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The Rabbi in the Attic
And Other Stories
By Eileen Pollack DELPHINIUM BOOKS
Copyright © 1991 Eileen Pollack
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4532-5579-7
CHAPTER 1
The rabbi wouldn't move out. The house he wouldn't leave was for the use only of the spiritual leader of Emess Yisroel, which he was no longer. But how could we ask the burly police to break in with axes, to browbeat and handcuff a tiny old man, to cart off our rabbi to a black paddy wagon under the gaze of the town's gentle Christians?
Crushed in dilemma, our synagogue's leaders couldn't help but think what a delight the coming Holidays would be if only the rabbi had retained all his marbles. Such a throat—made of gold! And the cords in that throat—as sweet as the strings of King David's harp. His voice carried forward all for which we Jews were most nostalgic. To hear it, our hearts leapt. This was a voice that usually would bless only the wealthiest Reform congregations, not Jews in the Borscht Belt who kept alive serving the few old-age resorts that hadn't yet died.
And, at first, Rabbi Heckler had seemed sane, though intense. He scuttled through the synagogue and the streets of our town with his bloodshot eyes blinking, a fossil crustacean whose invisible feelers were taking in details, which he wrote in a book, licking the pen. Everyone assumed he was getting acquainted, keeping straight the names of important people. His sermons were harsh, but the tottering deaf men and chattering widows who made up attendance on most Sabbaths didn't hear what he said. Even when he addressed the younger members at the bar mitsve of Natty Cook's eldest, his voice was so soothing, so resonant, so moving—especially after the boytshik screeching of Natty Cook's eldest—that few of us realized he had issued a warning that if we kept sinning, he would "whip us in shipshape."
He began with the children. In their after-school classes he drilled them in prayers, grammar, laws, these children who had only been asked until then to color with crayons or gamble with dreydels. Now, he clicked in his black shoes up and down the aisles. Holding a pen cocked in his hand, he would stop by a desk. "Okay, you will please to recite the Alenu. No looking, no stopping, and please, no mistaking."
The unlucky student gripped the sides of his desk and tried to remember even the first word of the Alenu. Though this was "alenu," the student couldn't think with the rabbi's black shoe rat-tat-tatting the floor.
"So? You have finished?"
When the student said nothing, the pen thwacked his head so loudly that his classmates jerked in their seats. Then the rabbi stepped forward to stand by the next chair.
"Rabbi, I'm sorry, I didn't have the time. My basketball team—"
"So! Time for bouncing, but not for study? How! Are we Greeks? You memorize—or else!"
All of them wriggled, anxious to escape, but the rabbi pulled out his notebook and barked: "Schwartz, tell your father he must come to shul on shabbes, he does this—or else!" And: "Rosen, your mother buys treyf meat from A & P when Rachlis, who is kosher, is next door. Tell her she must buy kosher—or else!"
This went on until the children lived in such terror of "Rabbi Or Else," his drills and his pen, his recruitment of spies, that they pleaded with their parents to let them stay home, feigned stomachache or headache, and if this failed, played hooky.
He turned next on their mothers. Interrupting a session of the Board of Trustees, he told the twelve men: "I must speak of your wives."
The Board heard his shoes click on the floor as he circled their backs.
"Our wives?" The men twisted, trying to see.
"Too visible," he said.
"I don't understand," said Herman Zlotkin, the Board's longtime Treasurer and the largest man on it, though smaller than his wife, a woman who was prone to wearing bright colors. "Too visible, Rabbi? You don't mean to say—"
"Hidden. They must not be seen."
"Are you insinuating we must lock up our wives?"
"No, no, not locking. A balcony will do. With a tall screen around."
"A balcony? Tall screen? It isn't enough the women sit apart, they must also be hidden? Even if we thought our wives were so beautiful that they might distract us, are you suggesting we completely rebuild the sanctuary, spend thousands of dollars, money we don't have …" Zlotkin waved his enormous ledger, then started to push himself up from his chair.
The rabbi, half his size, put a hand on his shoulder and kept him from rising. "Rebuilding is ideal, but no one will say I am not reasonable person. For cheaper money, we build a wall down the aisle between us."
The meeting, which had been intended to last only a short time so the Trustees could finalize plans for a Monte Carlo fundraiser, kept the men from their wives until early that morning. The rabbi kept circling, didn't weaken or sweat, shot Scripture at their backs while they drew together like settlers in a wagon train with no ammunition. They suffered besiegement until they were able to convince Rabbi Heckler that his motion be tabled to give them a chance to look into the cost of partitions and walls.
At this he decided that the Trustees were worthless. He must try his own method: He would harry the few old ladies who still worshipped at the synagogue in the hope they would eventually stay home altogether. In the midst of a service he would say from the pulpit: "Mrs. So-and-so, quiet, no gossip or leave." And Mrs. So-and-so left, as fast as she could on legs that were feathers. Even Miss Abel, who prepared the kiddush that followed the service, was reprimanded for rattling her trays in the next room while prayers were in progress.
