Someday the Rabbi Will Leave Page 2

“Would you talk to the rabbi about it?”

  “Oh no.” He shook his head impatiently. “He’s just an employee of the temple. I suppose I might—hm—you know what I’d do? I’d talk to this Morris Halperin.”

  “Because he first proposed you to the board?”

  “No. Because he has political know-how. Getting elected town counsel, even though he’s Jewish, shows that. I’d get him to act as a sort of campaign manager.”

  “What makes you think he’d want to?”

  “Oh, I think he would. He’s young and on the make. I’m sure he’d appreciate the chance of associating himself with me.”

  “How do you know he’s on the make?”

  “Would he bother with the job of town counsel if he weren’t? It pays next to nothing, and it means he has to attend the selectmen’s meetings every Wednesday evening throughout the year.” His face relaxed in a broad grin. “Besides, I looked up his account at the bank before I went to see him that second time.”

  “How could you do that?”

  “It’s a local branch of my bank in the city. And I’m a director. Do you think the manager would jib at showing me anything I wanted to see?”

  “And?”

  He shrugged. “He’s making a living, but he’s not setting the world on fire.”

  “What’s he like? What’s he look like?”

  “Oh, he seems a decent sort of chap. He’s a big man, six feet, I’d say, and kind of stocky, but he’s not fat—not yet, anyway. He’s got a big nose and fleshy lips. His hairline has crept back to the top of his head, but he has a nice face and he smiles easily.”

  “Well, that’s fine,” she said. “I’ll invite him to dinner.”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, because he was decent and helpful,” she said airily. “And because it might be interesting to explore the possibilities. Besides, since selling off Elechtech Corporation you need a new interest. Do you mind?”

  “What good would it do if I did, now you’ve set your mind to it?”

  3

  Sam Feinberg, the president of the temple, short, stout, and balding, was a decent, considerate man with a talent for compromise. Which is why he was elected president in the first place, following the near-disastrous administration of Chester Kaplan and the Orthodox group. He had served three terms—in 1980 and again in 1981, and once again in 1982, the last time virtually unopposed. From the point of view of the Reform element, he was a modern man who did not flaunt his observance of the religious code; the ultrareligious clique found him acceptable because they knew he maintained a kosher home, and he came regularly to the Friday night and Sabbath services, even appearing at the daily minyan on occasion.

  When he arrived, the rabbi inquired first after his wife, who was not well. Feinberg shook his head sadly. “It’s what I came to see you about. I’ve decided we have to go away before the winter sets in. We’re going to Arizona.”

  “I see. How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m not coming back. We’ll be moving out there permanently. To be perfectly candid with you, Rabbi, I’ve been planning this move for some time. I flew out to Phoenix last week. My son, Mark, as you know, is in the real estate business there. He moved out to Phoenix some years ago. He suffers from asthma, too, and he hasn’t had a serious attack since he’s been there. He’s been after us to make the move because of his mother’s condition. And to make a long story short, I bought a house there.”

  “Well, that was quick. I wish you the best of luck, of course. And what about your business here?”

  “The younger boy, Abner, and my son-in-law have been running it for some time. I haven’t had much to do with it for the last couple of years. Oh, I go in a few times a week, but that’s about all. They can carry on without me.”

  “When are you planning to leave? Is this good-bye?”

  Feinberg laughed. “Oh no, I won’t be going for a month or more. There’s still a lot to do. But the major thing that bothers me is the temple.” He emitted a rich gurgle of laughter. “I can’t very well run it by correspondence from Arizona.”

  “So our vice-president will—oh no, he’s out. We have no vice-president. That means we’ll have to hold a special election.”

  “The other day, Rabbi, I was looking over the by-laws. Back when the temple first started, they had about forty-five on the Board of Directors and three vice-presidents, a first, a second, and a third. I don’t know what they were expecting.”

  The rabbi explained. “As I understand—I wasn’t here at the very beginning, you know—it wasn’t intended to ensure the succession, but as a kind of honor. And that’s also why there were forty-five on the board. Only about fifteen ever came to a meeting, but the idea was to get as many members as possible actively involved. Then some years back—after they had cut the board down to fifteen—there was a change in the by-laws, setting up just one vice-president but permitting the president to appoint a vice-president if the office fell vacant for any reason—rather than holding a special election. I guess they felt that if they held a special meeting of the membership just to elect a vice-president, not many would show up.”

  “That’s right. It was about the time when Agnew resigned and Nixon appointed Ford. The board figured that if the United States could do it, then our temple certainly could. ‘If for any reason the office of vice-president shall fall vacant, then the president may appoint a member to the position with the approval of not less than two thirds of the directors at any regular meeting of the board.’ Something like that, anyway. So I thought I’d appoint somebody, get the approval of the board, and then I’d resign. I was thinking of someone like—No?” as the rabbi shook his head.

  “You’d appoint your friend Siskin, I suppose.”

  “Or Ely Mann, or Murray Larkin.”

