Гарри Кемельман - Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

"And you say this operative is a woman?"

"A mere slip of a girl, but with a heart full of patriotism." Rogers looked doubtfully at his assistant, not sure he was entirely serious. "But dammit. Brad, it did do damage, and somebody got killed."

"Oh no, we know now that the explosion had nothing to do with that."

"Oh yes, this man Fine. I hope he's not going to turn out to be a government agent or anything like that, is he?"

"Don't worry." Ames chuckled. "We've got a good case against him." "Well, that's good." Rogers rubbed his hands in satisfaction. "And this girl— after this, she must be in solid with the Weathervanes, I mean, after bringing off this caper, she'd be above suspicion?"

"Like Caesar's wife."

"What? Oh yes, yes, I see." He laughed. "And she's above suspicion with us, too."

"Well naturally..."

"Has it ever occurred to you, Matt, that we've come to a rotten state of affairs when we have to use double agents to maintain some semblance of law and order? That we have to wink at one breach of the law to prevent another? And we set ourselves up as the sole arbiters of which is more important. Now isn't that characteristic of a police state?" Rogers looked at him doubtfully, he sounded perfectly serious, as though he actually meant this radical sort of talk. But then Ames chuckled, and he knew it was all right.

WHY DON'T JEWS EAT HAM? WHY DO JEWS WEAR BLACK BEAMES WHEN THEY PRAY? GOD IS DEAD. TRUE OR FALSE? WHY...? WHY...?

The rabbi stood in the doorway of the classroom, bemused, as he looked over the blackboard with its long list of questions, each written in a different hand.

"You said we could ask questions today," said Harvey Shacter.

"So I did. Mr. Shacter." He came into the room, his eye still on the board. "And with a list that long, we'd better get started, we'll take them in order. Now the first question, about ham: that involves our dietary laws. Briefly, we may eat only the flesh of an animal which has cloven hooves and chews its cud. It must satisfy both conditions to qualify as kosher, that is, ritually fit to eat. Fish must have both scales and fins, which rules out shellfish; and fowl with curved beaks and talons— that is, birds of prey are taboo. Some try to justify these laws on scientific grounds— healthy and nourishing animals are permitted, those liable to disease and hence less fit for human consumption are taboo— but that's a modem rationalization. Traditionally, we observe the dietary laws because we have been so commanded in the Bible. Now since the pig does not chew its cud, it is considered unclean, and so ham is forbidden."

"But don't we have a special thing about the pig that we don't have about other non-kosher animals?" asked Leventhal.

"Yes, that's true. Mr. Leventhal, we have a special aversion for the pig, possibly because it was an object of worship among many pagan peoples. But I am inclined to think it is for a more fundamental reason, all the other domestic animals have some utility for man while they are alive: the cow gives milk, the sheep produces wool, the horse performs work and transportation, the dog guards the house, the cat controls mice. Only the pig, of all domestic animals, kosher and non-kosher, serves no purpose except to be slaughtered and eaten. Now our religion forbids cruelty to animals. In fact, there are dozens of regulations in the Bible and in the interpretations of the rabbis that require us to treat the lower animals with kindness: one must not muzzle the ox that treads corn; a donkey and an ox may not be yoked together; beasts of burden must be rested on the Sabbath; hunting for sport is forbidden, with that as our tradition, you can readily understand how raising an animal solely for slaughter would be repugnant to us."

The rabbi made a checkmark against the question on the board. "All right, let's go on to the next, the black beanie. Whose is that, by the way?"

Harvey Shacter raised his hand.

"I’ve never heard the kipoh referred to that way," said the rabbi smiling, "but it's a good enough description. Why do we wear it? It's just a matter of custom, Mr. Shacter, there's no biblical regulation, although I might point out that with us custom takes on the force of law. It doesn't have to be black and it doesn't have to be a beanie, any head covering will do, at times it was the custom to go bareheaded, at other times to be covered, and the latter custom seems to have won out except in Reform temples where they usually pray bareheaded."

He checked off the question, and then after a moment's hesitation, checked off the next one, remarking. "'God is dead' concerns Protestant theologians rather than Jewish rabbis."

"Why is that?" called out Henry Luftig. "Yours, Mr. Luftig?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, it's a theological question, and we have no theology, at least not in the generally accepted sense."

"Why not?"

"Because we don't need one." said the rabbi simply. "Our religion is based on the idea of a single God, a God of Justice. If you think about it, the concept of justice demands a single God because it implies a single standard, and because He is infinite, he is unknowable to finite minds, we don't forbid the study of Him, you understand, but we consider it pointless. Much as an engineer would who sees a young colleague trying to construct a perpetual motion machine, he might say: 'You can work on it if you like, but you're wasting your time because it's theoretically impossible.' So because we believe it's pointless to try to know the unknowable, we have no theology."

"Then why do the Christians have one?" demanded Luftig."I had intended this session to deal with your questions on Judaism, not Christianity." the rabbi said reprovingly.

"How can we know about Judaism if we don't have something to compare it to?" asked Shacter.The rabbi pursed his lips and considered. "You're quite right, Mr. Shacter, all right. I'll try to explain. Like us, the Christians also believe in a single God. But in addition they have another divine being in the form of Jesus as a son of God, and since a son implies a mother, they also have Mary, who is at least semi-divine. Now these familial relationships, between God and Jesus. Mary and Jesus. Mary and God, and all the other possible permutations, to say nothing of the human-divine nature of Jesus— these are not easy to explain."

"Is that what they call the Holy Trinity?"

"No." said the rabbi, "that's the Holy Family, the trinity consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and their relationship to each other is the concern of Christian theology, there are very fine distinctions on these matters between the various Christian sects."

"Yeah, but aren't those just word games played by priests and ministers?"

"Tens of thousands have been killed in religious wars, from the time of Constantine in the fourth century down to modern times, all because of these so-called word games." said the rabbi. "No. Mr. Luftig, the arguments of theologians are not to be dismissed lightly." Lillian Dushkin waved her hand. "This boy I know, he's into this Jews for Jesus thing, and he says that Jesus is the Messiah Jews believe in and that he came to save mankind."

"Save them from what?" It was a young man who took copious notes, and it flicked across the rabbi's mind that for once, like most of the others, he had been listening rather than writing. "Saved from hell, of course." said Mazelman scornfully. "Isn't that right, Rabbi?"

"Yes, that's the idea,” he said. "Hell was an attempt to answer the age-old question: why do good men suffer while evil men frequently triumph and prosper? All religions have wrestled with that problem, the Hindus solve it by the doctrine of reincarnation. You get your just deserts in the next life for what you have done in this life. Christian doctrine holds that the wicked burn everlastingly in hell while the virtuous are rewarded by everlasting life in heaven."