Monday the Rabbi Took Off

Chapter Thirty-Five

There's nothing official about this. Rabbi." said Marty Drexler. "We want to make that plain at the beginning. Don't we, Bert?"

Bert Raymond nodded. "That's right. Marty had this idea, and he spoke to me about it, and I said we ought to come over to see you first before we started doing anything— you know, talking it up among the fellows, laying the groundwork."

Rabbi Deutch looked from one of his two visitors to the other. His fingers drummed on the arm of his chair. "It's something I'd have to think about." he said at last in his deep baritone voice. It was the voice he used in the pulpit, several notches below the tones he used to tell his wife how he wanted his eggs cooked for breakfast. "I served my congregation in Darlington faithfully for thirty years. There were many who wanted me to continue, but I felt that I needed a much deserved rest. There was work of a scholarly nature that I wanted to do. Traditionally, a rabbi is primarily a scholar, gentlemen. Frankly, one of my reasons for coming to Barnard's Crossing was its close proximity to the great libraries of Boston and Cambridge.

And even in the short time I’ve been here. I’ve made use of them. However. I have also enjoyed my work with the congregation, and I must admit it has not seriously interfered with the works of research and scholarship in which I am engaged. How it would work out over the long haul is another matter. I'd have to give it careful thought."

"Well, sure, we know that. It's not that we want your answer right away," said Marty eagerly.

"It's not only a question of my own personal inclinations." Rabbi Deutch went on as though he had not been interrupted. "There is also an ethical and moral question. I came here originally as a substitute for Rabbi Small—"

"But he's not the one who picked you." said Marty. Although he felt a good deal of constraint in Rabbi Deutch's presence, unlike his reaction to Rabbi Small, he could not keep restrained for long. "I mean it isn't as though he asked you to come and take his place. It was the board that did. I mean you’re not his choice, so it isn't as though you owe him anything."

"Well—"

"Marty is right, you know," said Raymond judicially. "I can see where you would feel bound to him if he had asked you to come and take his place. Even if he had recommended you to the board without consulting you first— that is, if he had submitted your name to the board as a possible candidate— but he had nothing to do with it. When he told us that he wanted a long vacation— and mind you. he didn't ask us, he just told us— we discussed what we ought to do. There was even some talk on the board of not engaging anyone, you know, just arranging for someone from the seminary to come down now and then."

"I see." Rabbi Deutch tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling as he pondered the matter. Finally, he lowered his head and said, "Still, the rabbinate is not a business. I can't take advantage of a colleague's absence to take over his pulpit as a businessman would take a customer away from a rival." He rose and began striding the room, their eyes following him like spectators at a tennis match. "I have been very happy here. I admit that. And I am happy to hear that my efforts have not been in vain. I am happy to hear from you that I am well thought of in the congregation. That makes me very happy indeed. Now suppose that as a result of my greater experience, some of you, even a majority of you. even the entire congregation"— he stopped in front of them and spread his arms as if physically to include the massed congregation—"felt that I was more attuned to your needs, and I put it that way advisedly, gentlemen, because I don't for a minute want to suggest the possibility that Rabbi Small might not be as effective in his own way as you gentlemen seem to think I am in mine, well, even then, it becomes a question of whether it is right, or at least proper, for me to take over this pulpit on a permanent basis when Rabbi Small left it expecting to come back after his vacation or leave of absence."

"But that's just the point." said Marty. "This wasn't just an ordinary vacation. I ought to know because I'm the guy that arranged it. And I came down ready to talk contract. And because he'd been here almost seven veers and hadn't taken off in all that time, we were ready to give him a sabbatical. But for a sabbatical, you know, you’ve got to have a contract. I mean, you can't give a guy a year's salary or half a year's salary so he can go to Israel and then afterward have him say, 'So sorry, boys, I'm taking a job with this other congregation.' And he wouldn't even discuss it." Marty could not keep the indignation out of his voice. "Absolutely refused to talk about it. So, okay, he doesn't want to talk contract, but what are your intentions, Rabbi? How long do you want? You want to go to Israel? You want to get it out of your system? Fine, I can understand that. I guess a rabbi has to go to Israel at least once to say he's been. You want to take off three weeks or a month even. I guess we could manage all right. But no, he wants an extended leave, three months, maybe more. Now you understand. I'm the treasurer of the temple. I'm the moneyman, and I'm responsible to the whole congregation how I spend the temple's money. It's not my money. It's theirs, the congregation's, so while I'm handling somebody else's money I got to be careful. I mean, suppose somebody in the congregation says to me what right have I got to give away the temple's money when I don't even know is the rabbi coming back or not. So I have to figure what the congregation can be legitimately asked to stand for. And I come up with a formula. I say, 'Okay, Rabbi, let's figure on a vacation basis. You been here six years and little more. All right, practically anybody got a right to two weeks' vacation a year. So that's six times two weeks is twelve weeks or three months. I figure anybody that asks, I could justify a three-month paid vacation.' And what do you suppose the rabbi says to that? He says he'd given the matter some thought, and he's decided that he shouldn't be paid while he's on leave. And to me that means he was practically resigning," said Drexler triumphantly.

"That's the way I see it," Bert Raymond chimed in.

A faraway look came over Rabbi Deutch's face, and when he spoke, his eyes were focused beyond them as if he were addressing an unseen audience. "The responsibility of the spiritual guidance of a congregation can constitute a great drain on one's nervous energies, gentlemen. I can remember when I was a young man in my first pulpit, on more than one occasion the thought came to me that for my own peace of mind I should throw the whole business up and go into some other line of endeavor. You may have approached him when he was tired, exhausted, drained. If he meant to resign, would he not have said so?"

"Well, we thought of that," said Bert Raymond, "and that's why we didn't approach you before. But just recently one of the members, V. S. Markevitch, I think you know him—"

"Yes, I know him."

"Well, V. S. may not be the biggest brain in the world, but he's no fool either. He's a successful businessman, which means he's had experience dealing with people. He saw Rabbi Small in Israel, and he reported that he got the feeling that Rabbi Small wasn't planning to come back. Maybe he was even thinking of leaving the rabbinate."

"Still, you can't tell about these things at second hand—"

"So we're not. Rabbi." said Marty Drexler. "If we were sure Rabbi Small was not coming back, we'd have voted on it in the board and then come to you with a definite offer. All we're asking is would you care to stay on here if the opportunity arose? I mean, if you thought you were going to be through here in a couple of weeks and were flirting with another congregation—"

"No. I haven't considered—"

"So. why not stay on here?"

"As I said. I'd have to think about it. I'd have to talk it over with Mrs. Deutch and see how she feels about it."

"Of course." said Raymond quickly. "By all means, talk it over with Mrs. Deutch. Then a little later we can talk again. Right now. all we're doing is what you might call hedging our bets."