The Rabbi and The Rebbetzin (6 page)

Aaron
thanked the committee and professed the hope that the shul would get its money’s
worth from his efforts. The rest of the meeting was spent discussing certain
other details, such as travel and hospitality arrangements. Levine then thanked
the committee for their time and patience, and surprised all the members by
offering to drive Aaron back to the yeshiva by himself.

The
drive back to the yeshiva was uneventful. Once again, Levine stressed his
immense appreciation to the yeshiva for bailing him out of a difficult
situation. “When do classes finish on Friday,
Erev
Rosh Hashanah?” he
asked.

“From
past experiences,” Aaron answered, “I can estimate as follows. We never have
regular classes on Friday. The students are busy cleaning up and preparing for Shabbos.
Things are different
Erev
Rosh Hashanah. There is a long
Selichos
Service and the nullification of vows. Thereafter, there is a review of the holiday
laws and some inspirational lectures. The faculty is not concerned with food,
so they have time at their disposal. The reason they were not concerned with
eating was because there is a widespread custom of fasting on the eve of the
New Year. I would imagine that you could pick me up at 1:30. I will be waiting
for you in the Bais Medrash.”

 Aaron
spent the next few days preparing for his debut as a synagogue rabbi. Rabbi
Weiss took him to the book store and helped him select the required supplies
for the holidays. The latter was astounded to hear of Aaron’s salary, and even
more amazed that Aaron had the courage to ask the shul for an extra fund. “I
don’t make as much for davening on the holidays and, with all humility, I can
say that I am a fairly good Chazzan.”

Rabbi
Bernstein did his share in preparing Aaron with sermonic material for Rosh Hashanah
and
Kol Nidrei
Eve. He advised him to supplement the sermonic material
with appropriate stories and examples drawn from the contemporary scene. “If
you have any quotations of a literary nature, there is no harm in including
them. I can’t help you much in this area, because you have more college
education than I do.”

The
liturgical training should have come from Rabbi Weiss but, except for one
session, the rabbi could not spare the time. In the end, it was Shalom Pinkes
who came to Aaron’s help. On the day after the interviews, Aaron had sought out
Shalom and discussed his selection by the committee. “I don’t know why the
committee selected me, and I still feel that you are the more qualified
candidate. I hope that you will not bear any ill will against me for what
happened.”

“Look,”
Pinkes replied, “I certainly don’t think you did anything wrong in this matter.
Rabbi Weiss told me that the committee asked you the same questions that they
asked me and required the same performance from both of us. He also told me
that they did not reach a unanimous decision on the matter. I realize that I
lost out because I did not make a sufficient effort to prepare for the
interview. Maybe it was overconfidence, or maybe it was that deep down I really
didn’t want the job. Whatever pain I felt that night is long since gone. In
fact, if there is any way that I can help you prepare for the work, I would be
glad to be of assistance.”

Aaron
thanked him for his understanding and his offer to help. “There is, in fact,
one area where you can be of great help. I know that Rabbi Weiss is too busy to
give me much help with the prayers. Since you are so good at them yourself, I
would appreciate any help that you can give me with the davening.”

Pinkes
spent a number of hours working with Aaron on the prayers. The work was done
mostly at night. Although the school was willing to excuse Aaron from classes,
Aaron did not wish to miss the important learning during the week preceding the
holiday.

At
about 1:30 Friday afternoon, Aaron was waiting in the Bais Medrash with a
suitcase packed with clothes and religious supplies. All of a sudden, a fellow
rushed into the Bais Medrash and said to him, “Adler, there is a beautiful girl
waiting for you in a sports car in the parking lot. Is that your date for Rosh Hashanah?”

Aaron
was embarrassed, since there were a number of other students in the study hall
preparing for the holidays. “I don’t know any girls around here, beautiful or
otherwise,” he said. “Maybe it’s the president of the sisterhood of the shul
where I am going to be for the holidays.”

