side with Kaplan.

“.., chairman of the House Committee reported that three reputable heating contractors had been contacted and invited to submit bids on…”

The rabbi reflected sadly that if he were more practical, he would have called some of the members of the board, some of the past presidents like Jacob Wasserman or Al Becker or even Ben Gorfinkle to urge them to be present. Not that there was any certainty that they would side with him, but they would at least give him a sympathetic hearing.

“.., ruled by the chairman to be Old Business, after considerable discussion, it was voted to lay the matter on the table until the meeting prior to the Chanukah festival, at which time the board would be better able to determine…”

He wondered if he had been wise in hinting to Marcus Aptaker at their last meeting that reconsideration of the sale was possible. Would the disappointment be all the greater for having his hopes raised? It occurred to him that since Aptaker was not a member, some of the board might consider it disloyal on his part to champion his cause against the temple. But he put the thought aside immediately, as the only rabbi in town, he was the rabbi for the entire Jewish community and not merely for that segment of it that paid his salary.

“… Motion made and seconded that the temple purchase the Petersville property in New Hampshire, the money to be raised through the sale of the Goralsky Block to William Safferstein for the offered price of $100,000.00, the motion was voted on and passed unanimously, and the president, Chester Kaplan, was empowered to institute the necessary negotiations, the meeting was adjourned at ‘0:32 A.M. Respectfully submitted, Joseph Schneider, Secretary.”

Chester Kaplan looked around at the board. “Corrections or additions?” he asked. “None? Then the report is accepted as read. Do we have any committee reports?” He looked from one to another of the committee chairmen, each of whom responded with a shake of the head.

“Nothing today, Chet. Nothing happened, we didn’t hold a meeting.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Nothing new on the insurance situation. Paul?” he asked.

“Well, Chet. I’m waiting to hear from this guy. I’d rather wait until next week and make a full report.”

“Okay, then we move on to Old Business. Rabbi?” as he saw the hand raised.

“I move for reconsideration of the motion to buy the Petersville property,” he said.

“Do I hear a second?” Silence.

Kaplan’s lips twitched as he strove to suppress a smile. “Since there’s no second on the rabbi’s motion –”

“Just a minute.” The rabbi was nettled. In preparing his case, it had not occurred to him that he might not have a chance to present it. “I’d like to explain the reason for my motion to reconsider.”

“That comes during discussion on the motion,” the chairman pointed out, “and we can’t discuss it if it hasn’t been seconded.”

The rabbi bit his lip in vexation, he rose. “Point of privilege then. This is a matter on which the rabbi of the congregation has a right –”

Paul Goodman, a former president, called out. “Point of order, Mr. Chairman.”

“Go on, Paul.”

“I should like to say, and with all due respect, that the rabbi is not an official member of this body, he attends board meetings only on the invitation of the chairman –”

“No, Paul,” said Kaplan. “It’s true that the rabbi attends these meetings by invitation, but when I extended the invitation at the beginning of the year, I made it plain that the rabbi is to be considered a full member during my term in office, that means he’s to have all rights and privileges. But, of course,” he added, “I intend to follow parliamentary law in conducting these meetings. Go on, Rabbi, I think you’ve got the floor.”