Rabbi Gabrielle's Defiance (20 page)

Board members glowered at each other in
disbelief. They knew Gabby to possess sufficient community
recognition to become elected. And there was no doubt about her
gravitas. Yet thinking of her in any role other than their rabbi
had never been entertained. Suddenly, there were questions about
what would happen if she were elected.

"I haven't crossed that bridge, largely
because I'm not optimistic," she stated.

Stan was caught in a position he detested,
being unprepared. To deflect attention from Gabby's bombshell, he
reminded everyone that the Disney folks were waiting to make a
presentation. But that didn't stop Nora DelGrotto from asking, "Why
run if you don't think you can win?"

"Because I want to help clean up the
electoral process," Gabby replied.

Eyebrows rose. Her idealism had never been
questioned, largely because it always seemed to be tempered by a
healthy dose of realism. Without this pragmatism she would never
have survived at Ohav Shalom. But in this matter, she appeared to
have slipped. As denizens of the nation's capital, they understood
the political process. Elected officials who refuse to play
according to rules of the congressional club have nothing to show
their constituents in the next election. It's play by the rules or
lose your seat. The same thought pattern coursed through Ohav
Shalom's board. How could Gabby possible think that by running for
Congress she might change anything?

Devorah Chattrel, an energetic, over-weight
mother of four and a devoted member of the synagogue's sisterhood,
raised her hand for permission to speak and said, "Rabbi Lewyn, we
really need you here. Please wait for another election."

"And become a Republican," quipped Morris
Stein. Nobody laughed.

Cynthia Messinger returned to the
conversation. "Toby Ryles is a good friend of the Jewish community.
Very pro-Israel. It doesn't seem right to reward her loyalty by
fielding a candidate against her. You don't really believe you can
beat such a popular lawmaker, do you?"

"Yes, it's possible," resounded Gabby. "But I
must also be realistic. Though I can't disclose how I intend to
accomplish an upset, I can tell you that my campaign will be unique
in style and form. That's why I can't postpone. It's now or
never."

Chuck Browner, who usually remained nearby
during a board meeting in case Gabby needed secretarial help,
cracked the conference room door to signal that representative from
Disney Productions had been waiting for over a half-hour. They
would need ten minutes in the boardroom to set up their
presentation equipment.

Stan said, "Can't keep Walt Disney and Mickey
Mouse waiting any longer. Gabby, we'll put our heads together and
make a decision very soon."

Disappointed that no resolution had been
made, she snapped, "And when might that be, Stan?"

Irritated, he growled back, "Sorry, Rabbi,
but we can't afford to gamble with the future of this institution.
This is a complicated matter, especially when we learn it might
affect not only six months, but possibly a lot more. It's no simple
matter when a congregation's senior rabbi declares she wants to run
for an elected office. Our members will have a lot to say on the
matter."

Gabby said, "I've worked for this sabbatical.
I would hope the congregation will honor its commitment."

"I'm afraid I’m not in a position to judge
that. We're facing a very dangerous lawsuit. Like jackrabbits
before an approaching plow, loyal members may flee the
congregation. We can't expect them to be delighted to see their
rabbi on the campaign trail. But for the moment we must decide on
the Passover re-enactment. Let's take a break now and reconvene in
fifteen minutes. At that time, Rabbi, I'll ask you to make the
appropriate introductions."

Unlike most synagogue meetings in which participants
banter amiably during a break, cold board members filed into the
corridor and headed for the restrooms in cold silence. Eyes refused
to meet Gabby's as she weaved through a cluster of Disney employees
waiting to enter the boardroom and set up their video equipment.
Chuck Browner was chatting with the guests. The agenda had affected
her bladder and Gabby needed to visit the ladies room.

