Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Although it was the Sabbath, a time of rest and relaxation, of quiet rejoicing, when mundane thoughts and worries are supposed to be banished from the mind of the observant Jew, the rabbi had been abstracted all day, speaking scarcely a word to Miriam, and now, in the early evening, the Sabbath over, he went into the living room and was soon lost in a book.

"Do you think he did it?" Miriam asked in annoyance. "Roger Fine. Do you think he did it?"

He shrugged. "How do I know?" And he returned to his book.

"Well, aren't you going to do anything about it?" With a sigh of impatience, he closed his book. "What can I do?"

"At least you can go see him," she retorted.

"I'm not sure it's advisable," he said. "Fine hasn't asked to see me, and neither have his family here. What's more, considering the unpleasantness before the wedding they're not likely to, especially after this business at the temple last night. If they can spread rumors that I accused him or denounced him to the police. Lord knows what they'd make of my going to visit him at the jail."

"You never used to care what people thought,” she remarked quietly. "You did what you felt you had to do, regardless of what people thought."

"So maybe I'm a little wiser now," he said cynically. She looked up quickly. It was so unlike him, he caught her look and felt he had to explain. "I’ve never been exactly a howling success here in Barnard's Crossing,” he said quietly. "At first I thought it was the fault of the congregation and that once they came around, everything would be all right. Each time there was a crisis of some sort— and there's been one practically every year I’ve been here— when it was finally resolved. I’ve thought, now everything is settled and I can begin to be really effective. But then another crisis would arise. It was like that first car we had, remember? We had trouble with the ignition, and when we had it rewired we thought everything would be all right, and then the radiator went. So we got a new radiator and in less than a week the muffler let go, and then the transmission, and they wanted — what was it— two hundred dollars? Three hundred?"

"Three hundred is what we paid for the car," she murmured. "Each time something went wrong, we thought it was a fluke, and once it was fixed everything would be all right. But when you have a series of flukes, then it's no fluke, then Murphy's Law governs."

"Murphy's Law?"

"That's right. I first became acquainted with it when I was a chaplain in the Army. Murphy's Law states that if an accident or a foul-up can happen, it will happen. So after a while I began to think maybe it was I rather than the congregation." He smiled ruefully. "You know the old Talmudic proverb: when three people tell you you're drunk, go home and lie down."

"So you're going to lie down?"

"Miriam, if vow don't understand—"

"I'm trying. David,” she said passionately. "I'm really trying."

"Look, all the other times when I’ve had a row I've felt I had the respect of the congregation. While we differed on principles, at the very last they were respectful. But this— it was like a, well, a demonstration. Directed at me personally by my own congregation."

"Some of those women weren't even members of the congregation."

"But some of them were." She was troubled. "Aren't you trying to say that you are tired of the rabbinate. David?"

He laughed bitterly. "No. I'd like to try that sometime, too."

"What do you mean?" He got up and began to stride the room. "My grandfather was the rabbi of a small Orthodox congregation, he didn't make little speeches to bar mitzvah youngsters, he didn't get up to announce the page in the prayer book during holiday services, he spent his time largely in study. When anyone in his community had a question that involved their religion, they came to him and he researched it in the Talmud and answered it. When there was a dispute between two or more members of the community, they came to him and he heard all sides and passed judgment, and they abided by his verdict, he was doing the traditional work of a rabbi."

"But your father—"

"My father was a Conservative rabbi. His congregation is old and established, they have a feeling and understanding of the function of the rabbi, and they trusted him implicitly, they didn't go to him for judgment and they had no great concern for the kind of questions that my grandfather passed on. But they cared about their Judaism and they relied on my father to guide them in it."

"Well isn't that what you do?"

"It's what I’ve tried to do. It's what I would do if the congregation let me. But they buck me at every turn, at first I thought I'd gradually win them over and that I'd be able to serve them as my father served his congregation."

"But—"

"But now I see that the rabbinate is not what I thought it was."

She looked at him, he seemed so dejected.

"Everything changes from generation to generation. David,” she began softly. "You went into the rabbinate because you were inspired by the sight of your grandfather sitting in judgment. How about the doctor's son who was inspired to go into medicine by the drama of his father sitting through the night with a desperately sick patient? He has to be a specialist now with office hours five days a week and Wednesday afternoons off. Instead of treating the whole man, he deals with a series of hearts and stomachs. It's the same in the trades. When Mr. Macfarlane came down to fix the windows he told me his father had built the house they lived in single-handed, and during the winter, he made a lot of their furniture, too, and our Mr. Macfarlane, except for little odds and ends on the side, does nothing but lay floors, the methods change, but the profession doesn't. Doctors are still concerned with healing the sick and carpenters with building houses and rabbis with directing the Jewish community and keeping it Jewish, and how about teachers?"

"I don't feel that I've been any great success at that, either,” he said glumly.

"You're talking nonsense!" She exploded. "You're an excellent rabbi and an excellent teacher, too. You have trouble with your congregation because you're a good rabbi."

"What do you mean by that?"

"If you want to get along well with your congregation, if you want to be popular, David, you go along with them, instead of directing them and leading them. You don't ever make them face hard truths, and if a teacher wants to be popular with his class he doesn't try to make them learn anything."

"Well, of course—"But she could see that his mood had changed. So with a fine high scorn for logic, she said. "And you don't have to go see Fine in jail, at least not right away. I should think you'd want to see this Bradford Ames first and find out the situation, after all, he owes you something for helping him with the Selzers."The rabbi considered. "I might try to see him."

"Why don't you call him right now, at home? There can't be too many people named Bradford Ames, even in Boston." Ames seemed glad to hear from him. "I'd be happy to meet with you. Rabbi, as a matter of fact. I'm coming down your way tomorrow to close up our place for the winter. Do you know where it is?.. .Then I'll expect you there sometime before noon."