Гарри Кемельман - Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

The story got out of course. On Sunday, as the members of the board of directors waited around in the temple corridor for their meeting to begin, they discussed it. Typical was Norman Phillips' comment. "Just like our rabbi." He tapped his head with a forefinger. "No smarts, he's supposed to be an educated man, and I guess he is since he's a rabbi, but smarts he sure hasn't got."

"Well, for God's sake. Norm, what could he do? You know our house rules call for strictly kosher catering in the temple, and as I understand it, if you use non-kosher type food, then all the dishes and pots and pans are automatically non-kosher, then the next wedding or bar mitzvah that comes along, you want us to go out and buy a whole new set of dishes? So it isn't as though you could make an exception that one time. You use non-kosher type food in the kitchen, and zip, that's it, the kitchen is non-kosher from then on, and even if you could make an exception, why should we do it for Chernow?"

"Who's saying we should make exceptions? I'm only talking about the way the rabbi handled it, we got a house committee, haven't we? Nate Marcus is chairman, right?"

"Yeah, So?"

"So if our rabbi had any smarts he would have said"— and he changed his voice to simulate the rabbi's— "'you understand. Miss Chernow, that all matters governing the use of the facilities require the approval of the house committee, which the chairman is Nathanial Marcus. I believe. This applies to any caterer which he has not used our facilities heretofore. Our house rules require that he receive the prior approval of our house committee. If you like. I'll phone Mr. Marcus and arrange for an appointment for you.’"

"So Nate would have had to turn her down, wouldn't he?"

"But that's just the point. Nate is not a salaried employee who may need a member's vote someday. This way the rabbi made enemies of the Chernows, and the last thing the rabbi needs in this congregation is another enemy."

Because the weather was mild, frail old Jacob Wasserman, the first president of the temple, had ventured forth to attend the board meeting, he had been brought by his good friend Al Becker, and though they were standing apart from the others, they could not help overhearing.

"I don't set much store by a loudmouth like Norm Phillips." Becker commented in a low rumble, "but I think he's got a point. Why does the rabbi always have to stick his neck out?" Wasserman smiled. "What's rabbi. Becker? A rabbi is a teacher. In the old country when I went to school, the teacher was the boss— not like here. Sometimes, if you were maybe fresh, or if you said something stupid, you'd get a slap from the teacher. Believe me, many times I got slapped when I was a boy." His smile broadened with reminiscence. "But the mistakes you got slapped for. Becker, you didn't make them again."

"Maybe. But you know what I think? I think the rabbi doesn't give a damn anymore."

Wasserman nodded sadly. "Maybe that, too."

The call came in mid-September, right after the High Holydays, and was totally unexpected. When the voice on the phone introduced itself as Bertram Lamden, Rabbi Small did not immediately connect him with Rabbi Lamden, the swarthy, bewhiskered young man who was the Hillel director at the University of Massachusetts and whom he had first met at the Greater Boston Rabbinical Council meeting a few weeks earlier.

"I’ve been giving a course in Jewish Thought and Philosophy at Windemere College in the city for the last few years," Lamden said, "but I won't be able to do it again this term. I took the liberty of recommending you in my place."

"How did you happen to think of me?" asked Rabbi Small. A short laugh.

"Well, to tell the truth. Rabbi, because the dean of the college happens to live in your town. Do you know her by any chance? Millicent Hanbury?"

"It's a local name, I believe, there's a Hanbury Street downtown."

"Right. Now the course is three hours a week; it's in Boston, in the Fenway, less than an hour's drive for you, and it pays thirty-five hundred dollars. Why don't you give her a call?" Rabbi Small asked how they happened to be offering a course in Jewish philosophy.

Laraden laughed.

"Oh, they get a lot of Jewish kids from around here and from the New York-New Jersey area. Windemere's a fallback school, but they maintain decent academic standards."

"She's the dean, the dean of faculty?"

"That's right. It used to be a woman's college. You know, one of those ladies' seminaries that flourished in New England around the turn of the century. It's been coed for the last ten years or so, but it's still two-thirds women. Look, why don't you talk to her? You're not committed in any way."

"Ladies' seminary."

"New England."

"Dean,"

"turn of the century" had evoked in his mind an image of Millicent Hanbury as a tall, gaunt spinster with carefully coiffed gray hair and pince-nez on a gold chain, after hearing her low contralto over the phone when he called to make an appointment, he revised his estimate of her age downward and pictured her as trim, businesslike, a modern woman who favored conservative, basic suits.

It was a pleasant day, so although the address she had given him was some distance away, he decided to walk, as he approached the old rambling house with its turrets and gables and useless porches, all decorated with the fretsaw work of a century earlier, and saw the overgrown bushes, the cracked concrete path leading to the heavy oak front door badly in need of a coat of varnish, he revised his estimate of her age upward again. So he was totally unprepared for the extremely attractive woman, no more than in her early thirties, who answered the door and extended her hand in a firm handshake.

She was tall, slim, and her short dark hair was carefully touseled, as styled by a hairdresser, her fine gray eyes were candid as she explained. "Frankly, we're in something of a pickle, Rabbi, the course has been taught by Rabbi Lamden for the last three years on an annual contract, we just assumed he'd be back again this year, and then he told us he was leading a group to Israel. Oh, I'm not blaming him," she hastened to add. "We should have contacted him earlier. I suppose it's really my fault."

She motioned him to a chair. On another was the knitting she had dropped when she answered the door, she began to put it away, but he said. "You don't have to stop on my account."

"Oh, you're sure you don't mind?"

"I like to see women knitting. My mother is a great one for it."

"It's not as common as it used to be. I'm afraid." She sat down with the knitting in her lap, and to the pleasant accompaniment of clicking needles she explained. "Christmas presents for nephews and nieces. I start early enough, but I always seem to be rushed toward the end. I keep three or four projects going all the time. I have a separate bag for each wherever I'm apt to be sitting, and I work at the one that's available whenever I have a free moment, a gift is so much more appreciated if it's the work of your own hands. Don't you agree?"

As she knitted, she told him about the school, the enrollment was just under two thousand with a pupil-teacher ratio of twelve to one. "That doesn't mean, of course, that our classes average twelve pupils, because several of our teachers are on leave each year and quite a few teach only one course, the course in Jewish Philosophy usually runs between twenty-five and thirty students. Do you think that's a lot? Some of the younger men feel put upon if their classes run over twenty. On the other hand, since we have unlimited cuts, you never get the full enrollment at any one class."

"It's three hours a week?"

"That's right. Rabbi Small. Mondays and Wednesdays at nine, Fridays at one. I'm sorry about the Friday hour, we only have a couple of classes scheduled for Friday afternoon, but we're awfully tight for space and I'm afraid your class has to be one of them."