Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

Chapter Twenty-Two

When it was his turn to lecture the executive trainees on personnel management. Ben Gorfinkle always ended with a short disquisition on the recalcitrant subordinate.

In dealing with a subordinate who has got out of line, even if you hold all the trumps and can fire him like that—a snap of the fingers—it’s better to first give him a chance to shape up. Because if he’s a good man and shapes up, then you’re all set. But if you fire him, you have to get a replacement. And how do you know he won’t be just as bad? It’s a good idea to arrange for a conference.

As soon as he got home from the plant Monday, he called the rabbi. “I’d like to get together with you, Rabbi, for a little conference. We really haven’t talked face to face since I became president, and I think there are a lot of things we ought to iron out.”

“Any time at all.”

Sometimes it’s a good idea to arrange for the conference well in advance so that he can stew for a while. Other times, you may find it better to hold it right away, with no prior notice, so that he’s kind of taken by surprise and is unprepared. It depends on the circumstances.

“How about this evening?”

“I go to the minyan at seven.”

“I’ve got a dinner engagement at that time, but if we could get together a little before—”

“That would be all right.”

“Stu has my car—”

“I can come over to your house.” said the rabbi.

As the rabbi shook hands with Gorfinkle he could not help thinking that with each of the presidents of the temple, his relations had been different. With Jacob Wasserman, the first president who had originally selected him, there had been not only mutual respect, but a true friendship. In spite of the difference in their ages, they liked each other as people, and that first year at Barnard’s Crossing the Wassermans had had them to dinner on any number of occasions, and the Smalls felt themselves free to drop in on them on a Sunday afternoon for a cup of tea and talk. He had needed a friend in the president then. Looking back, he realized that he had been incredibly young and inexperienced and that only the strong friendship of Wasserman and the respect with which the old man was held by the entire community had saved him from countless embarrassments, including the ultimate embarrassment of not having his contract renewed after his trial year.

With Al Becker, who had taken over after Wasserman, his relations were quite different. Originally Becker had been the leader of the opposition, and only by the sheer luck of being able to help him in a personal matter had the rabbi been able to win him over. Becker had felt guilty about his original opposition and became not only respectful but at times almost obsequious. Now he had no stauncher champion than Becker, but he never felt quite at ease with him.

Morton Schwarz, the third president and Gorfinkle’s predecessor, had no such attitude toward the rabbi. He was friendly and sometimes even unbent enough to josh him about his little shortcomings, such as his chronic tardiness and his tendency to forget appointments that he didn’t care to keep in the first place. But in Schwarz’s mind, at least, this was strictly a one-way street, and when the rabbi occasionally answered in kind, he was sure he was considered presumptuous. However, he had grown in the years that he had been at Barnard’s Crossing, and he had found the president’s attitude amusing rather than annoying. The fact that he had been given a five-year contract may have had something to do with it.

Ben Gorfinkle was something else again. He knew something of his capacity from having sat on the board with him for several years, but he had had little chance to work with him. What few dealings they had had to date had been quite neutral, neither friendly nor hostile.

Start by putting him at ease. Establish a friendly atmosphere.

Gorfinkle led the way into the living room, and when they were both seated, he said, “You quite comfortable there. Rabbi? Would you prefer this chair?”

“No, this is fine.”

Encourage discussion, but keep him on the defensive.

He smiled benignly. “I wish you’d tell me. Rabbi, what your idea is of the purpose and function of a temple and what you consider the rabbi’s responsibility to the institution.”

The rabbi recognized the gambit and declined it. He smiled. “I’ve spent the last half dozen years doing just that. Surely you didn’t call me—so urgently and under pressure of a pending engagement—to hear me synopsize what I’ve been saying ever since I came here. I’m sure you have something to say to me.”

Gorfinkle nodded in appreciation. He was silent for a minute and then he said. “You know. Rabbi. I don’t think you understand what the temple is all about. I’m not sure that any rabbi ever does. They’re too much involved in it; they have a professional interest.”