At the beginning, since the rabbi lived alone, his wife having passed on from lumps in the breast, the women took pity and asked him to supper. Miss Abel, who had waited fifty years for a man of rigorous principle—iron in his bones, a Jewish crusader—to come to her town, invited the rabbi to dinner in her tiny apartment, then spent the weekend soaking a brisket in brine and squinting at labels in frozen-food cases in search of "(U)s" and "Pareve's" that would have been too small for eyes that were younger and aided by much cleaner spectacles. When she finally set the table, the linen was new, the silver just-boiled and the sweet wine and soda sealed with the approval of convocations of rabbis.
Promptly at seven Rabbi Heckler buzzed and entered, bypassed the table without even glancing, made straight for the kitchen and cited infractions she never had heard of—the wrong brand marshmallow, wrong washing arrangement. He nibbled a few grapes, swallowed a mouthful of raspberry soda, then excused himself early, at which Miss Abel declared to her empty apartment: "Let him eat his so-very-kosher meals alone!"
Even at weddings he often would not eat. Many times he refused even to perform the service. He would tie up an engagement in such knots of Talmudic objection that no one was able to untangle his logic. Not only wouldn't he marry a couple if each child and parent were not one-hundred-percent Jewish by his specifications, he would visit those couples united by previous rabbis or judges and harangue and harass them until they were crying.
One afternoon he confronted the McCoys (Adèle née Rabinowitz and Frank Patrick Randall) in front of Woolworth's and accused them of completing the project that had been started by Hitler.
"And this? What is this?" He grabbed Frank Junior's arm. "Is fowl? Is fish? Is circumcised? Is not?"
While Frank Junior wailed and tried to get free, Adele's mother, Eva, happened by in her car. She parked, gaped, got out, and grew so incensed that although she had not spoken to her mix-marriaged daughter in five years, she reconciled herself to a situation that seemed less sinful the longer the rabbi ranted. By the end of his tirade Eva was shouting: "Frank McCoy is a good and kind man who cares for my daughter. He does not scream on Main Street or make innocent boys cry. And if you, Rabbi Heckler, continue to represent the Jewish religion in my town, I just might convert to Catholicism." At which Eva embraced her son-in-law Frank with a passion that made all three McCoys gasp.
A separatist rabbi: No mixing! No goyim! He shamed us in front of our liberal neighbors—a Jew had to look down in front of liberals! He would not even take part in the yearly meeting of the town's clergy, a discussion of projects of mutual concern, merely because he wouldn't enter a church—as if a Unitarian Social Hall could be mistaken for a church!
Our embarrassment mounted as he began to wage holy war on us men. If an office or store remained open on the Sabbath, he would burst through the door, disregard patrons, lecture and threaten. So incensed was he when he discovered that Isidore Pipchuck, the town chiropractor and synagogue shammes, the man who on weekdays manipulated the affairs of the congregation with such dexterity that the very building might have crumbled without his efforts to hold it together, on Saturday afternoons, not more than an hour after the service, this same Izzy Pipchuck was back in his office manipulating the strained muscles of patients, writing bills for them, handling their money.
The rabbi steamed across Pipchuck's waiting room with such speed that three Reader's Digests were sucked in his wake. From the threshold of Pipchuck's inner office the rabbi issued this ultimatum, right across the shirtless back of a patient: "You must abide by the shabbes rule of no labor—or else you must step down as shammes."
"These hands heal suffering!" hissed Pipchuck, a man made of wires with a fine skin stretched over them, his entire being an organ of such refined sensitivity to slight that he registered every mis-said word as an insult to his name, faith, profession. This triggered revenge, whether real or imagined. He would grab in his hands the flesh of the slighter and pull it and twist it until he heard moaning: "Thank you, oh, thanks Doc, I owe you my life."
Pipchuck faced the rabbi. "This man was in pain! Could God object to the art of healing? And who else would perform the duties of the shammes for no pay? Just try to manage without Izzy Pipchuck!"
"We manage," he said. "We manage without a pagan who spends shabbes rubbing naked bodies."
The patient who had been stretched on the table in Pipchuck's office struggled to sit up, uncertain whether he had been insulted, or only Pipchuck. Since this patient also happened to be Hyman Abromovitz, the synagogue president, Pipchuck availed himself of the chance to express his anger by taking leave from the sexton's duties—let the building crumble!—and to declare that he would not attend another service if the rabbi ran it.
Attendance fell further when the rabbi nosed out the secret parking lot where the old men who judged themselves too feeble to walk to shul on the Sabbath parked their cars. He crouched by the dumpsters of Sy's Hotel Plumbing. When a car would sneak in, the rabbi pounced. Ambush! His sharp shoes kicked tires, his small fists beat windshields. Even Herman Zlotkin he kept imprisoned inside his black Buick, though Zlotkin howled: "I must ride! A heavyset man with emphysema cannot be expected to walk up a steep hill. How would it look if the Treasurer, who is an elected official, was found dead in the weeds!" Because this Herman Zlotkin did indeed live in terror that he would drop dead the next instant. He frequently pictured his collapse among the corroded remains of hotels in his junkyard, and, as bulky as he was, he feared he might lie unnoticed and rusting among the old stoves and bedsprings for weeks.