“She
doesn’t look like any sisterhood president that I have ever seen. She isn’t
married, and doesn’t look a day older than eighteen.”

“One
can never tell,” Aaron said as he took his suitcase and went out to the parking
lot. It turned out that the student was quite correct. Aaron didn’t recognize
the driver, but he couldn’t miss the sports car that looked more expensive than
any other car in the area.

Rabbi Aaron Adler meets
Shulamit Levine for the first time.

Shulamit tests his
knowledge of world events.

“Rabbi
Adler?” the driver asked when she saw him. “I am Shulamit Levine. My father was
too busy getting the shul ready for the holidays, so he sent me to pick you up.
You can put your suitcase in the trunk.”

Aaron
would have normally put the suitcase in the backseat, but this sports car did
not even have a backseat to begin with.

Aaron
was by no means an expert on young women, but he knew more about them than the
young student who judged that Shulamit was about eighteen. Aaron guessed that
she was over twenty-one, but not by much. There was no difference of opinion
about her beauty. It was real and overwhelming, enhanced by an elegance that
radiated wealth.

“That’s
very gracious of you,” Aaron said. “Did you have any trouble finding the
yeshiva?”

“Not
really. We’re in an older section of the city, but my grandfather lived here
and I went to the day school only a few blocks to the east.”

There
was a period of silence as the car worked its way through the city heading for
the expressway. Aaron was hardly the type to accept things at face value. He
wondered why Abe Levine sent Shulamit to pick him up instead of coming himself
or sending an older volunteer. A thought crossed his mind that maybe Levine was
very proud of his beautiful daughter and wanted to show her off. After a few
more seconds of analysis, Aaron dismissed the thought. He was slated to have
dinner at the president’s home. At dinner there would be ample opportunity to
view Levine’s pride and joy. He continued to speculate and came up with an even
odder scenario. He reasoned that living in Dunberg, Shulamit did not have many
opportunities to meet religious men of the type that Levine wanted for his
daughter. What emerged from the speculation was that Shulamit was not sent for
Aaron to view but rather for her to see Aaron.

Aaron
understood that Levine certainly had no illusions that his daughter would ever
consider marrying a rabbi. He was even more certain that no very Orthodox rabbi
would ever agree to marry her. Nevertheless, if she would meet a rabbi close
up, she might temper her preconceived notions that truly religious men were not
part of the enlightened world. Instead of making Aaron feel well about the
situation, his thinking caused him a degree of concern. Although he was
attending college, he was not part of the college scene. He studied in the
night school and the students in such classes were older and more serious about
their work. They needed courses to acquire jobs and skills, and had no time for
fun and games. Anyway, most of them were married and had families.

Aside
from night college, Aaron had no social experience. He had only a passing
interest in world affairs and no knowledge of how the college crowd lived.
Shulamit was obviously very sophisticated and could very easily be turned off
by someone far removed from the current culture. He imagined that, with Levine’s
considerable wealth and influence, Shulamit must have studied at one of the higher
ranking private colleges.

Levine
also had little use for the college scene. True, the younger generation was
computer literate and its members were the best customers of his business, but
the extreme values of the younger set were alien to his religious upbringing
and conservative nature. He was frightened by the way his daughter adjusted so
readily to the contemporary life styles. He was so impressed with Aaron’s mature
performance at the interview that he felt that having Shulamit meet him would
exert a positive influence on her world view.

On
the expressway, Shulamit drove fast and well. It would only take about fifteen
minutes to reach her home in Dunberg, but Shulamit did not think that it was
polite to travel in silence. “Is this your first position, Rabbi Adler?”

“As
a matter of fact it is,” Aaron replied. “I have never been in a pulpit before.”

“I
heard that you did quite well in the interview, so you shouldn’t have much
trouble with it. My father said that you have the makings of a real rabbi.”

