The Saturday Wife (27 page)

All the way there, he regaled them with stories about his yeshiva days
in Brooklyn and how the rabbis told his parents he’d wind up in jail. “The rabbis were always trying to convince us not to go to college but instead to sit and learn Talmud the rest of our lives and have the community and our rich fathers-in-law support us. Once, Rabbi Pupik gets up and says, ‘You know what happens to boys who go to college? They wind up becoming organic chemists. And do you know what organic chemists do? All day they spend with their hands in what comes out of behinds. People behinds, animal behinds.’ Then he’d roll up his sleeves and pantomime it, holding it up to his nose, licking it with his tongue. We were all adolescents, we were rolling around on the floor going,
Uch, uch, uch!”
He laughed. “I’ll tell you what. Maybe we didn’t become Talmud scholars, but not one of us became an organic chemist!”

Instead, he’d gotten into real estate, learning the business from his mother’s uncle. And then, just on a fluke, he’d started purchasing radio stations one at a time when nobody wanted them. Delilah found the whole story a little hard to follow but understood he now headed a media conglomerate that supplied news and entertainment to a vast number of people in the United States and elsewhere.

And while he didn’t say so, Chaim already knew that he was also one of the most giving and generous men in the world, involved with a vast number of charities, both Jewish and non-Jewish, with a particular interest in the handicapped. He was one of those people who earn your respect and overcome your prejudices, Chaim thought. As much as those with no money would hope to at least be able to boast of a superior moral edge over their very wealthy counterparts, the truth was that it is equally possible, and far more likely, he believed, for a rich man to be a good person than a poor one—tightfisted grasping hands, let’s face it, being more of a problem among those who have grabbed little than those who have grabbed much.

“Oh, my goodness!” Delilah gasped, when she saw Ohel Aaron.

Huge vertical columns of concrete, interspersed with thin ribbons of stained glass, rose into the air, meeting at a point in the center that looked as if it had been tied with some kind of gigantic leather belt.

Arthur Malin shrugged. “I know, I know. It’s supposed to be an Indian tepee. The first Jews in Swallow Lake wanted to do something that fit into the environment and would be respectful of local traditions.
Ich vast?”

It looked, Chaim thought, like a huge ice-cream cone that had been turned upside down and smashed into the pavement by a vengeful three-year-old. “Well, it’s the inside that’s important,” Chaim said.

“That’s even worse,” Arthur Malin admitted, opening the doors.

He was right. It was vast and rather gloomy, lit by massive wooden chandeliers straight out of the Ahawaneechee Lodge. All that was missing were the antlers and other dead hunting trophies. The bimah, which stood at the center, seemed to be made out of bark-covered log cabin blocks. The Ark of the Torah, hewn out of a massive redwood trunk, seemed to be covered—could that actually be?—in leather. On either side, huge electrical fixtures in the shape of flickering torches finished the effect of a Comanche tribunal gathered to do a war dance.

It took every ounce of self-discipline Chaim could muster not to ask, Are you sure this is Tent of Aaron, and not Pocahontas?

“Let me guess. The
mechitzah
is made of feathers?” Chaim whispered to Delilah.

“He’ll hear you!” she hissed.

As it turned out, feathers would have been more traditionally acceptable according to Jewish law than what he found: solid panels of beaten bronze, each one in the shape of a different wild bird, placed at widely spaced intervals that allowed men and women to see each other clearly. He gulped in panic. According to Jewish tradition, the birds were for the birds. There was no question in his mind that any Orthodox rabbi worth his salt must absolutely refuse to officiate over a synagogue service in such a place. He glanced at Delilah, who sat in the front row looking at him hopefully, her face beaming in excitement and expectation. He walked in heavily. This wasn’t his pulpit—yet. There would be time to make changes, if and when he got the job, he told himself.

Delilah looked around her, delighted. There were many women of all ages, and at a Friday-night service, which was traditionally almost entirely male. Usually, this meant either that the congregation was young and sassy and used the synagogue as a social watering hole or that the women were in love with their rabbi. In this case, she had no doubt they’d come to gather early impressions by inspecting them both. She smiled until her mouth ached, her entire body tensed and ready.

There is always a little break in the Friday-evening service, when afternoon prayers are over and evening prayers cannot yet begin. In most synagogues, this time slot is filled by the rabbi giving a short learned discussion on some obscure point in Jewish law, saving, as rabbis do, the major heart banger for the larger gathering on Saturday morning.

Chaim stood up and walked to the podium. The place was packed, he
realized with pleasure. Quite an achievement in a relatively small place like Swallow Lake, when, all over the country, synagogues—and churches—were empty 363 days a year; and Bar and Bat Mitzva kids disappeared faster than free champagne the minute they’d unwrapped their presents and recovered from their hangovers.

Delilah sat tensely at the edge of her seat. Chaim hadn’t discussed his sermon with her.
Please, please,
she thought, her heart clenching,
don’t blow this! Just get this job and I’ll be the best wife, the best rebbitizin, I promise.

“The rabbi and his wife were cleaning house,” Chaim began, with no introduction, “when the rabbi came across a box. ‘What’s in it?’ he asked the rebbitzin. She said, ‘Leave it alone. It’s private.’ Well, what can you do? A rabbi is also a person; he was curious. So one day, when she was out shopping, he ran to find it and opened it.

“Inside were three eggs and two thousand dollars. He waited patiently for her to come home, and then he demanded to know what it meant. ‘Every time you give a bad sermon, I put an egg in the box.’ ”

“ ‘Twenty years, and only three eggs! Not bad! But what about the money?’

