The Day the Rabbi Resigned (16 page)

Merton was just opening the door as Rosen came up, and Merton motioned him to enter. Rosen smiled his thanks but gestured for the other to precede him. “After you,” he said politely.

While Merton hurried down the aisle to the rest rooms, Rosen went directly to the doughnut counter and said, “Let me have a couple of those plain ones and a couple of the honey-dipped.”

“Right,” said the girl behind the counter, “two plain and two honey-dipped.” She put the doughnuts in a box and Rosen paid and hurried out.

When Merton came out of the rest room a few minutes later, he felt an urgent need for a cup of coffee, since he had left the faculty dinner before it was served. He was on the point of walking around the doughnut counter to the other side of the shop where there were tables, but noticing that one of the stools at the counter was free, he sat down and asked the girl for a cup of black coffee.

Cyrus Merton finished his coffee and got up from his stool at the counter. He fished in his pocket for a coin, which he left beside his empty cup. Then, with a nod, he left. He was back in a few minutes, however.

“My car is gone,” he said to the manager, who had just come out of his office. “It's been stolen. I've got to notify the police.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I know where I parked it, and it's not there.”

The manager nodded in the direction of the public phone. “There's the phone. Do you have change? Or you can use our phone if you like.”

When the cruising car drew up to the door of the Donut Shop, both officers came in. The elder, a sergeant, graying and beginning to show a paunch, knew Cyrus Merton. “Where were you parked, Mr. Merton? Over by the pylon there? Let's see, that's about fifty feet from here. Was it one of the company cars? Did it have your logo on the side?”

“No, it was my personal car.”

“Too bad. It would be easier to spot if it had the logo on the side. Did you lock it?”

“Yes, the doors were locked.”

“Windows all the way up to the top? I mean, no crack at the top where you could poke a wire—”

“No, the windows were closed.”

The sergeant shook his head. “That means it could be a pro. Now I'd like you to give Officer Stokes a full description of your car, license number, color, make, and if there were any obvious dents or scratches, you tell him. Were you on your way home? Because if you were, we can give you a lift.”

24

As they drove away from the Donut Shop, Miriam asked, “Did you have to wait long? Were you bored?”

Simcha, sitting upright in the backseat, large hands resting on bony knees, laughed a single explosive “Ha” from a cavernous mouth. A broad smile split his craggy face. “Why should I be bored when I had a chance to observe our young at close quarters, relaxed and enjoying themselves, rather than the way I usually see them in the classroom or tense during an exam? I learned that one Chuck Goretski was ‘simply awesome.' I suppose that when one is no longer in fear or awe of a deity, the need for the feeling doesn't go away; it's apt to be transferred to a human who is above average. One young man insisted, ‘He couldn't miss,' and another agreed by offering the comparative, ‘He
just
couldn't miss,' while a third capped it with the superlative, ‘He just couldn't miss if he tried.' What interested me particularly was that the girls appeared to be as knowledgeable about the game as the boys. In fact, from what I've seen in Chicago, and elsewhere, the women seem to be more interested in sports and exercise than the men. I haven't made a statistical study, but it seems to me that I see more women than men jogging, and the advertisements for membership in health clubs and gymnasia where they have all those crazy machines seem to be slanted to the women rather than to the men.”

“It's probably that women are more concerned with keeping slim,” suggested the rabbi.

“Perhaps that's it,” Simcha agreed. “It could be they're more concerned with how they look in bathing suits.”

“Don't you approve of sports and exercise?” asked Miriam.

“Of exercise, not at all. No other animal engages in it. Lions sleep twenty hours a day. As for sport, I don't mind it as long as it's not competitive. To practice hours every day in order to run a fraction of a second faster than someone else, or jump a little higher, or hit a ball a little more accurately, seems absurd. And to subject a child who has not yet reached puberty to such a regimen in order to produce a champion tennis player or gymnast is an obscenity.”

“What if it's for the purpose of producing a great violinist or pianist?” asked Miriam.