“I
never imagined that this would come to pass,” Aaron answered. “Rabbi Weiss
really had to twist my arm to apply. By the way, you don’t have to call me rabbi.”

“Why
not?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to preach and lead the services?”

“Would
that make me a rabbi? I still haven’t finished my rabbinical studies, and I do
not have
Semicha
. I’m not scheduled to be ordained until next June at
the earliest.”

“Listen,
Rabbi. You have to look at these things pragmatically. If you stand in front of
a congregation and conduct the service, you are, by my way of thinking, a
rabbi. The piece of paper that you will get next June is nothing more than an
institutionalized form of professional protectionism.”

Aaron
was startled at her rich vocabulary and outspoken ideas. The college training
was glaringly obvious and it began to change his assumption that Shulamit was
the product of a small private college for rich girls. He was not up to arguing
with a woman on that level, but his pride would not let him keep quiet.

“The
Semicha
is more than a school diploma. It is actually a license which
entitles me to perform significant religious functions. Performing marriages
and divorces requires ordination, and even determining whether a chicken is
kosher or
treif
requires a rabbinical degree.”

“Oh,
come on, when was the last time that you heard of a woman bringing a chicken to
a rabbi? It must have been at least fifty years ago.”

Aaron
knew that she was right, so he didn’t argue the point “Even working under your
guidelines, Shulamit, I still won’t be a rabbi until the sun sets tonight. For
the rest of the day at least you may still call me Aaron.”

“As
far as I am concerned,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes, “you were a rabbi
from the time you were appointed to conduct the services. But, to make
everybody happy, I will call you Rabbi Aaron for the time being.”

 “Well,
that’s some degree of progress. At least I lost my surname.”

 By
now they were reaching the outskirts of Dunberg. “I know that you will need
some time to prepare for shul tonight, but I think you can spare a few minutes
for some coffee with me when we get to the house.”

 Aaron
did want to spend the time but he wasn’t going to hurt her feelings by
rejecting her invitation. He had followed the custom of fasting a half day on Rosh
Hashanah eve and could use the nourishment. “I would be happy to have something
but I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.”

“It
won’t be any trouble at all, especially since I won’t be making it myself. We
have the caterer preparing the holiday meals in the kitchen, so the housekeeper
will serve us in the sunroom.”

The
reality of the situation became clear to Aaron, who had never been inside the
home of a multi-millionaire. Abe Levine was rich and lived in style. He was
sure that Levine’s home would be a real mansion and he was already feeling
intimidated. Nevertheless, he took a lighter approach to ease his anxiety.

“How
will you ever get married,” he asked her, “if you don’t know how to cook?”

“It’s
a real problem,” she said with a smile. “If I can’t afford a housekeeper, and
live somewhere where I can’t order kosher meals and I don’t find a man who
likes to cook, I guess I’ll have to remain an old maid.”

Aaron
enjoyed her wit and laughed heartily. The sports car pulled into the Levine
driveway and Aaron’s fears were realized. He was looking at a palatial home
with a long circular driveway and an impressive portico. Once past the
entrance, the driveway split left and right. The right road circled back to the
street, while the left road continued around to the back of the house where
several smaller structures were located.

“I
guess you pay a fortune in rent here,” said Aaron teasingly.

“No,
we own the house. But the Mellon Bank is a silent partner. That way we can deduct
the mortgage interest. In our tax bracket, it’s significant. It also adds to
our liquidity,” she explained

“I’m
not sure I understand the economics of it, but I know I couldn’t maintain a
place like this.”

“We
don’t do it by ourselves. We have a couple who works here and a housekeeper.
Larry is a mechanic, gardener and chauffer. Polly, his wife, is the upstairs
maid. Grace is the housekeeper. She’s a Jewish woman who has been with us
almost twenty years. She could easily get
Semicha
on the laws of kashrus.”

