Edie had married Chester while he was still a student at law school, and for several years they had lived with her folks. It was not uncongenial, but her husband chafed at the necessity, after passing the bar, some of his friends had taken jobs with the city as assistant district attorneys, with insurance companies, with large law firms. Instead, Chester had elected to go into private practice, but clients were not forthcoming.
Edie had faith in him, however, and so did his father-in-law, who would say, "Don't worry, Chester. Have faith in God, and everything will be all right."
"You mean He'll send me clients?" Kaplan gibed.
"I'm sure ambulances He won't chase for you, Chester," his father-in-law said, "and crimes He won't arrange so you can defend the criminals. But if you pray, you'll be satisfied. When I was a young man, I wanted to be a rabbi and I studied for it, but one thing or another prevented. But I didn't lose faith so I got what I really wanted."
"But you became a sexton, not a rabbi."
"True. But what did I really want? At first, I wanted to be a rabbi because of the honor. Later, when I was older and more mature, I wanted to be a rabbi because I thought I would like the life; to study, to advise and influence people in the right way, to teach. So this is just exactly what I do now. I have time to study, I teach a group of men Talmud and most of the time I'm the voice of the congregation when I lead the prayers in the daily services, and I’ve outlasted three rabbis at the synagogue. Every one of them was so busy with meetings and committees and preparing little speeches that he never had time for study or even to always come to the daily minyan. In the old country, of course, it was different— different for the rabbi and different for the sexton. But we are not in the old country, we are here, and here I am doing what I really wanted to do."
"So why doesn't it happen to me? I go with you to the minyan every morning and every evening and—"
"But one must pray," his father-in-law said.
"So what do I do? Read the newspapers?" Chester asked.
"Like most people, you say the words. It must be in your mind."
In the course of time, things began to improve for Edie's husband. Clients came, in part from contacts he had made in the synagogue, and Edie and Chester were finally able to move into their own apartment. Secretly, he was convinced that it was his faith that was responsible for his success, he did not publicize it, however, because faith was out of fashion, and his contemporaries would have regarded him as odd, as it was, they tended to explain his regular attendance at the synagogue as a mild eccentricity, or as something he did to please his father-in-law or even because it was a good way of getting clients.
When Leah was born, they decided that a city apartment was no place to bring up children and moved to Barnard's Crossing. Chester became a member of an Orthodox synagogue in nearby Lynn and attended the daily minyan regularly, the Sabbath, however, presented something of a problem, the synagogue was a good five miles from his house, too far to walk, and riding was taboo, he discussed the problem with Edie. "I could go to a hotel Friday afternoon and—"
She shook her head. "Then you'd miss the Sabbath meal at home, according to my father, that's more important than going to shul. You have to use common sense. Like once, the electricity went off in the synagogue just before the Friday evening services. For some reason the janitor wasn't around. My father knew what to do. It was a fuse that had blown. But to change it meant working on the Sabbath, he thought of going into the street in the hope of seeing a passing Gentile and asking him to fix it, but then he worried that something might happen, he's always been a little afraid of electricity. On the other hand, what would happen when the people arrived and found the synagogue in darkness? So even though it was work and forbidden on the Sabbath, he changed the fuse himself."
"But I can't just ride up to the synagogue on Saturday." "So park a block away and walk from there," Edie advised.
When Jacob Wasserman started an organization for building a temple in Barnard's Crossing, Chester Kaplan joined as a matter of course, but manifested little interest since it was going to be a Conservative synagogue. However, when their daughter Leah was old enough to attend the religious school, he decided to send her to the one attached to the Barnard's Crossing temple rather than make elaborate arrangements to drive her to the school connected with the Lynn synagogue, as a result, he became more involved with the local temple and correspondingly less with the synagogue in Lynn. While there were things that he missed, there were also compensations, as a highly observant and religiously knowledgeable Jew. Chester belonged to a small elite group in the local temple while in the Lynn synagogue he was only one of many, as a result, he was accorded a special respect.
Shortly after Leah was divorced, her father began the Wednesday At Homes and the retreats in New Hampshire. Edie was not enthusiastic about either, but she did not push her views, vaguely sensing that Chester's new interest had something to do with the divorce, that it was a reaction to the bad luck that had been visited on their daughter, a special religious exercise for having fallen from grace.
Edie was pleased when her husband was elected president of the temple, but only mildly, having grown up in a household where the president of the synagogue was frequently viewed as the enemy or, at the very least, the opposition. When he began to develop plans for a permanent retreat, she showed little interest.
"But how about the effect on the members of the congregation?" Chester said. "It will give them a chance to work at their religion, to make it more meaningful."
"Funny, I never thought of it as work," Edie replied. "There are rules, and everything is spelled out. You always know what to do. So where's the work?"
When she learned that the rabbi was opposed to the retreat. Edie was disturbed, but her husband was so enthusiastic about the project that she did not argue with him. However, when after the meeting she heard him on the phone explaining to Safferstein that there was nothing to worry about, that the rabbi was the only opposition and that he had no doubt that the move to reconsider would be defeated, she could not remain silent.
"It's not good, Chet," she said. "My father had dealings with lots of rabbis over the years. Some he liked and some he didn't like so much, with some he discussed and with some he argued, because he was a learned man and he knew the Talmud as well as any of them did. But when he asked a rabbi a point of law, he accepted his decision. You don't fight with a rabbi, Chet. When you call him in on a decision, you accept his judgment."
"But I didn't call him in on this, he's forcing himself into the issue."
"Same thing, Chet. If you ask him, you accept what he says, and if he feels that it's a matter that pertains to him, you also have to accept his decision. No good will come from this, Chet, believe me."
CHAPTER FORTY
Except for his brief visits to the hospital to see his father, Akiva spent every free minute with Leah. Not only would he drop by at night after closing, but on those mornings when it was McLane's turn to open, he would run over after breakfast to have coffee with her. Occasionally, when his hours at the store permitted, he would pick her up and drive into Boston for lunch at a kosher restaurant, he never phoned in advance but merely arrived at her house, he always assumed she would be there and would want to see him.
"Why don't you phone first?" she asked plaintively. "Suppose somebody is visiting me?"