“Same objection. It's a form of slavery.”

“I seem to remember that you used to play a musical instrument,” said the rabbi.

“I studied the violin. When I was a youngster, I was given violin lessons, as were all middle-class Jewish boys. I was never very proficient.” He grinned broadly. “You know what Aristotle said: ‘A gentleman should know how to play the flute, but not too well.'”

“You know, Simcha,” said Miriam, “I think you're an Apicorus in all kinds of things; not just in religion.”

He laughed uproariously. “Very good, Miriam. Very good, my dear.”

Sunday morning was sunny and mild, and as they made ready, Simcha asked, “Is the temple far from here? Can we walk? Will we have time?”

“Oh, plenty of time,” the rabbi assured him. “On Sundays the
shachriss
morning service is at nine o'clock. It's about a fifteen-minute walk. Do you feel up to it?”

“So let's figure on twenty, twenty-five minutes, and we can stroll.”

As they walked along, they were hailed and then joined by Al Bergson. The rabbi made the introductions. “Al Bergson, the president of our temple. Al, this is my cousin Simcha, whom you've heard me mention.”

“The one you call Simcha the, er—”

“Apicorus,” the rabbi finished for him, a wide grin on his face. “That's right, Simcha the Apicorus, Simcha the Atheist.”

“Your first visit to Barnard's Crossing?” Bergson asked. “You taking an early morning stroll to see the town?”

“Why no,” said Simcha, “I'm going with David to your temple to daven
shachriss.
”

“But—but you're an atheist, or an agnostic—”

“Sometimes one, sometimes the other, as I happen to be feeling at the moment.”

“Oh, I see. It's a sort of social matter for you rather than religious.”

“Not at all. When I attend a service, I daven.”

Bergson turned to the rabbi. “But if he doesn't believe, how can he pray?”

“Well, you know, we don't really pray,” said the rabbi, “at least not in the sense of asking or begging for something. We daven. The origin of the word is obscure, but it consists largely in giving praise and thanks for the good things we receive.”

“And what's wrong with an atheist being grateful?” Simcha added. “It makes for a wholesome humility.”

“But if you're an atheist, whom are you grateful to?”

“Good question,” said Simcha. He considered for a moment. “I suppose that when something good happens to me, I'm grateful, or perhaps a better word is, glad. That's it: I'm glad it happened.”

“So you daven, but how about the rest of it? Do you keep the Sabbath? The dietary laws?”

“Oh, I keep the dietary laws out of habit, I suppose, rather than out of conscious choice. It's not easy to change the food habits you've grown up with, you know. In general, I'm inclined to observe the Mosaic laws because they're sensible and modern.”

“Modern?” asked Bergson doubtfully.

“Sure,” said Simcha. “Moses established rules by which the individual could order his life and by which a humane society can be maintained, everything from rules of personal cleanliness to proper treatment of the lower animals. There were very modern rules for women; incompatibility was grounds for a divorce—”

“And the Ketubah,” the rabbi pointed out, “was a prenuptial agreement.”

“Right.” Simcha went on. “And he established a very modern system of labor relations which gave the laborer the right to organize, and fixed his rate of pay so that the employer could not take advantage of his temporary need. And don't forget that the Sabbath gave him a day of rest every week. There were laws that gave aid and succor to the poor, and even laws governing the treatment of the lower animals, because he was aware of the relationship of all living things. He even had a sense of ecology, of the needs of the land itself, and ordered that it should not be planted every seventh year, but be permitted to lie fallow to renew itself.

“Some of the laws indicate a fastidiousness of mind and spirit, like the law forbidding the cooking of the flesh of the calf in the milk of its mother, which has led to our elaborate separation of meat and dairy foods and dishes. When you stop to think of it, it's a horrible thing to do. I suppose our special attitude toward the pig is due to the same fastidious sense, since the pig is the only domestic animal that serves no purpose except to be eaten. To raise an animal, to feed it so that it will grow big and fat just so you can eat it—ugh!” He gave a shudder of disgust.