“Indeed! Perhaps you can explain it to me.”

In your part of the discussion, appear frank and open, Let him feel that you are not trying to conceal anything.

Gorfinkle disregarded the rabbi’s irony. “You think of a temple as being started by a group of religious men, which once underway, draws other religious-minded people.” He shook his head. “Maybe there’s one man who is really religious, like perhaps Wasserman, but the rest are interested in it merely as an organization. And once the organization is successful—and it takes a lot of work—then the original group becomes a drag on the organization, and a different type of person has to take over. Sometimes originators get so puffed up with their success that there’s no living with them. They act as though they own the place because they started it. It rubs the new people the wrong way. That’s what happened here, and in a sense, that’s how I happen to be president. But it goes even deeper than that: To start an enterprise calls for a different set of talents than those you need to keep it going. They’re two kinds of people.”

“They’re both Jews,” the rabbi observed. “That’s only incidental Rabbi.”

“Incidental? In a synagogue?”

Gorfinkle nodded. “That’s right. You’re aware that there are two factions in the temple, mine and the one led by Meyer Paff. Now Paff, for all his Orthodoxy, isn’t terribly concerned about Judaism or religion in general. All these people who are involved with the temple, men and women both, do you think it’s because they’re religious? Or that religion is important to them?” He shook his head in violent negation. “No. Rabbi. Do you know what they’re interested in? They’re interested in the temple as an organization.

“Every man wants to be something, to be somebody. He wants a sense of achievement, of accomplishment. He’s gone to school, and he’s gone to college, and he dreamed of being somebody, of being important. Then he got himself a job or established a small business of some kind and thought at last he was on the road. And now at the age of thirty-five he realizes that he’s not going to become the President of the United States or lead an army; he’s not going to win a Nobel Prize; his wife is not a movie actress, and his children are not geniuses. He begins to realize that the business of getting up in the morning and going to work and coming home to go to sleep in order to get up in the morning to go to work—that is not going to change in any dramatic fashion. His whole life is going to be pretty much like that until he dies. And when he dies, his family will remember him, and that’s all.

“That’s a hard thing to swallow in a society like ours, where everybody starts out with the assumption that he can be President of the United States or at least a millionaire. So these people throw themselves into organization work so they can be somebody. It used to be lodges where they could wear a fancy uniform and have a fancy title, Well, lodges are a little out of fashion these days, and in a Yankee town like Barnard’s Crossing it’s not easy for newcomers. Jew or Gentile but especially Jewish newcomers, to have very much to do with the politics of the town. But here the temple is an organization that is theirs. They can do something and be somebody. There’s the temple and the Brotherhood, and for the women there is the Sisterhood and Hadassah. All they have to do is do a little work, and sooner or later they become a somebody. They become chairman of a committee, or they become an officer. They get their names in the papers. And if you don’t think that’s important, you talk to some woman who folded napkins, say, for the Hadassah luncheon and didn’t get her name mentioned along with the rest of the committee that was involved in setting it up.

“But to get back to Paff. All the time he was running things he was important. Now that he isn’t running things, he’s not important, and it irks him.”

“If it were only that.” said the rabbi mildly, “would he have contributed such large sums and done so much work and given so much time?”

Gorfinkle shrugged his shoulders. “What is a large sum to you. Rabbi, is not a large sum to Meyer Paff. You grow up to a certain standard of living. When you come into a lot of money, do you think you can change that standard very radically? You buy a bigger car, you buy an extra suit or two, and you pay a little more money for it; you have a few extra pairs of shoes, and you pay a little more money for them. It’s still nothing. There’s this vast sum of money coming in, and you’re nowhere near being able to spend it. So what do you do with it? You use it for advertising. You move out of your thirty-thousand-dollar house into a hundred-thousand-dollar mansion. You buy paintings; you get an interior decorator. Why? Because you suddenly developed artistic sensibilities? No. You’re successful, but you don’t feel any different. So you do the things that prove to other people that you’re successful. Their envy or respect make you feel like somebody. Some go in for display, and some let themselves be seen with expensive-looking women. Others, like Paff, give their money to various worthwhile institutions.”

