“Was the injunction against meat one of the instructions you received? That’s not quite the same as the dietary laws in the Pentateuch.”
“Well, it is and it ain’t. Rabbi. He expects you to use your intelligence.” He snapped the edging of the window in place and screwed it down. “Now it says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ And it also says that you can’t eat part of a live animal. So that would seem to exclude the eating of flesh. Now I know it also says the kinds of animals you can eat—those with a cloven hoof and that chew the cud, but I figure that’s for the mass of people who haven’t got the strength of their own convictions. It’s a kind of sop—for those who still hankered after the fleshpots of Egypt. Couldn’t get it out of their systems, you might say. So He allowed them to eat certain kinds of animals. But you can see He’d like it better if they didn’t eat any.”
“I see.”
“There was another time when I was really sort of perplexed, and I got a message from Him. That was the time my oldest boy—”
The rabbi asked how many children Mr. Carter had.
“I got five, three boys and two girls. Moses, he’s my oldest. Maybe you heard of him. Moose Carter? They call him Moose, he’s so big. He was quite a football player at the high school last year and year before. Last year they came that close to winning the state championship. My boy’s picture was in the papers a lot. There was sixty-seven colleges. Rabbi, sixty-seven that was interested in having my boy go there.”
The rabbi showed he was impressed. “Was he also a good student?”
“No. just a good football player. They sent people down to see him, some of them did. Coaches or scouts. And they offered all kinds of things. Why, one offered girls.”
“Girls?”
“That’s right. He said that they had a lot of co-eds that were pretty and rich and just aching to marry a great big handsome football hero. Then he says, and he winks, ‘Or you don’t have to marry them.’ ordered him from the house. I didn’t want my boy to go to any college and certainly not that one. I wanted him to get a job and go to work. But he finally did take one of those offers—a college in Alabama. I was all for putting my foot down and forbidding him, but his mother was mighty set on his going.”
“And how did it work out?”
The carpenter shook his head dolefully. “He was there till Christmas, till after the football season, then they dropped him. He had hurt his knee, so he wasn’t any use to them anymore, and besides, he was doing poor in his studies. So he came home. He’s been home three months now and hasn’t done a decent week’s work. He works a couple of nights a week in a bowling alley in Lynn, and every now and then he gets an odd job to do, and that gives him a little spending money. I guess my wife gives him a few dollars now and then. She favors him—him being the oldest.” He shook his head. “I’ve suggested to him that he come in with me and learn my trade, but he tells me there’s no money in it, that all the money these days is in wheeling and dealing. Wants to be a promoter. I tell you. Rabbi, the college ruined that boy. If it weren’t for my wife. I’d order him from the house.”
He straightened up and looked about the room. “That’s about all I have here. Rabbi. It took a little longer than I anticipated. I won’t be able to finish today, but don’t you worry. When I undertake a job. I finish it.”
“It’s just as well.” said Rabbi Small, watching him carefully replace the tools in his kit. “I’m expecting a group of young people to be dropping over a little later in the afternoon.”
“I’ll come by tomorrow or Tuesday, depending how my work goes.”
“Fine. Mr. Carter. Whenever you have the time.”
Chapter Sixteen
“So then he says. ‘I’m going to pass out copies of the new committees. I’ll ask you to take these sheets home with you so that you can study them at your leisure, and then at the next meeting three weeks hence we can vote intelligently on confirmation.” Malcolm Marks had been unconsciously mimicking the president. Now he resumed his normal tone. “And he passes out these mimeographed sheets, and I’m watching Meyer Paff. He’s got his on the table in front of him, and he’s reading the lists, sliding his finger on the page down the list and kind of making noises in his throat like he’s pronouncing the names. And then he gets to Roger Epstein’s name as chairman of the Ritual Committee, and I thought he was going to have a heart attack.”
“But why should he be so upset?” asked his wife. “He must have known that Ben Gorfinkle wasn’t going to reappoint him.”
Marks made no attempt to hide his impatience. “Of course not. But Roger Epstein, for God’s sake!”
The telephone rang. “I’ll take it.” called their daughter Betty from another room. And a moment later. “It’s for me.”
“Well, what’s wrong with Roger Epstein?”
“With Roger Epstein as a person, maybe nothing. In fact, he’s a very idealistic type who carries the whole world on his shoulders. But this is the Ritual Committee. You take the Building Fund Committee or the Membership Committee or even the High Holy Day Seating Committee, which all are important committees. Okay, Roger’s fine and dandy. But strictly speaking, for the Ritual you should have not only a real pious type, I mean one who don’t work on Saturdays and eats strictly kosher, but somebody who knows all about the rules of ritual. He’s got to be practically a rabbi, strictly speaking. All right, we don’t have too many like that. Maybe Jake Wasserman, but offhand I can’t think of anybody else to speak of.”
“So if nobody can do it, what’s wrong with Roger Epstein?”
“Well, it’s not exactly that nobody can do it. The point I’m making is that if you haven’t got the type person who should be chairman of Ritual, you got to at least get somebody who, on the surface at least, seems okay. Now,
Meyer Paff, maybe he doesn’t know so much, but he keeps a kosher house—”
“Pooh! That’s only because his mother-in-law lives with them, and she wouldn’t eat there if they didn’t have two sets of dishes. He couldn’t let her starve to death, could he?”
“That’s what I’m saying. It don’t matter if he really believes in it, so long as he does it. That’s what I mean by on the surface.”
“All right. So what happened?” his wife asked. “What do you mean?”
“When Paff saw that Roger Epstein was made chairman of the Ritual Committee. What happened already? What did he do? What did he say?”
“Nothing!” said her husband triumphantly.
She looked at him in amazement. “So what’s the big shpiel? What’s the excitement?”
“Don’t you see? Paff has been the big wheel in the temple ever since it was built. He’s never been president, but he’s always been a power behind the throne. So Friday night Ted Brennerman gives him a ribbing right out in public. And don’t tell me that Gorfinkle didn’t know what Ted was planning. And from what I hear—we were down in the vestry at the time, so we missed it—Paff catches Ted up in the sanctuary, and he really lays him out in lavender. That’s round one.” He rotated a hand. “Mezzo, mezzo. Call it a draw; Paff gave it to Ted a lot harder than Ted gave it to him, but on the other hand, only a few people heard Paff, and everybody heard Ted. Yeah, I guess you could call it a draw.
“All right, round two. Gorfinkle doesn’t let it lay; he comes out fighting. He says like, ‘Make your play, Paff. Go for your gun. I’m not afraid of you. And I’m proving it by appointing my friend Roger Epstein to be chairman of Ritual, which not only you used to be chairman of and which, moreover, is a very special job that I wouldn’t normally appoint Epstein to on account of his background, but I’m doing it right now, the first chance I got after Friday, just to show you who’s boss. So put up or shut up.’”