“ ‘Every time I get a dozen eggs, I sell them to the poor for a dollar.’ ”

He waited for the laughter to die down before raising his hand. “I hope I don’t get an egg for this one. But before I start, I’d like to tell you another story.

“A young Talmud scholar was invited to become rabbi in a small old community in Chicago. On his very first Sabbath, a violent debate erupted as to whether one should or should not stand during the reading of the Ten Commandments. They asked the new rabbi to decide. ‘What’s your custom here?’ he asked them. But no one could tell him. So the next day, the rabbi visited the synagogue’s oldest member in the nursing home. ‘Mr. Fine, I’m asking you, as one of the oldest members of the community, what is our synagogue’s custom during the reading of the Ten Commandments?’

“ ‘Why do you ask?’ asked Mr. Fine.

“ ‘Yesterday, we read the Ten Commandments. Some people stood, some people sat. The ones standing started screaming at the ones sitting, telling them to stand up. The ones sitting started screaming at the ones
standing
, telling them to sit down. They insulted each other, threw chairs, slammed doors, threatened to leave the synagogue, and called me an idiot—’

“ ‘That,’ said the old man, ‘is our custom.’ ”

Chaim followed his jokes with a short speech that discussed the Torah
portion of the week, combining it with a good-natured attempt to inspire more ethical behavior among neighbors when it came to borrowing and returning things, which everyone found equally amusing and useful and not overly flat-handed or judgmental.

Not everyone was happy. Some thought the speech was too lightweight, while others thought it was too preachy. But that is normal in all congregations.

Watching a new rabbi approach a congregation is like watching an acrobat on the high wire. Not content to just watch him rush across the abyss to safety, we demand that he stop in the middle, open an umbrella, and sit down on a chair that totters this way and that, while down below we judge his skill and daring and entertainment value. Most of us hold our breath wishing for the rabbi’s success, although—admit it—disaster is much more fun to watch, and there is always another rabbi waiting in the wings just in case, ready to take over as soon as the body of the old one is removed.

But there was something so sincere and naive—and pathetic?—about Chaim Levi that even those with the most cynical hearts rooted for him to succeed.

The women were very nice to Delilah. They were gratified and flattered at her absolute unfeigned enthusiasm and delight with everything she had seen in the community. She was a yeshiva graduate. And although she was blond and young and pretty she was also obviously pregnant, wearing one of those “good girl” pregnancy dresses with the high collars and little bows. And a wig. The more they probed, the more they realized she was nothing like their last rebbitzin, and they—and their husbands—need not fear aggressive classes in family purity or campaigns to import the ethos of the stringency kings and their revisionary attitudes toward keeping women in their place. She seemed like a friendly open girl who liked a good manicure and colorist and yet would be willing to play the role of community organizer when asked. She seemed, in short, like a good team player.

The men who interviewed Chaim were satisfied that he knew how to learn Talmud and had a fundamental grasp of religious law. He smiled a lot. But when they asked him about his vision for the congregation, his mind went completely blank. After a long awkward silence, he answered, rather sheepishly, “I think a rabbi should try to serve the congregation’s needs. I think he should listen more than he talks.”

To his surprise, they hired him on the spot.

FIFTEEN

D
elirious with joy, Delilah moved into her new home, leaving urban decay, suspicious glances, and a checkered past behind her. The home she moved into had a lovely living room with a bay window, a formal dining room, and an imposing wood-paneled study for Chaim. It had a huge master bedroom with a working fireplace and three smaller bedrooms. In the backyard, there was a well-kept lawn with some nice shrubs and a picnic table. For days, she wandered around, feeling as if she was an intruder who would soon be caught and evicted. She touched the walls, wiggled her toes in the carpets, drank lemonade in the garden. She was sweet and good-natured to Chaim, preparing good dinners and giving him little hugs and kisses as she rapturously unpacked her belongings and set them up around the house. There was so much room! She slid across the parquet in stocking feet like a ten-year-old blissfully home alone.

She was so happy, she felt grateful to God, her stars, and every other
power over the universe and her personal destiny. This was a new beginning, she told herself, assuaging the waves of regret that sometimes enveloped her. For the first time in her life she began to appreciate her religious instruction. For if there was one thing you learned in yeshiva, it was how to deal with sin and guilt. No matter how awful you were, there was no thread so scarlet that it could not be bleached as white as snow.

Unlike Catholics—who made a group project out of it—Judaism was strictly do-it-yourself in the repentance department. You started by admitting your terrible deeds, regretting them, and making yourself a promise never to do them again. Only when that was done could you hope to approach God and ask Him to wipe the slate clean. Unlike Catholics, however, Jews never got that comforting
Say ten Hail Marys
that ended the matter. Barring a burning bush, you were more or less in a state of perpetual doubt as to whether you’d been forgiven. Which is why the words
Jewish
and
guilt
are so often found in close proximity.

Delilah had been shocked and horrified at the turn of events in the Bronx, particularly her part in what had befallen Reb Abraham. But working on herself, she had learned to live with it. After all, he had had to go sometime. No one lasted forever. And she hadn’t really done anything wrong, it was simply appearances that had been incriminating. Furthermore, if the old man had been as sincere in practicing moral restraint as he had been in preaching it, he would have given her and Benjamin the benefit of the doubt, despite the admittedly unfortunate and weighty circumstantial evidence. And while she certainly wasn’t happy he had taken it all so hard and had wound up giving himself a stroke, she had to admit the timing, in any event, had been perfect. It had proved the magic bullet needed to make the Bronx congregation disappear, and her husband soften up.