Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry

Negroes hid him, of course-one place to another, I don’t suppose he even knew why. Then when he finally returned to his hotel, the Birmingham police did pick him up and called to ask if they should hold him and we told them no, to let him go. After all, we had our man by that time.

“Well, I don’t suppose it makes any difference really. But it just shows how much luck counts in solving a case. We had bad luck all the way, and then when we finally hit on the right solution it was still a matter of luck. I mean, Sykes happening to stop and offer you a lift so you were able to see that lube sticker-that was a tremendous stroke of luck.”

“Well, we believe in luck, you know.”

“I suppose everyone does to some degree.”

“No, I mean we believe in a way you Christians don’t. Your various doctrines-that God observes the fall of every sparrow, that you can change your misfortune by prayer-it all implies that when someone has bad luck he deserves it. But we believe in luck. That is, we believe it is possible for the truly good man to be unlucky, and vice versa. That’s one of the lessons we are taught by the Book of Job.

“Still, I’m not so sure it was all luck. The whole case was permeated with the feeling of our holy day. Subconsciously, I imagine, I thought a great deal about the relations between Hirsh and Sykes, and why Sykes would want to cover up for him. And that’s why the explanation occurred to me so readily when I saw the date on the lube sticker. You see, the whole pattern of the crime was laid out before me in our Yom Kippur service.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, part of that service deals with the ceremony of the selection and sacrifice of the scapegoat by the High Priest in ancient Israel. It was even the subject of my sermon. In it I referred to the sacrifice of Abraham, which is the portion of the Scroll read on the day of the New Year, the beginning of the Ten Days of Awe which culminates in Yom Kippur. And that was the whole point of the situation there at the Goddard Lab. In spite of his disassociation from the Jewish community, Hirsh nevertheless played what in the past too often has been the traditional role of the Jew.”

“You mean-”

“I mean he was the scapegoat. His very name should have suggested it to me.”

Lanigan was puzzled. “Hirsh?”

The rabbi smiled sadly. “No, Isaac.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Rabbi Small paced back and forth in the living room. He was practicing the delivery of his Chanukah sermon, and now and again he would glance at his audience-his infant son, firmly wedged into a corner of the divan. Once he interrupted his discourse to call to Miriam in the kitchen, “You know, dear, he follows me. He’s actually focusing on me.”

“Of course, he’s been doing it for days.”

“ ‘… so we must consider the miracle of the lights not only as an example of the intervention of the Divine power-’ ”

The infant began to pout.

“You don’t like that? I don’t care for it too much myself. Suppose I say, ‘We are too much inclined to respond to the miraculous-’ ”

A whimper.

“How about, ‘The real miracle of Chanukah is not the burning of the cruse of oil for eight days rather than for the expected one; it is that a tiny nation could challenge the power of mighty Greece -’ ”

A cry.

“No?”

The infant took breath and then, his face red and contorted, emitted another wail at full volume.

“That bad, eh?”

Miriam appeared in the doorway. “He’s hungry. I’d better feed him.”

“Perhaps you’d better,” said the rabbi. “I’ll try it on him again after he’s eaten. Maybe he’ll be more receptive on a full stomach.”

“You’ll do no such thing. After he’s fed, he’s going to bed. Aren’t you, Jonathan?” She nuzzled him, and the cries died down to an uncertain whimper and then stopped. “Besides, I think you’ve got a visitor.”

It was Moses Goralsky. Through the window, the rabbi saw the old man being helped out of the car by the chauffeur but then refuse further assistance with a shake of the head. Clinging to the handrailing he mounted the steps to the door.

“Come in, Mr. Goralsky. This is a pleasant surprise.”

“I have a question, a sheileh. To whom should I come if not to the rabbi?”

He helped the old man off with his coat and showed him into his study. “I’ll do the best I can, Mr. Goralsky.”

“You know, when my Ben was in trouble I came to the temple to pray.”

“I remember.”

“So you know when I recite the prayers, they’re in Hebrew. I can say the Hebrew, but what I’m saying, this I don’t know, because when did I have a chance to learn? We were a poor family. My father-he worked plenty hard in the old country just to feed us. So after I learned the prayers, he took me out of the cheder, you know, the school, and already I was helping him in his work. That’s how it was with most people those days.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So because I don’t understand what the words mean, that means I’m not praying? I have thoughts in my head, while my lips are moving, and by me this is praying. Am I right or wrong, Rabbi?”

“I suppose it depends on what the thoughts are.”

“Ah-hah. Now that Saturday, what would my thoughts be? They would be about Ben. I asked God He should help him. He should make the police they should find out the truth so they should let my Ben go.”

“I would say that was praying, Mr. Goralsky.”

“So while I was praying, I made a promise. If my Ben goes free, I thought, then I would do something.”

“You don’t have to bribe God, and you don’t have to make bargains with Him.”

“Not a bribe. Not even a bargain. I made with myself a promise-a-a vow.”

“All right.”

“Now here’s my question, Rabbi. Do I have to keep my promise?”

The rabbi did not smile. Hands in his pockets, he strode up and down the room, his forehead creased in thought. Finally he turned and faced the old man. “It depends on what the promise was. If it was something impossible, then obviously you’re not bound. If it was something wrong or illegal, again you’re not bound. In any case, where you made the promise to yourself it’s up to you to decide how committed you are.”

“Let me tell you, Rabbi. Months ago, I was talking to Morton Schwarz, the president of the temple, and I said I wanted a remembrance for my Hannah, which she had died a few months before that. After all, I’m a rich man now, and my son is rich. And my Hannah was with me all the time we were poor. Even when I got rich, she couldn’t enjoy it because already she was sick, in bed most of the time, on a diet so she couldn’t even eat good. So this Morton Schwarz he asks me what I had in mind. The temple could use an air-condition system, maybe a new organ.” The old man shrugged his shoulders. “I’m going to make an air-condition system in remembrance of my wife? Where will her name be? On the pipes? And an organ is better? I had to fight with myself a long time before I went to your temple because there was an organ there. So should I give the temple an organ in my wife’s memory? So I said, ‘Mr. Schwarz, I don’t want a piece of machinery, and I don’t want any organs. I had it in mind something like a building.’ Nu, that’s all I had to say, and that’s all he had to hear. He tells me he had it in mind to build like an addition to the temple, a special sanctuary which it would be used only for praying, not for meetings or regular business. I told him I was interested.”

“Did he tell you how much it was likely to cost?”

“The cost I didn’t care. The money, I can take it with me? Or I got to provide for Ben? Schwarz says more