Thursday The Rabbi Walked Out

10

THE CALL CAME LATE IN THE AFTERNOON. "MR. MALTZMAN? Ben Segal speaking. I'm interested in buying some land. Mr. Gore at the bank suggested I call you. I wonder if we could meet with you—"

Ben Segal? Did he know a Ben Segal? Then it came to him. It must be the Ben Segal of Chicago, there were rumors that he was in town, he breathed deeply. "Where are you calling from, Mr. Segal?" he asked calmly.

"I'm calling from your local hotel, the Arlington Arms, we're staying here."

For a moment he debated whether to appear busy and then decided against it.

"If you're free now,” he said. "I can come right over."

They sat in the gaudy, overfumished sitting room of the only suite that the Arlington Arms afforded and which was intended primarily for business conferences, the Segals sat on a heavily brocaded sofa. Maltzman on the edge of a leather lounge chair, uneasily balancing a coffee cup and the petit fours that Mrs. Segal had rung for when ha arrived.

"I'm interested in buying a piece of land." Segal explained, he fished in his coat pocket and found the match cover on which he had scribbled the name of the street. "It's out on the Point. I think you call it, on Crossland Avenue, just beyond Porter Street."

"Yeah, I know it." said Maltzman frowning. "But that's all residential land out there and our zoning laws are pretty strict."

"Of course. I understand." He smiled. "I wasn't planning on building a factory there, or a warehouse."

"I mean it has to be a single family residence. You can't just have a house that's used mostly for executive meetings and dinners and maybe as a place to put up visiting firemen. It has to be used by a family as a regular residence. See what I mean?"

"Oh yes. I understand." said Segal. "This is going to be just an ordinary house—"

"We're planning to live in it ourselves. Mr. Maltzman." Mrs. Segal explained. "We're planning to settle here."

"That's right,” her husband added. "I'm going to operate Rohrbough Corporation personally."

Mimi leaned forward eagerly. "You see, Mr. Maltzman, we've lived in cities all our lives, both of us, and in hotels at that, we have a large apartment in Chicago, to be sure, but it's still in a hotel, and we're fed up with the city, with the noise and the dirt and the crime—being afraid to go out for a walk in the evening. So we're planning to settle here. It means changing our whole lifestyle, becoming part of a community, that's what we want. It's that, I expect, as much as anything that decided Ben on operating Rohrbough personally."

"That's right." said her husband. "At lunch today, Gore was telling us about your town meeting that everybody goes to, well, we'd like to go to that, and to the Fourth of July bonfire, and to the arts festival you hold in the town hall."

Maltzman nodded slowly, an idea was beginning to take shape in his mind, he directed his eyes to Ben Segal. "Are you still Jewish? I mean, you haven't converted or anything?"

Segal shrugged. "I don't practice it, but I've never denied it."

Mimi said. "His brother changed his name to Sears and wanted Ben to, but Ben wouldn't consider it."

"That's fine." said Maltzman. "but in a small town like Barnard's Crossing, people want to know where you stand. If you want to be respected and accepted, you got to be part of the group they associate you with, and here, that means joining the temple. You got to show that you're willing to stand up and be counted."

"But I'm not the least bit religious." Segal protested.

"So what? Most of our members aren't, we only get about a hundred at a Friday evening service. I always go because I'm president of the congregation. Joining the temple is not a matter of religion, so much as a way of showing you feel you belong."

"But it's different with me." said Segal. "I honestly don't think I have a right to be a member of a synagogue. You see. I was never Bar Mitzvah. My folks were terribly poor when I was a kid, and they just couldn't afford it at the time."

"Oh Ben, dear, you never told me." Mimi was all sympathy. "But about Bar Mitzvah. I imagine you can hava it anytime. Can't he, Mr. Maltzman? Seems to me I saw something on TV about a seventy-year-old man in California who just had one. His folks couldn't afford it either when he was a youngster."

"Say, I remember that." said Maltzman. "And in the Hadassah Journal there was a story about a whole bunch of men, a club, or from the same synagogue, mature men, who went to Israel and had a group Bar Mitzvah at the Wall. Look here. Mr. Segal, if you're interested. I'll see the rabbi and arrange it." Then it came to him—the gimmick. "Tell you what. I'll put it up to the board, and if they see things my way, we'll have the temple sponsor it."

"Well, it seems to me there's quite a ceremony, isn't there? I mean, it's not just the party. I seem to remember kids my age who had to study up for it. Special prayers they had to learn by heart and—"

"Nothing to it. Mr. Segal," said Maltzman earnestly. "You're called up to the Reading of the Torah and you pronounce a blessing, the Bar Mitzvah kids chant it in Hebrew. But you don't have to chant it. Or if you were willing, I could arrange for the cantor to teach you, and even if you don't know how to read Hebrew, we have it transliterated in English. Or you could even say it in

English, then after the portion is read, you say another blessing, and we could work that the same way, and that's it. Of course, normally the Bar Mitzvah boy chants the portion from the Prophets, too, hell, some of them run the whole Reading service. Kind of showing off, you see. But it's not necessary. Believe me, the whole thing's a pipe."

"Is yours the only synagogue in town, Mr. Maltzman?" asked Mimi.

"That's right, Mrs. Segal, and all Jews in the community belong, all that have been living here for some time. Of course, there are some families that are new, and maybe not a hundred percent sure they're going to remain on account of their jobs, but those who've settled here, practically all of them belong. You say the word, and I'll make arrangements with the rabbi and all."

Ben Segal looked doubtfully at his wife, and when she nodded brightly, he said, "All right. Count me in."

"Swell," said Maltzman. "And I'll get to work on that lot on the Point right away."