Гарри Кемельман - Wednesday the Rabbi got wet

Paul Goodman got up. "I'd like to start by saying that our president has just done a masterly job in shearing away the superficial aspects of this situation and focusing our attention on the kernel of the problem. Now one of the hardest aspects of practicing law, and I'm sure Chet will bear me out, is explaining to your client that the law is not a yes-or-no thing, he always wants to know if something is legal or not, and you have to explain that one set of precedents say it is and that other precedents suggest that it might not be, that in the final analysis the law is what the judge and jury— that's us in this case— say it is, and what's apt to determine their finding is the hard practicality of the situation as much as anything else. I'd like to point out, and the rabbi himself admitted it, that the rule that Chet brought up was originally adopted by the rabbis only because it was the practical thing to do under the circumstances. Oh yeah, and one other thing, as I understood it, this Din Torah thing the rabbi mentioned calls for some big-shot rabbi and two assistants, well, I don't know how it works, since I've never seen one in operation, but I would imagine that they sit as a board of three and decide on the basis of the majority, well, why would you need three judges if it were an open-and-shut case?"

Henry Vogel got the floor. "As far as I'm concerned, I don't see that Aptaker deserves all the consideration we're showing him. I happen to know him on account the market next door is one of my clients. So when I'm in the neighborhood servicing my client, I might drop in to the Town-Line. So one day, we get to talking, and I tell him I'm a CPA. I wasn't soliciting his business, you understand. I just happened to mention it, and he says, as if I asked him or was even interested, that he has his work done by Kavanaugh and Otis, which is a Gentile firm to begin with and this Otis is an A-number-one anti-Semite.

Now here's the point I'm trying to make, aptaker is one of the first Jews in town. But is he a member of the temple? No, sir, he's been approached every time we've had a membership drive, and each time he wasn't interested, as a member of the Membership Committee, I know what I'm talking about, he probably figures that up there on the Salem Road where there's no Jewish residents to speak of, where it's practically a hundred percent Gentile, he don't have to belong. But I'll tell you something else, he didn't have his kid Bar Mitzvahed, not in our temple or anyplace else. Now, I know that for a fact. So if he's not interested in anything Jewish, why should we go out of our way to give him the benefit of a special Jewish law?"

Murray Isaacs raised the question of Aptaker's physical condition. "We could end up with egg all over our face, here's a guy that's just had a heart attack. No insurance company would issue a policy to him, and we're planning to underwrite him for ten years. Suppose we go along with the rabbi, give him his lease and stop the sale, and then after a couple of months he decides he can't carry on and closes his store. What are we left with? I'll tell you— a second vacant store."

Several hands were raised, but out of courtesy to a past president. Kaplan nodded to Ben Gorfinkle. "I wasn't here at your last meeting." said Gorfinkle, "but I got the impression from what I heard that the rabbi felt strongly enough about this matter to make it a test of whether he stays on. If that is so, then it puts the whole business in a different perspective. Because if he feels that strongly about it, then it must be a lot more basic to Judaism than some of the previous speakers seem to suggest."

"I think you were misinformed, Ben," said the chairman. "The rabbi said nothing about resigning if the vote went against reconsideration. It was some idea he had about our retreats in New Hampshire, he thought the kind of services we had might not be in keeping with traditional Judaism and that if the temple went that way, he wanted no part of it. But then, neither would most of us."

"I'd like to say something," said Paul Goodman, and without waiting for permission from the chairman, he went on, "I don't think the consideration of how the rabbi might react should have any effect on our deliberations here. Certainly not on the present matter. It's up to us to decide, because we are the elected directors of the temple. If we stop to think each time we decide something whether the rabbi is going to like it or not, then we stop being the directors and he becomes the one running the temple, and if that's what the congregation wanted, then they would have appointed him temple manager. I think we all know our minds and I move the previous question."

Several members applauded and a few others approvingly patted the table top in front of them, the chairman chose to disregard Goodman's remarks but responded to the motion. "Paul has moved the previous question—"

"Yeah, let's vote." "Second."

"Just a minute, Mr. Chairman." It was the loud harsh voice of Al Becker. "I don't get down here often, but I'd like to say a few words right now, if I may."

"Of course, Mr. Becker."

Becker rose and leaned forward, supporting his heavy torso by placing his two clenched fists on the table. "I came down today because Jake Wasserman asked me to, he would have come himself, but he doesn't go out too much these days, he heard that this was going to be a meeting where the rabbi was asked not to be present and he thought somebody should be here to watch out for his interests. Now. I don't know too much about the issue you're discussing, but I know quite a bit about our rabbi. In the early days of the temple when Jake Wasserman was president and when I was president and for the years when I took an active part in temple activities. I never knew the rabbi to get involved in politics, he'd come to the meetings, but he took no part in the discussion unless it concerned him directly. But every now and then a matter would come up which he thought was his business and he'd take a stand and he'd stick to it come hell or high water. Jake Wasserman says he's got a kind of builtin radar that warns him if the congregation is drifting away from our tradition, and that's when he takes a stand, and it's been my experience that he's usually proved right. Now without knowing all the ins and outs of this business. I feel that if he's taken a stand on it, then it's because his radar tells him we're drifting. I'd like you to think about that when you vote."

"Thank you, Mr. Becker," said Kaplan. "I think we're ready to vote now."

The secretary cleared his throat to attract the president's attention as he nodded at the proxies lying on the table in front of him. Kaplan responded with a barely perceptible shake of the head, he felt quite confident. "We'll vote by a show of hands, all in favor of reconsideration, all opposed." Kaplan beamed, the vote was fifteen to five against reconsideration.

Later, as thev made their wav to their cars, Dr. Muntz asked, "Are you going to stop by to tell the rabbi how the vote went?"

Kaplan halted suddenly. "Do you think I should?"

"Would you rather have him hear some garbled report through the grapevine, maybe from his wife who overhears a couple of women talking in the supermarket?"

"You're right. But it's not a job I relish particularly. It'll be pretty embarrassing."

"Would you like me to tell him, Chet?"

"Would you? Then I appoint you a committee of one. You going right now?"

"No," said Dr. Muntz. "Why spoil his dinner? I'll drop in on him sometime this afternoon."

Lieutenant Jennings finished the typescript of the McLane conversation tape recording and tossed the folder on the desk. "Are you buying it, Hugh?"

"I’ve got to check it out," said Lanigan mildly. "He could be lying—" "Of course."