“But doesn't that show that it must have been the work of God rather than the work of mere man?” Bergson protested.

“Ah, now that was where Moses showed his genius. He knew that even if he could maintain the observance of these laws during the period when he was all-powerful, they would tend to be disregarded when he became old and weak, and even more when he died. So, instead of offering them as his own, he invented God, and said they were ordained by God, and he insisted that his was the only God, so that there could be no rival God that could be appealed to for a different opinion. That was where he showed his true superiority to all other law-givers, like Hammurabi or Solon or Lycurgus.

“Of course, he could not run the show single-handed, even in his prime. So he took the advice of his father-in-law, Jethro, and appointed a number of judges who later were the rabbis to help him run things. It was necessary, of course, but also unfortunate.”

“Why unfortunate?”

“Because it created a bureaucracy. Bureaucrats always multiply rules and regulations. And what develops is a pedantic meticulousness. That's how the business of two sets of dishes, one dairy, one meat, came about. An effort to avoid the most remote possibility of mixing the milk of the cow with the meat of the calf. Then this was extended to two sinks to wash the two kinds of dishes in, and the two dishcloths to wipe them with. Some even have two refrigerators in which to store the two kinds of food, and I have even heard, although it's probably apocryphal, of someone who went in for two sets of false teeth. You see, it's usually the extremists who set the pattern.

“Or consider the Sabbath. We are told to rest on the Sabbath, and this means we may not work. So then the question arises, what constitutes work? And it was decided that the different kinds of work that were involved and described in the construction of the tabernacle were work and would be taboo on the Sabbath. Making a fire was obviously one of these. It was necessary for the smelting of ores for metal, and then for working the metal for the various vessels that were required. And I suppose that in those days building a fire was work, and even though today all that's required is to strike a match, lighting a cigarette is regarded as work, which is why Orthodox Jews can't smoke on the Sabbath.

“Well, fire is fire, and a little one is just as much fire as a big one.” His shoulders went up in a resigned shrug. “But with the advent of electricity, the bureaucracy decided that an electric spark was also fire, and what's more, that every time you turn on an electric appliance of any kind, you create a spark. So the poor devil who walks up ten flights of stairs to reach his apartment is not doing any work, but his nonobservant neighbor who uses the elevator is, because he had to push a button and thereby made an electric contact. And that first one sits in the darkness rather than push a button that will turn on the electric light. If his daughter, say, is in the hospital, he can't call her on the phone to ask how she is because it is electrical and presumably makes a spark. And of course he can't go to see her unless the hospital is within walking distance.” He shook his head in annoyance.

They arrived at the temple and stopped momentarily so that Simcha could look around at the fine lawn surrounded by hedge and shrubbery and divided by the broad walk that led to the large, ornate doors of the sanctuary. There was a narrower walk that led to the short flight of stairs beyond, which was the vestry at the end of a long corridor.

“This is where the minyan holds its services weekdays and Sundays,” said Bergson. “On the Sabbath we use the sanctuary, of course.”

“I'd like to see it,” said Simcha, “but I suppose it's closed now.”

“It's closed from the outside, but you can go up those stairs.”

As Simcha started for the stairs, the rabbi called after him, “We'll be starting in a few minutes.”

“Oh, I'll be right down,” said Simcha.

The rabbi pointed. “It's the last door on the right.”

When he left them, Bergson said, “He's a very interesting man. Is he staying with you for a while?”

“I'm putting him on the train for Boston right after lunch. He has a conference he has to attend for a couple of days. Then perhaps he'll come back and spend the rest of the week with us.”

“Then I don't suppose you'll be coming to the board meeting today. There's nothing important on the agenda today anyway. When he comes back from Boston, I'd like to meet him again.” He hesitated. “You know, David, I'm observant because it's the way I've been brought up, but I'm not very knowledgeable. Do you think—is it proper for an atheist to join the minyan in prayer?”