“And you?” asked the rabbi.

If challenged, don’t hesitate to admit your own shortcomings. It makes for a better atmosphere.

Gorfinkle shrugged. “I’ll admit it. I’m no different.” He grinned. “You might even say I’m a classic example. I’m an electronics engineer. When I got through at MIT, the field was comparatively new at the time. I graduated high in my class, and I figured I’d be heading up a big electronics lab by the time I was thirty. But there was the war, for one thing, and that delayed me. Then when I did get started, I found that the promotions didn’t always go to the most able man—not in big corporate industry, anyway. Being a Jew didn’t help either. And then the Ph.D.’s began to appear on the scene—overeducated nincompoops. That didn’t help the picture. So what do you do? If you’re a married man with a child, you can’t go back to school. You shift to another job that looks as though it might lead somewhere. And it doesn’t, of course. You try again, and it doesn’t pan out either. I even switched to a small outfit where there was talk about stock options—talk—but there would be a chance to grow with the company, and the company looked as though it might grow. I even took a small cut in salary, because I figured this was my last chance. In this business, you’ve got to make it when you’re still in your thirties, or you don’t make it at all.

“For a while it looked good. And then we sold out to a big outfit, one of the giants, and I was working for a big corporation again. So now, when I’m forty-five. I’m a section head, which means I’m middle management. And that’s what I’ll probably be until I retire. I admit that when I first threw myself into temple politics, it was because I felt I could do a better job. I still think that’s part of it. But I don’t kid myself. I know that a good part of it is just to be somebody, to have an influence on the people around me.”

“Aren’t you being overcynical and missing the main point, as cynicism usually does?” the rabbi asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you say that some do it by building big houses or other kinds of ostentation, while still others do it by contributing to good causes. That’s the major difference between people, isn’t it? Nowadays we’re all amateur psychologists and psychiatrists. We all presume to know the motives of men. But do we? In the last analysis, the only way you can judge by is results, and the man who uses his wealth for worthy causes, even ostentatiously, is better than the man who uses it only for ostentation. Yours is a very cynical view of the temple, if you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Gorfinkle. But cynicism is only disappointed idealism. We Jews speak of ourselves as a nation of priests, and it would follow that if we were completely true to our ideal, we would spend all our time in the temple in study and worship. We even tried it. In the small ghetto towns of Poland and Russia, there were those who did just that. But someone had to work, and it was usually the wives. I don’t think I care for that. It’s one of my objections to the monastery and the convent. I don’t think the best way to live in the world is to avoid it. Ours is a practical religion, in which parnossah, making a living, is as important as prayer, and the world as important as the temple.”

If he says something that you can show is similar to your position, point it out to him, even if you have to twist his words a little to make it fit. The psychology of that is that he’s anxious to get off the hook, and you’re giving him a face-saving out.

“Then why/ Gorfinkle interposed swiftly, “have you consistently objected to our program. Rabbi? It’s what we want, that the membership realize the temple is part of the world and has a role to play in the world.”

“I don’t object to your program as a program, although I think each individual should decide these things for himself. What concerns me is that it tends to antagonize the other party to the point where there is danger that they will actually leave the temple organization. I have seen signs of it for some time at the board meetings. In all fairness, the other side has been equally intemperate. There has been little or no discussion on the merits of issues these last few months. Rather, what your side has proposed the others have opposed, and when they made suggestions, they were similarly treated by your group and for the same reason. No organization can survive that kind of feuding. In the last few days, however, you have discarded what little propriety you have up till now maintained. Mr. Brennerman’s sermon—”

“What about his sermon?”

