Read Online Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Harry Kemelman
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and I. Usually when a congregation wants to hire a rabbi they ask a number of candidates to come down on successive Sabbaths to conduct the services and to meet with the board of directors or with the ritual committee. But you came down to the seminary alone, and on your own responsibility you picked David.” She eyed him speculatively and then immediately dropped her eyes to her teacup. “Perhaps if the ritual committee had acted as a whole they would have felt friendlier to him,” she said quietly.
“You think perhaps I insisted on making the selection myself? Believe me, Mrs. Small, the responsibility was not of my choosing. I would have preferred to let the decision rest with the ritual committee or with the board, but the building was finished in early summer, and the board was determined to start the New Year in September completely organized. When I suggested that the ritual committee go down to New York in a body there are only three of us: Mr. Becker, Mr. Reich, and myself it was Mr. Becker, if you please, who insisted that I go alone. ‘What do Reich and I know about rabbis, Jacob?’ Those were his exact words. ‘You know, so you go down and pick him. Anyone you choose will be all right with us.’ Maybe he was busy and couldn’t go out of town at the time, or maybe he really meant it. At first, I didn’t want to take the whole responsibility. Then, when I thought it over, I decided maybe it would be for the best. After all, Reich and Becker, they really do know nothing. Becker can’t even say his prayers in Hebrew, and Reich isn’t much better. I had already had one lesson. When it came to awarding the contract for the construction of the temple they hired Christian Sorenson as the architect. A Jewish architect wouldn’t do. If I hadn’t spoken out, the name Christian Sorenson Christian, mind you would have been on a bronze plate on the front of the temple.
The renowned ecclesiastical architect, Christian Sorenson, an exquisite with a black silk artist’s bow tie and pince-nez on a black ribbon to gesture with, had prepared a pasteboard model showing a tall, narrow box of a building with long narrow windows alternating with decorative columns of stainless steel. “I have spent the last fortnight in familiarizing myself with the basic tenets of your religion, gentlemen, and my design is intended to express its essential nature.” (A goon, Wasserman had thought, who can understand the essential nature of Judaism in two weeks!) “You will note that the tall narrow lines give a sense of aspiration, calling as they do for an upward movement of the eyes; that the simplicity of the design, stark and unrelieved by any trumpery decoration” (Was he referring to the traditional Jewish symbols: Star of David, seven-branched candelabrum, Tables of the Law?) “typifies the practical simplicity, if I may say so, gentlemen, the basic common sense of your religion. The stainless steel columns suggest both the purity of the religion and its resistance to the decay and erosion of time.”
The front elevation showed a row of stainless-steel doors from either side of which extended a long wall of glazed white brick that started at the full height of the doors and sloped away in a gentle curve to the extremities of the plot, “serving not only to soften the lines of the central mass, but also to relate it to the terrain. You will note that the effect is like a pair of open, embracing arms, calling upon people to come and worship. As a practical matter, these two walls, one on either side of the entrance, will separate the parking lot in front from the lawn which encircles the rest of the building.”
“At least I was able to see that only his first initial is on the plate and after all, it’s not the building that forms the character of the congregation. But the character of the rabbi might. So I agreed to go down to the seminary alone.”
“And why did you pick my David, Mr.
“You think perhaps I insisted on making the selection myself? Believe me, Mrs. Small, the responsibility was not of my choosing. I would have preferred to let the decision rest with the ritual committee or with the board, but the building was finished in early summer, and the board was determined to start the New Year in September completely organized. When I suggested that the ritual committee go down to New York in a body there are only three of us: Mr. Becker, Mr. Reich, and myself it was Mr. Becker, if you please, who insisted that I go alone. ‘What do Reich and I know about rabbis, Jacob?’ Those were his exact words. ‘You know, so you go down and pick him. Anyone you choose will be all right with us.’ Maybe he was busy and couldn’t go out of town at the time, or maybe he really meant it. At first, I didn’t want to take the whole responsibility. Then, when I thought it over, I decided maybe it would be for the best. After all, Reich and Becker, they really do know nothing. Becker can’t even say his prayers in Hebrew, and Reich isn’t much better. I had already had one lesson. When it came to awarding the contract for the construction of the temple they hired Christian Sorenson as the architect. A Jewish architect wouldn’t do. If I hadn’t spoken out, the name Christian Sorenson Christian, mind you would have been on a bronze plate on the front of the temple.
The renowned ecclesiastical architect, Christian Sorenson, an exquisite with a black silk artist’s bow tie and pince-nez on a black ribbon to gesture with, had prepared a pasteboard model showing a tall, narrow box of a building with long narrow windows alternating with decorative columns of stainless steel. “I have spent the last fortnight in familiarizing myself with the basic tenets of your religion, gentlemen, and my design is intended to express its essential nature.” (A goon, Wasserman had thought, who can understand the essential nature of Judaism in two weeks!) “You will note that the tall narrow lines give a sense of aspiration, calling as they do for an upward movement of the eyes; that the simplicity of the design, stark and unrelieved by any trumpery decoration” (Was he referring to the traditional Jewish symbols: Star of David, seven-branched candelabrum, Tables of the Law?) “typifies the practical simplicity, if I may say so, gentlemen, the basic common sense of your religion. The stainless steel columns suggest both the purity of the religion and its resistance to the decay and erosion of time.”
The front elevation showed a row of stainless-steel doors from either side of which extended a long wall of glazed white brick that started at the full height of the doors and sloped away in a gentle curve to the extremities of the plot, “serving not only to soften the lines of the central mass, but also to relate it to the terrain. You will note that the effect is like a pair of open, embracing arms, calling upon people to come and worship. As a practical matter, these two walls, one on either side of the entrance, will separate the parking lot in front from the lawn which encircles the rest of the building.”
“At least I was able to see that only his first initial is on the plate and after all, it’s not the building that forms the character of the congregation. But the character of the rabbi might. So I agreed to go down to the seminary alone.”
“And why did you pick my David, Mr.
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