“All right, Marvin.”
“Well, it’s like this. I’m damn sick and tired of trying to sell what can’t be sold. It’s a thankless job. Now I’m a salesman by profession and a salesman depends on his confidence. And this assignment of the Cemetery Committee-I tell you, fellows, I’m losing my confidence. It seems to me that most of you don’t have the slightest idea of how important the cemetery is to the congregation. Most of you take the attitude that it’s some kind of joke. Oh, I don’t mind you whistling a funeral march when I get up to give my report. I can take a joke as well as the next guy, but what bothers me is that you’re not serious about the thing itself. All these wisecracks about my getting you coming and going, insurance while you’re living, and a plot in the cemetery when you’re not-that’s well and good; but sometime we’ve got to look at this realistically, and as far as I’m concerned the sometime is now.”
“So what do you want, Marve?”
“I want you to think about what this cemetery can mean for a progressive organization like ours. This community is growing. Someday, and it’s not far off, there’s going to be another temple in Barnard’s Crossing, maybe a couple of them. And their membership won’t be made up entirely of newcomers to the area. Maybe one of the temples will be Reform and I’ll bet there’ll be a lot of our members who will feel like switching. But if they own a family plot with us, or if a member of their family is buried there-a husband, a wife, a father, a child- wouldn’t that make them think twice before they leave us? And then think of the money. A cemetery can be a gold mine. We charge about four times what the town charges for a lot in the public cemetery. In ten or fifteen years, it could cut our dues, or if it’s operated right enable us to expand.
“Now, what are the problems I’m faced with? First off, most of our members are young people. They haven’t even started to think about maybe God forbid they’ll need a plot someday. And let’s face it, when you ask someone to plank down a hundred and fifty-odd bucks for a lot which he doesn’t think he’s going to need-and I for one hope he doesn’t-it’s a lot of dough. What’s more, a lot of our members work for some of the big corporations and they don’t know when they might be transferred to another city. So are they going to come back here to be buried? Well, I got some ideas on the subject. I think we ought to sell lots on the installment plan. I’d like to see members pay as little as ten bucks a year, which could be billed with their membership dues. And I’m in favor of having a clause in the contract to the effect that they can sell the lot back to us anytime they want without losing money. In that way, if they’re transferred, they can always get their money back. I’m even toying with the idea of maybe selling lots like a kind of insurance policy, where if the member dies before he has paid in full the widow doesn’t have to pay any more.”
“Is this the motion you’re making, Marve?”
“No, that isn’t my motion. I just mentioned all this to show that your committee is thinking about their job all the time. I’ve had prospects make the kind of objections I’ve mentioned. But,” and here he looked around to make sure he had their attention, “the biggest argument my prospects give me is, ‘See me when you get a cemetery. All you’ve got now is an abandoned hayfield.’ And that’s the truth. That’s all we’ve got there right now. A hayfield with a saggy wire fence running along the main road and a tumbled-down stone fence running along one side. We don’t have a chapel. We don’t have flowers and shrubbery to make the place look halfway decent. We don’t have the place properly fenced off. We don’t have a road to give us full access to the cemetery, the back plots especially. That’s the main trouble right now.”
“We’re planning all those things, but wasn’t it decided we would make all the improvements out of income?”
“Sure, but you’ve got to spend a little money to make some money. Remember, it’s the packaging that sells the product.”
“Well, you’ve got a budget of two thousand dollars.”
“Yeah, and how far will that take you? Just keeping the grass cut and paying for a part-time caretaker eats that up.”
“So what do you want, twenty-five thousand dollars for a regular Forest Lawn so you can sell a couple of lots for a hundred and fifty bucks?”
“I don’t think that’s fair to Marve,” said Schwarz.
“I’ll tell you what I want: I want enough money to build a decent road. Then I can sell lots in any part of the cemetery, not just near the corner where there’s a hole in the fence. To take care of that we’ve worked out a scheme that’s both practical and economical. What we’re planning is a circular road. That will give us access to all parts of the cemetery. What I want is for our budget to be increased to at least five thousand dollars so we can go ahead. We could lay out the whole road and get bids on what it would cost to pave it. Then if the low bid goes above the five grand, and I don’t think it will, I’d expect the Board to pick up the tab. And that’s my motion.”
The secretary looked up from hastily scribbled notes. “A motion was made-did anybody second it?”
“Second the motion.”
“Sure, I’ll second it.”
“All right. A motion was made and seconded that the Cemetery Committee budget be increased to five thousand dollars for the purpose of building a road-”
“Make that a circular road.”
“All right-a circular road within the boundaries of the cemetery, any excess monies that are necessary to be…”
Morton Schwarz sought out Marvin Brown after the meeting. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Marve, you certainly put that over. I thought you were all set to hand in your resignation.”
Marve grinned. “It’s just a selling job as I see it.”
“Well, you certainly got the technique. And you sure worked in our theme song.” He chuckled. “I’d like to see the rabbi buck this setup.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As the founder and first president of the congregation, Jacob Wasserman was considered the elder statesman of the temple. In his sixties, he was quite a bit older than most of the members. He had worked almost single-handed to get the organization started, spending his evenings going to see each of the fifty or so Jewish families that comprised the Jewish community in Barnard’s Crossing shortly after the end of World War II. The first High Holy Day services had been held in the basement of his house with a Torah Scroll borrowed from one of the Lynn synagogues, and he had led the prayers and chanted the portions from the Torah.
Al Becker, who succeeded him as president, accompanied him on his visit to the rabbi. Becker was a short, stocky man with a deep gravelly voice and a belligerent way of using it. Although he had none of Wasserman’s learning, to say nothing of his understanding of Jewish tradition, he followed him faithfully and usually voted with him on most Board matters.
“It’s lucky Becker and I decided to drop in on you, Rabbi, to see how you were getting along,” said Wasserman. “I knew old man Goralsky was an ignoramus, but that his son, a boy born and brought up in America, should be such a superstitious idiot, too-this I wouldn’t have believed.”
“Just a minute, Jacob,” said Becker. “Right is right. How can you say the old man is an ignoramus? A man like that with a beard-he says the prayers faster than anyone in the congregation and most of the time he doesn’t even bother to look at the book.”
“Please, Becker, stick to things you know about. Goralsky may pray faster than anybody in the congregation and he knows the prayers by heart. Why not? He’s been saying them every day morning and night for almost eighty years. But he doesn’t know the meaning of them.”
“You mean he doesn’t understand what he’s saying?”