When the meeting reconvened, she introduced
the subject of a community wide festival of Pesach in April – the
15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan. Because contemporary Seders
in the home and synagogues mirror an ancient feast that occurred on
the night the Hebrews fled from Egypt, some 3,200 years before, the
Washington Board of Rabbis, in conjunction with other communal
organizations, agreed to co-sponsor an educational program on
Pesach. Disney Productions was interested to recast the historical
epic because Passover was the oldest continuous festival in the
western world. The Disney people planned to combine the historic
and contemporary slavery-to-freedom celebrations in a three-hour
television extravaganza. The historic re-enactment was planned for
a location in Egypt's Sinai Desert where professional actors and
seven hundred movie extras would recreate the Children of Israel
departing from Egypt. To couple this epic with the modern
recitation of the Haggadah, Disney proposed to go live with a
contemporary seder at Ohav Shalom.

Orthodox rabbis wanted nothing to do with
what they labeled a commercial exploitation. Conservative rabbis
were equally unmoved by the commercialism. Disney had nowhere to
turn but to the liberal Jewish establishment. Ohav Shalom became an
obvious choice.

Not all of Ohav's board members were
enthusiastic. Five folded their arms across their chess in a
provocative
show-me
position, listening to
a brief introduction by the Disney team. Lights dimmed and images
flashed across a pull-down screen. The opening of
From Slavery to Freedom
showed a film crew working
where the historic exodus was purported to have taken place. A
trailer referred to a biblical scholar working with camera crews to
authenticate the sequence.

"Who's playing Moses?” Helen Bluttan-Fine
asked from her positron at the conference table.

Karla Foo, a Chinese-American director in her
late-thirties answered with modest surprise, "Nobody. Our experts
tell us that Moses isn't mentioned in the Passover story."

"What?" Miriam Stone-Heflin sounded her
skepticism. "How can you tell the exodus story without Moses?"

"It's an anomaly," interrupted Gabby. "In the
Book of Exodus, Moses plays a dominant role. But surprisingly, his
name isn't found in the Passover Haggadah. Rabbinic scholars have a
host of explanations for this omission, but Disney is right in not
introducing Moses into their narrative. We don’t' need another
Charleston Heston."

The intro to
From Slavery
to Freedom
opened with a shot of swollen fingers kneading
clay into a brick mold. Each time the slave-worker lifted the
wooden form, dry clay inside cracked and he was forced to renew the
tedious process. Pharaoh's taskmasters spitefully withheld from the
Hebrew the necessary binding straw. The clay was brittle and
difficult to mold. The camera widened horizontally to encompass a
field of brick makers working under a blistering desert sun. You
could hear the crack of whips in the distance, yet could not see
the results of this cruelty. The script did not highlight physical
degradation. Instead, the subject was treated obliquely by focusing
on a small story inside a big one. Not thousands of toiling slaves
under the whip, but one set of hands struggling with a single brick
mold. The crack of a whip getting closer compelled the struggling
slave to work faster with little result. Without straw to bind his
brick, he would soon experience excruciating pain.

"We hope to merge this sequence with your
modern seder," Karla Foo explained. "Or perhaps do a double-image
shot with you, Rabbi Lewyn, reading the biblical description of
this event at the seder table. We've included details on your
Exhibit F."

Treatment of the ten plagues wrought upon the
Egyptians for their refusal to let Hebrews pass peacefully over the
frontier into the Desert of Sinai could be tricky. To show
Egyptians suffering might produce a hostile reaction. Again, the
director showed her craft by focusing on a single Egyptian, not a
large number of sufferers. When depicting the plague of locusts, a
viewer witnessed a single insect creeping over the eyes of a
sleeping Egyptian infant. Infestations of frogs did not clog the
streets of Ramses City. Rather, a single greenish-brown creature
jumped from the stone pavers onto a windowsill of an Egyptian home
and hopped through the opening into the darkness beyond. A merchant
scratched at a bleeding skin wound to depict the plague of
boils.

"We'd like to show a modern celebrant dipping
his or her fingers into a wine glass and spotting the plate,”
Director Foo explained. To illustrate her point, she directed a
technician to overlay the video with footage of a contemporary
seder in which children were dropping wine not onto plates but onto
a tablecloth and causing a mess. This elicited sympathetic laughter
from the board members, many of whom had grandchildren equally
determined to soil a family tablecloth.