  “Well, whomever you appointed, the board would probably approve because the position isn’t considered important. But then when you announced you were resigning, the next sound you’d hear, and you’d hear it all the way to Lynn, would be Chester Kaplan crying foul. It would be seen as a trick, and his group wouldn’t take it lying down. They’d hold meetings, launch a telephone campaign—it could split the congregation, and there’d be bad blood for years to come.”

  “But if I just resign, a special election would be held in a week or two, and Chester Kaplan would win easily,” said Feinberg stubbornly.

  “Why would he win?”

  “Because he’s got a close-knit group. They meet with each other all the time; Kaplan holds a weekly at-home. His campaign would be off and running before the Conservatives could even agree on a candidate.”

  “Nevertheless,” said the rabbi, “it’s a risk you’ve got to take. When were you planning to announce your resignation?”

  “I thought I’d wait until I was due to leave, in about a month that is. In the meantime, I might drop a hint to one or two of the Conservative members and they could sort of get started.”

  Again the rabbi shook his head. “That wouldn’t be fair. Besides, it would get out.”

  “Then what can I do?”

  The rabbi got up and began to stride back and forth, his head bowed in thought. He came to a halt in front of his visitor. “I’ll tell you what: Announce it at the next board meeting, this Sunday.”

  “And?”

  “That your resignation is to take effect in a month or six weeks, or whenever you are actually going to leave.”

  “Ah.” Feinberg nodded and smiled. “Yes, I see. That will give the others a chance to get organized.”

  “Maybe,” said the rabbi gloomily.

  When Feinberg had left and they were alone, Miriam asked, “Would it really be so terrible if Chester Kaplan and his group got in?”

  “You remember what happened the year he was president.”

  “You mean the business of wanting to buy the place up-country for a retreat? But he’s probably learned his lesson and wouldn’t do that kind of thing again.”

  “No? Wel
l, only yesterday at the morning minyan while we were waiting for a tenth man, he suggested that we keep a record of attendance at the minyan and then restrict the honors on the High Holy Days to those who had been present a certain percentage of the time.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m sure he has a lot of other bright ideas that he would try to introduce. Maybe restrict the choir to male voices. Maybe change the seating arrangements so that there were men on one side and women on the other.”

  “There’d be so much opposition that—”

  “That’s the point. We want to avoid opposition. We can’t afford it. In a city with a large Jewish population, a Conservative synagogue is made up of people who believe in Conservative Judaism. But in a small town like Barnard’s Crossing, the Conservative synagogue is essentially a compromise among the three elements, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. We’ve got to maintain a balance. If we lean too far in one direction or the other, we’ll lose members. If Kaplan and his crew got in, there is a strong possibility that the Reform element would pull out and start a temple of their own. And the community is just not large enough to support two temples. That’s mainly what worries Feinberg. And it worries me, too, of course. But I’m also bothered because Kaplan and his group represent what I think of as the New Orthodox.”

  “The New Orthodox?”

  “That’s right. They’re terribly religious. They work at it, and when you work at it, religion is apt to turn into religiosity. You know, for all that my father was a Conservative rabbi, ours was what is nowadays thought of as an Orthodox home. And of course my grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi and all my relatives went to Orthodox synagogues. Well, their religion was easy. Actually, it was more of a way of life than an attempt to commune with the divine. Observance of the commandments was a matter of habit. They could no more eat nonkosher food than most people can eat snake meat. And using separate dishes for meat and for dairy products was as natural as—as eating from dishes at a table rather than from an old newspaper on the floor. The first time I ate in a restaurant and saw someone buttering his bread before cutting into his steak—and, mind you, I was in college at the time—I almost retched.”

  “How about the Sabbath? Wasn’t it restrictive?”

  “Restrictive? Not at all. It was a holiday. You dressed up in your Sabbath best and went to the synagogue. Then there was a special dinner. It was a day for visiting and for guests. My grandfather quizzed me on what I had learned in the religious school during the week and sometimes augmented it with his own instruction, especially after I started studying Talmud. If no guests came, or after they left, my folks would nap in the afternoon. The day proceeded with a different rhythm. It wasn’t hard, and I was never aware of any strain.”

  “Well, it wasn’t that way with us,” said Miriam.

  “Of course not, because your family is Reform,” he scoffed. “You went to the temple the way Christians go to church, full of solemn dignity. Well, Judaism isn’t like that, at least not by tradition. You people prayed fervently, or felt a little guilty if you didn’t. But normally, Jews don’t really pray at all; they daven. That is, they mumble the set text as rapidly as they can, and since it’s in Hebrew, hardly any of them understand it. That was the reason for the Reform change from Hebrew to the language of the country, English in our case.”

  “Doesn’t it make sense to know what you’re saying?”

  “I’m not so sure. You remember old Mr. Goralsky?”

  “You mean Ben Goralsky’s father? Of course.”

  “Well, he once told me that he had never missed reciting his daily prayers from the time he was five years old. He was seventy-five or eighty at the time. He knew them by heart, but he didn’t know what the words meant. He explained, however, that when he was engaged in praying he had different thoughts than he ordinarily had. In effect, he was meditating and the prayers, mumbled so rapidly that he finished the Amidah before anyone else was halfway through, they were a sort of mantra. He was an observant Jew in the sense that he observed the commandments expeditiously and then went about his business. I never thought of him as religious, that is, as someone intent on divining God’s will. Now, I do think of Kaplan and his group as religious.”