Once
in the house, Larry took Aaron’s suitcase to an upper floor bedroom and showed
him where he would be staying for the holidays. “This room we call the rabbi’s
room. It’s the room that was used by Rabbi Solomon when he came for the
holidays. If you need anything other than food, you can call Polly or me.”

Larry
then led Aaron to the sunroom where the housekeeper had already set up the
table. Shulamit introduced him to Grace, who asked him how he liked his coffee.
Once she had the information, she left to prepare it. Sitting in the sunroom,
Aaron could see a number of estates in what was obviously an upper class
section of Dunberg.

“Is
this area far from the shul?” Aaron wondered aloud.

“About
two minutes by car and fifteen minutes by foot,” she answered. Don’t worry.
Someone will drive you to shul before services tonight and drive you back after
evening services on Sunday night. After the
Tashlich
services at the river,
we don’t return to the shul. We daven
Ma’ariv
at the river and that’s
where you will be picked up.”

Aaron
hadn’t given any thought to
Tashlich
. It was an ancient ritual involving
the symbolic casting of one’s sins into a body of water. Normally it was held
on the first afternoon of Rosh Hashanah. When the first day of the holiday fell
on the Sabbath, as it did this year, the service is postponed until Sunday.

“I
can’t imagine that you have any sins to cast in, Shulamit,” Aaron said
lightheartedly.

 “Oh,
I have been a very good girl this year. It’s a dull existence but I can survive
it. Nevertheless, I was taught that King Solomon wrote, ‘There is no person in
the land who will act in a righteous manner yet will remain without sin.’ I will
have to find one to commit before Sunday. Do you have any good suggestions?”

“Off
the top of my head, I can think of 613 that you may violate. Since most of the
Torah commandments have rabbinic laws tacked on to them, there might be
thousands. You might also have to add the entire code of federal and state law,
since the Jewish Code of Law makes it compulsory for us to observe the laws of
the land in which we live.”

 Shulamit
began to realize why her father was so impressed with Rabbi Adler. He applied
his religious teaching to various situations with skill and clarity.

“I
guess I have enough to choose as of now. The problem remains that I have to commit
the sin on Sunday after the morning services when I won’t be driving or
watching television. Those are the optimum areas for me to sin.”

“Why
do you have to wait until Sunday?” asked Aaron, who was perplexed by her
statement.

“Well,”
she said, “if I do it before the holiday, it will be forgiven on Saturday or
Sunday, as the case may be, and I will have nothing to cast in.”

 “Let
me enlighten you on some of the religious facts of life, since you consider me
a rabbi. First, not all sins are forgiven on Rosh Hashanah. Sins between a man
and his fellowmen require a more elaborate atonement. You have to secure the
forgiveness of the person against whom you have sinned before God will pardon
you. Second, there are sins in the areas of idolatry and desecration of the
Divine name that are never forgiven. Third, the heavenly judgment on Rosh Hashanah
is not final until Yom Kippur. The atonement process goes on for a full ten-day
period. Finally, if while you seek forgiveness for a sin, and you plan to sin
again, you will not be forgiven. Repentance involves regret for having sinned
in the past and firm resolution not to sin in the future.”

 Aaron
was interrupted by the housekeeper who arrived with cake and coffee. When he
resumed his teaching, he said, “My final advice to you is to cast the sins into
the water conditionally in case you may have overlooked some indiscretion. If
you are as pure as you imagine yourself to be, cast the sins for others in the
congregation, for whom you didn’t make sufficient efforts to deter from
sinning.”

 “Thanks
for the instruction, rabbi. I know you are busy so I won’t take any more of
your time at present. I hope you will be able to teach me some more during the
holiday. Right now, I am going to do some work for school.”

“School?
I was sure that you finished college already.”

“I
got my BA just before the summer. Now I am taking a year off to prepare for law
school. I will need the time to apply to various colleges. I will also have to
take tutorials in preparation for the LSATS and the G.R.E. I hope to enter law
school by the time you get your Semicha.”