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?”
“Do you, when you recite the prayers in Hebrew?”
“To tell the truth, most of the time I use the English side.”
“So that’s an advantage that you have over him. But the question is what are we going to do now?”
Becker shook his head dolefully. “Too bad you had to get sick, Rabbi. If you had been at the meeting yesterday when the discussion came up, you could have explained what the real issue was-”
“I’m not sure I could have, from the way you report it,” said Rabbi Small. “As I gather, the motion was a general one-to give the Cemetery Committee a budget to improve the grounds. In general I think that’s a good idea, so under the circumstances I’d be unlikely to rise and accuse Marvin Brown and your president of ulterior motives.”
“Of course not,” said Wasserman. “It would have been unseemly for the rabbi. It would be like calling Schwarz a liar. And even if he had, and the whole business had come out into the open, what good would it have done? After Schwarz got through explaining, do you doubt that the majority of the Board would have voted with him? Building a road which might affect the grave of an outsider against a building worth a hundred thousand dollars or more?”
“I cannot permit the desecration of the grave of a Jew by fellow Jews,” said the rabbi quietly.
“But what can you do about it, Rabbi?” said Becker. “You’ve got to be reasonable. The road has already been voted, so it’s no longer a simple question of being fair to this guy Hirsh. Now it’s a question of who is to set policy for the congregation, you or the Board.”
“Not quite, Mr. Becker,” said the rabbi. “In this matter, my authority is supreme.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you there, Rabbi.”
“It’s simple enough. Although it is customary to speak of the rabbi as an employee of the congregation, it is a mistake to equate him with other employees. My position here is more like that of the CPA who is engaged to audit the books than that of Stanley Doble who is hired to maintain the building and grounds. I am not a tool of the congregation to be used any way they see fit. I cannot be asked to do something that runs counter to the principles of my profession any more than you can ask a CPA to cover up some discrepancy in the books. The CPA has loyalties to the entire business community that transcend his loyalties to the person who engages him. In the same manner my loyalties cannot be commanded completely. Transcending my loyalties to this congregation are my loyalties to the Jewish tradition, to the Jews of the past, and to Jews as yet unborn. In certain areas, and this is one, my authority is supreme and not subject to question by the congregation.”
“But-”
“A widow comes to me,” the rabbi went on impatiently, “and asks to have her late husband buried in a Jewish cemetery according to Jewish custom. It is for me to determine if he is a Jew, and I decided he was. Again, it is for me, and only for me, to determine if his manner of death warrants burial according to Jewish rites. If there is the suspicion of suicide it is for me, and only for me, to decide how much weight to give the evidence, how much to allow for mitigating circumstances, and then to decide how rigidly to apply the regulations that govern burial of a suicide. These are not congregational matters; these are purely rabbinic.”
“Well, if you put it that way-”
“Now, having made my decision, I referred the widow, or her representative, to the chairman of the Cemetery Committee. Mr. Brown, as the voice of the congregation in this matter, sold the widow a lot in good faith and accepted her money. If the congregation had a regulation limiting the cemetery only to members, and on those grounds had refused to bury Hirsh, I might have considered the regulation harsh or ill-advised but there I would have no authority-only what influence I could bring to bear. But the regulations made special provisions for a case like this. It called for the payment of a fee which conferred nominal membership. And this fee was paid and accepted.”
“No question.”
“Once having made Hirsh a nominal member of the congregation in accordance with the regulations they themselves made up, they then have to treat his burial exactly as they would any other member’s.”
“That’s not only in the bylaws, but it’s in accordance with our tradition,” said Wasserman.
“Now, suppose sometime later evidence is adduced, incontrovertible evidence, that Hirsh had actually committed suicide-and such is not the case-then once again it becomes a decision entirely for me, and me alone, whether his presence compromises the cemetery. And if I were to decide that it did, it would be up to me, and me alone, to decide what measures of purification were necessary. But the Board chooses to follow Mr. Goralsky in this matter. Why? Is his
The rabbi’s voice had risen, and his normally pale face showed the heat of his indignation. He sat back in his chair and smiled, a small, deprecatory smile. “I told Mr. Schwarz and Mr. Brown that I would forbid this desecration of Hirsh’s grave. Of course, in the present congregation-rabbi relationship, my ban has no force behind it. So when Mr. Brown called to say that the committee was going ahead anyway, I did the only thing I could do: I sent in my resignation.”