  “And you’re afraid that if they get in, they’ll pervert the—the—”

  “The service. Precisely. I guess, what I’m trying to say is that we Jews have always been suspicious of religiosity, in accordance with the commandment ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.’”

  She nodded. “You want to know something, David? You didn’t get around to talking to Feinberg about a raise.”

  “Miriam, Miriam, did you hear what I was saying?”

  “Of course. You’ve said it before, you know. But right now, I’m concerned about your getting more money. We’ve got to be thinking of Jonathon’s college. And Hepsibah is growing up. She’s going to need dresses and shoes instead of the jeans and sneakers she’s been wearing.”

  4

  Scofield was one of the old Barnard’s Crossing names like Meechum and Crosset. There was a Scofield Alley that led down to the public wharf, and a bit of grass with a couple of benches that was listed in the town records as Scofield Park. But in contrast to the dozen Meechums and the half column of Crossets, there was only one Scofield—John—listed in the telephone directory. According to town gossip, “the Scofields were cautious folk and tended to marry late, so they didn’t have too many kids.”

  Unfortunately, this did not lead to prosperity except for a brief period in the nineteenth century when a Judge Samuel Scofield had taken a flyer in the China trade and made a lot of money from one voyage. But then his innate caution took over and he did not venture again. By the time of his death, the fortune was largely dissipated. But the good judge at least managed to establish a scholarship at both Harvard College and Harvard Law School with the stipulation that it was to be given only to someone bearing the name of Scofield. In the absence of a candidate, the money was to go to the general operating funds of the college and the law school, respectively.

  Perhaps because there had been no applicants for years and the Admissions Committee felt a little guilty, John Scofield, whose marks at Barnard’s Crossing High had been only fair, indeed on the low side, was admitted to the college. And four years later, he applied and was admitted to the law school.

  At twenty-eight, John Scofield was a tall, blond young man with pale blue eyes and large square white teeth, and handsome in a stolid sort of way. He shared an office in Salem with four other lawyers, all young men like himself struggling to build a practice. He was a little better off, however, since they were all married, while he had only himself to support—“Scofields tend to marry late.”

  Across the hall was the office of the elderly trial lawyer, J. J. Mulcahey, from whom they rented. John Scofield spent a lot of time in Mulcahey’s office because he had a lot of time to spend and because the old man liked to talk, especially when he had a drink or two in him. Occasionally, Mulcahey gave him some work, largely clerical, for which he paid him, usually quite generously. Now and then Mulcahey gave him a case that he was either too busy or too lazy to handle himself. Which is how Scofield became the attorney for the defense of Juan Gonzales. The morning of the trial, however, found him not in court but in Mulcahey’s office. The older man glanced at the clock and asked, “Don’t you go to trial this morning?”

  “It’s all over,” said Scofield, smiling with satisfaction. “I did some plea bargaining.”

  “What you settle for?”

  “Six months and a year’s probation. I figure that’s a lot better than taking a chance on three to five.”

  “I would have got him off,” said Mulcahey.

  “Cummon, J.J. He was guilty as hell.”

  “What’s that got to do with it? That’s for the jury to decide. What happened?”

  “Well, Gonzales had his whole family there, and every now and then, one of them would come over to ask me
a question or to give me some crazy advice. It began to get on my nerves. So after a while I went across the street for a cup of coffee. A couple of minutes later, the assistant D.A., Charlie Venture, comes in. You know him?”

  “Sure. He’s one I’m careful not to turn my back on.”

  “Aw, cummon, he’s a nice guy. Anyway, he joins me and we get to talking. He goes on and on about his case load and how the D.A. is on his back to get it down. And then he gives me that kind of funny one-sided smile of his—”

  “That’s when you’ve really got to watch out. I always reach back and clutch my wallet.”

  Scofield parted his lips and displayed his teeth to show he appreciated the joke. “Anyway, he says how would I like for my client to cop a plea. So we’re up before Judge Prentiss, and you know how he is about blacks and Puerto Ricans, and I know he’s got an open-and-shut case—”

  “He didn’t have a case,” said Mulcahey flatly.

  “Oh yes, J.J. He had a witness, a nice middle-aged guy who—”

  “Who crapped out or didn’t show.”

  “No, he showed all right. I saw him there in the corridor.”

  “So he crapped out. He told Venturo that he couldn’t be certain it was Gonzales.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because his wife probably got to him. ‘Why do you want to get involved with a bunch of crazy Puerto Ricans?’ That kind of thing. Happens all the time. So Venturo, knowing he doesn’t have a case, and seeing you go out for a cup of coffee, follows you and propositions you. Let me ask you, if he had an open-and-shut case and was sure of a conviction with a sentence of three to five years, why should he offer to settle for a lousy six months?”

  “Well, he was busy—”

  “So what? They’re always busy, and the D.A. is always goosing them to reduce their case load. What did he stand to gain? The case would have been finished before the noon recess.”

  “You think he played me for a patsy?”

  “I’ll say.”

  “And I should have gone ahead with it?”