“He had no right to abuse the privilege of the pulpit in that way.”

“Just a minute, Rabbi. I heard that speech, and you didn’t. Taking it as a whole. I approved of it.” Gorfinkle’s lips turned up in his humorless smile.

“Then you are equally guilty, Mr. Gorfinkle.”

“You forget that I am the president—”

“Of the temple organization. Mr. Gorfinkle. The pulpit belongs to the rabbi.”

“I didn’t know that, Rabbi,” said Gorfinkle mildly. “Is that Jewish law?”

“It is the law of common courtesy! As rabbi. I am superintendent of the religious school. Would I presume to take over a class from one of the teachers without first asking his permission?”

It is sometimes worthwhile to yield a minor point.

“Well maybe Ted did get a little out of line. He’s enthusiastic and gets carried away.”

“And yesterday at the board meeting, you nominated Roger Epstein as chairman of the Ritual Committee.”

“What’s wrong with Roger Epstein?” Gorfinkle demanded indignantly.

“Nothing as a person. But he has had no temple background whatsoever and never attended one until coming here. The chairman of the Ritual Committee approves the order of the services. Under the circumstances. Mr. Paff s group, which tends toward Conservatism, might consider it a deliberate affront.”

“Now hold on. Rabbi. I picked Roger because the Ritual Committee is the most important and he’s my best friend. I’m not worried about his ignorance of the order of the service. I figure you and the cantor between you pretty much arrange that. But the chairman of the Ritual Committee distributes the honors on the holidays. Our people set great store by these honors and rightly so. I notice all the time Meyer Paff was chairman of the Ritual Committee he made political hay out of it. But while we’re speaking of impropriety. Rabbi, how about the impropriety of getting a bunch of kids together, including my own son, and lecturing them on these matters from the opposition point of view? Isn’t that abusing your privilege?”

“Kids? We accept the thirteen-year-old as a member of a minyan. He can be called to the reading of the Torah, which is instruction to the congregation. He can even lead the services. Can we say that bright young college people of eighteen and nineteen are too immature to understand what is going on in their temple community?”

“Look, Rabbi, I don’t want any of your Talmudic runaround. I consider that politics, and I’m telling you I want it stopped.”

The rabbi smiled. “You mean, you want me to stop talking to the young people?”

“I mean that you are not to talk to them about temple affairs. And I’m not asking you. I’m ordering you.”

“You can’t, /am the rabbi here, and it is for me to decide what I shall say to the members of the Jewish community.”

There comes a point in your discussion when you realize there’s no chance of an agreement or reconciliation. When you reach that point, don’t pussyfoot. Lower the boom and lower it all the way.

Gorfinkle nodded. “You’ve said enough, Rabbi, to prove to me that you’re part and parcel of Paff s apparatus. I’m not surprised. I suspected as much, as did the members of my group. We had a meeting last night, and I remind you that we represent a clear majority of the board. It was agreed that I was to talk to you and point out to you the impropriety of your behavior in the hope of bringing about a change. That’s what this little conference is all about. But when I give them the gist of this conversation, along with your cavalier attitude toward religion in general, which has just recently come to my attention. I am sure they will vote to terminate your association with us.

“Of course, you can fight it, but you’re a smart man, and I’m sure you realize that for a rabbi to fight for his job and lose is to jeopardize his chances of getting another. I can tell you now that you will lose and that after that meeting you won’t be rabbi any longer.” He rose to his feet in sign that the conference was over.

“I did not get my smicha from you.” said the rabbi, also rising, “and you can’t withdraw it. I am the rabbi of the Jewish community of Barnard’s Crossing. The temple pays me, but I am not the creature of the temple, and I do not need a temple or synagogue to fulfill my function.”

Outside there was the loud and persistent sound of an automobile horn.

Gorfinkle shrugged. “I’m sorry. Rabbi.” he said smoothly. “That’s Stu now, and I have to go.”