"So lose weight!" the rabbi shouted at Zlotkin, who even now was sitting in tears at the image of his own oxidation. "Lose weight, but don't drive!"
The ten of us men who walked to the shul he covered with shame. "How dare arrive late! Come at beginning or don't come at all." He saw into our pockets: "How dare carry money on God's holy day!" And: "Abromovitz, get up!" (Yes, he called even the curve-backed president to account.) "If you can't stand up quicker don't sit on the stage, a bad example to all." (Or maybe, we murmured, this rabbi thinks that he is the only person who belongs on the stage.)
Finally, he expelled Lazarus Schmuckler, the retired shoychet, little old mushroom Lazarus Schmuckler, because he made noise. This wispy nothing who davened so only the white hairs in his nose got the pleasure of hearing, he made too much noise? No, he prayed softly. But after each aw-mayn he added a coda, put all his tiny soul of a mushroom into chanting: da-DAI-dai-dai-ai-ai-DAI-ai-ai. And the rabbi couldn't stand this donkey tail being pinned on his voice, so out Schmuckler went.
The very next night Rabbi Heckler revealed just how badly he was infatuated with his own voice, so we realized that he was not just a stickler, but a lunatic also. He commanded a taxi to drive to the fanciest hotel in the Mountains, and when the gatekeeper inquired whether the man in the back seat was a paying guest or not—the hotel, after all, was not for town riffraff who sought free amusement—the rabbi informed him: "I play the piano!" and the gatekeeper nodded and let him pass through, thinking this must be tonight's entertainment.
When Rabbi Heckler appeared in the dining room he was noticed with amazement and alarm by Pipchuck and Schmuckler, neither man riffraff, each had a purpose: Pipchuck rubbed the limbs of guests who had contorted themselves in Simon Sez and shuffleboard, while Schmuckler, who had once been the chief inspector of the hotel's kitchens—an inspector who kindly averted his eyes when a beef cut or saucepan wasn't quite kosher— had been given permission to eat here for free whenever he pleased, which was often, it seemed.
Pipchuck and Schmuckler watched as the rabbi wiped off the keys of the piano in front of the room and began serenading the guests as they dined. And did Rabbi Heckler enlighten this crowd with melodies or folk songs from Hebrew culture? No. Broadway show tunes. South Pacific. Oklahoma! A medley of love songs from Gershwin and Berlin.
Between soup and fish, the guests clapped their hands.
"Such a wonderful voice! What timbre! What range!"
"But there's something peculiar …"
"So cute, though. Old-fashioned."
"Once, he was someone. Now he's a has-been. A shikker, may be."
Pipchuck jumped up. Already he was tying the straitjacket behind Rabbi Heckler. Schmuckler, in whom the flavor of revenge would have revolted as strongly as oysters, tugged at Pipchuck's sleeve. "Perhaps if we ask very nicely he'll go."
"And perhaps the owners will call the asylum and have him hauled off!" At this Pipchuck skipped to the manager's office. He returned with two bellhops, who casually approached the mystery pianist and asked him to stop. Once more. A third time. They lifted him by an armpit, an arm.
He started to rave: "A rabbi! How dare!"
The young bellhops paused, but what could they do? Holy man or not, he was still a disruption. Egged on by Pipchuck ("Don't trust him! He's crazy! Look at his eyes!"), they dragged him outside.
But the rabbi kept screaming from beyond the locked door. Everyone heard him over dessert: "Philistines! Cossacks! Let me in—or else!"
This straw was the last. The Trustees appointed their most tactful threesome to visit, advise. Over tea Zlotkin scolded: The time was approaching to vote on his contract (two sugars, stirring), and if Rabbi Heckler didn't change his behavior … a reprimand only, and thanks for the tea.
For a week Rabbi Heckler lessened his fervor … until the next Sabbath, when he delivered a sermon whose theme was forgiveness. Those few of us who heard it assumed he was asking a second chance, mercy, and we thanked the Almighty that his madness had gone. Several eyes were moist, and Miss Abel's arms lifted as if to welcome her errant crusader back to the bosom of his congregation. Then came the end of the sermon, its moral: "And so you must find in your hearts to forgive, show your enemy kindness, give him a contract—or else he will sue!"
The Board of Trustees gathered around their table, as grim as twelve hangmen. They would let Rabbi Heckler present his defense. He still had supporters, for what was his crime except for devotion, and wasn't his voice as rare as a lark's?
But when he was summoned, he taunted the men: "You'll regret! I won't go!"
"Is that a threat, Rabbi?"
"Yes," he said simply, and lost his supporters.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Rabbi in the Attic by Eileen Pollack. Copyright © 1991 Eileen Pollack. Excerpted by permission of DELPHINIUM BOOKS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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