Karla Foo said, "While this is still in the
conceptual phase, we're thinking of having a celebrity news
anchorman or woman emcee the entire program. We're considering
filming him or her on location at Abu Simbel in Egypt, before the
statue of Pharaoh Ramses II, and later at the Temple of Amon at
Karnak. This will tie the past to the present.

When light illuminated the room, conversation
erupted. Everyone had a different slant on what had been presented.
Because the producers were guests, board members agreed to withhold
their opinions until after the Disney folks had departed.

By a quarter to eleven, the board was
exhausted. Stan Melkin knew how difficult it was to convene this
group of exceedingly busy people and, despite the late hour,
insisted upon coming to a conclusion before they adjourned. After
some grumbling, members conceded that postponement was impractical.
The nay-sayers began with an assault upon Disney's popularization
of American culture in which human relationship were trivialized.
Myth became history. Should not Passover be immune from such
commercialism?

Candice Levy, a matronly deacon of Jewish
communal affairs, said to Gabby, "There's no Mickey Mouse stamp on
what we have just seen. Isn't it considered a mitzvah to teach
Gentiles about Passover?"
"Absolutely," Gabby was unequivocal.
"Because it is purported that Jesus was celebrating Passover at the
Last Supper many Christians hold Seders in their churches. I was
startled to read that in absolute numbers, these days more
Christians attend Seders than Jews."

Stan followed up, "Then, Rabbi, it is your
view that we should be within the spirit of the holiday to share
our seder with others on television?"

It was late and Stan obviously wished to
press for a decision.

"Yes."

Lucien Belinky, semi-retried from the area's
premier podiatry practice in which he had scaled corns from the
most influential toes in Washington, glanced above the rims of
thick spectacles. "Is it wise for Ohav to take a public posture
with the Morgenstern suit hanging over our shoulder? It will draw
unwanted attention to our plight."

Gabby returned to the conversation, "How does
the lawsuit bear on Pesach?"
"Not on Pesach, but there's a lot of
sympathy for the Morgensterns, as well there should be. That causes
hostility toward the synagogue and its rabbis. I heard through the
grape vine that Dominion Mutual is prepared for trial."

"I had hoped to avoid that discussion
tonight," Stan Melkin interrupted. "It's complicated and we have
not had a chance to consult with our rabbis about new
developments."
"But it
is
germane," said
Lucien Belinky. "If Dominion settles, then it would be acceptable
to bring in the camera crews. But if not, I personally wouldn't
recommend it."

Gabby was alerted to discussions occurring
behind her back.

Stan glared at Lucien Belinky to communicate
his disapproval. "It's too late to talk about the Morgensterns. We
can and must let it go for another time."

"Why not now," Candice Levy asked. "If Lucien
is correct, it might bear upon our decision about Pesach."

"No. Absolutely not. Or prepare to spend the
night here," barked Stan.

Having worked the entire day with barely a
moment of relief, Gabby was feeling weary, straining her patience."
May I ask why it is not the right time?"

"Because we're talking about delicate
personnel matters."
"If Asa Folkman and my jobs are on the line
here, Stan, please let us know."

The president was visibly disturbed and
snapped, "You weren't personally involved with the Morgenstern
girls."

"Are you thinking Asa was?

"He had immediate contact with the girls. You
did not."

A raw upheaval occurred in Gabby's stomach.
"I can't believe what I'm hearing. I'm astonished."

Normally subdued and timid, Nora DelGrotto
said, "We all know that Rabbi Folkman has a different focus these
days."

"We've already been through that station,
Nora. He does his work professionally and extremely well. How he
spends his private time is his own business. The fact that he's an
excellent musician is to his credit and the benefit of this
congregation."

"That's just the point, Rabbi," Nora pursued.
"There's no reason for Ohav to shoulder more burden than necessary.
We have a chance to distance ourselves from this unfortunate
affair. Everybody acknowledges it was an accident. And we feel it
is only fair to compensate the Morgensterns for their loss. We
can't afford to give the impression we're unsympathetic to their
suffering. We're supposed to be one big family."