“Jonah Geller?” he said.
I got up and extended my hand. “Thanks for coming.”
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I ran into someone outside who absolutely, positively needed to know why I left Adath Israel. It’s no one’s business but in this community, it’s everyone’s.”
He was about five-eight and easily 200 pounds, maybe 220. Early fifties, a mop of curly hair under a skullcap that looked more African than Jewish, brightly coloured and raised up on a circular brim. His eyes were a shade between green and blue.
“You going to eat,” he said, “or just have coffee?”
“I could eat.”
“And I, as you probably guessed, can always eat. I should stay out of places like this but what can I say? There is no better food in the world than deli. A soup, a sandwich, a pickle on the side. This is how man was meant to eat. This man, anyway. And everything’s kosher, by the way, in case you observe.”
He waved the waitress over and she greeted him with a big smile. “Hello, Rabbi. I thought maybe you weren’t coming in today.”
“Did the world end and I missed it? I was just held up outside.”
“You need a menu?”
“Nope. I’m going to start with a matzo ball soup,” he said. Then he looked at me: “You like a good matzo ball soup? Yes? No insult to any of your family members but you won’t find better than here. And if you promise not to tell my daughter,” he said to the waitress, “I’ll have a pastrami on rye and an order of latkes.”
“What size sandwich?”
“Regular.”
“And you, sir?” she asked me.
“Have a sandwich,” the rabbi said. “Don’t make me look bad.”
I told the waitress I’d have the same thing as Rabbi Ed and she said she’d be back in a few minutes.
“If my daughter had her way, I’d be eating poached salmon on mixed greens,” he said. “Granted, I could lose a few pounds, but we all have our vices. Pastrami is mine.”
“There are worse.”
“I know. I heard them all in my years as a rabbi.”
I could see why people would confide in him. He seemed warm, hearty, down to earth. A sizable man with a rumbling baritone.
“So,” he said. “This is terrible news about David Fine. For him to drop out of sight is totally out of character.”
“You hadn’t heard about it till now?”
“Being away from the shul, I’ve been a little out of touch. And that was my main connection to him.”
“When did he join?”
“He started coming maybe four years ago. He would have been in grad school, I guess. Shabbos services at first, and then a few other things, like our communal Friday-night dinners.”
“How well did you know him?”
He looked toward the kitchen, nostrils flaring as if trying to scent out our lunch. The waitress wasn’t in sight. “Adath Israel was a big congregation. Too big in the end, over a thousand families from the two dozen we started with. It’s one of the reasons I left. But we don’t have to get into that. You want to know how often we spoke.”
“Yes.”
“Not much at first. I could see right away he knew his stuff, and enjoyed doing it too. Especially the Torah service. He sang out, which not everyone does. Put his heart into it. You’re smiling. Why are you smiling?”
“Because everyone describes him as shy, introverted. I’m having a hard time picturing him singing.”
“Then picture it this way. A bright young man, very gifted, with tremendous responsibilities. Entirely self-imposed, you understand, but still very real. And once a week he can come and envelop himself in his tallis and close his eyes and sing melodies he has known since childhood.”
“You’re making me want to come.”
“So you’ll come to my new shul.”
“Where is that?”
“At this point, it’s more a question of when. I’m hoping to start something new, a little different, a little more intimate. There’s a place I have my eye on. But some things still have to come together. Another story for another time.”
“Did he ever come to you for guidance?”
“If he did, could I tell you? If David is in trouble, I would want to do everything I could to help him. But there is also the matter of confidentiality.”
“Trust me, Rabbi, he is in trouble.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“I’m convinced.”
“Is that the same as knowing?”
“It is for me.”
“Are you by any chance a student of Kabbalah?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay. Are you familiar with Donald Rumsfeld?”
“The former secretary of defence?”
“Yes. I’m not sure how closely you Canadians followed the Iraqi war but he gave a rather famous speech in which he distinguished the things we know from the things we don’t know … you remember that?”
“Yes. The known unknowns, the unknown unknowns.”
“Exactly. Like Mr. Rumsfeld-and I am sure this is where the similarities end-Kabbalah teaches that there are many layers of understanding. Many layers of knowing. You may know in your heart that something has happened to David, but in my heart, I have to ask myself: What if I told you something that David wanted me to keep confidential, and then he turned up suddenly. Would I not have done him a tremendous disservice?”
“Can you at least tell me if there was something he confided?”
“Over the years, certainly.”
“What about more recently? Did you see him in the days or weeks before he disappeared?”
“When was that exactly?”
“Last day of February.”
“Let me think about that. I’m not always so good with dates. Ah, here comes the soup. Don’t tell your mother you liked this better.” He added salt and pepper to his without tasting it, filled his spoon, blew on it hard enough to send some of it back into the bowl and slurped it loudly. Beads of it glistened on his beard. When he spooned in half a matzo ball, I decided to wait until he had finished the soup before I asked any more questions.
The waitress came and cleared our soup bowls and said she’d be right back with our sandwiches.
“So,” he said. “Did I lie?”
“About the soup? No,” I said. “So can you think of the last time you spoke to David?”
He looked up at a ceiling tile. “The last time … at least a month ago.”
“After you left Adath Israel.”
“Now that you mention it.”
“Was it at your home?”
“It must have been. Yes, at home. In my study.”
“It must have been important then.”
“Why?”
“For him to come to your house.”
“A lot of people come to my house, Jonah. They come for dinner, to play guitar and sing, to welcome Shabbos, to say goodbye to Shabbos, to be with me and my daughter-who isn’t married, by the way. In fact, I thought for a time maybe she and David … but I guess there wasn’t a spark there. Maybe he just wasn’t ready.”
Was he long-winded or avoiding answering the simplest of questions?
“Did he seem different? Upset about something?”
“We’re veering back into ethical problems.”
“Please, Rabbi. His parents are going through such hell.” Might as well throw a little guilt on the fire. Always works on me.
“As his rabbi, I-”
“But you’re not his rabbi anymore. And you weren’t when you last saw him.”
“I may not have been the head of his congregation, but I was still his rabbi.”
“You won’t help me?”
He sighed. “I’ll tell you what. Come to dinner tonight. We always make room at our table, especially Friday night. In the meantime, I’ll think it over. See if I can help you without doing David any disservice. You know Bartlett Crescent?”
“Is it in Brookline?”
“Yes. Not far from here.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Good. And if you want to have a glass of wine or two, leave your car and come on the T. We’re just up from the Washington Square stop.”