Read Online One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross by Harry Kemelman - Free Book Online

of course, we still do some exporting, mostly honey and olive oil.”
    â€œAnd you live in Jerusalem?” asked Miriam. “I mean, that’s your home?”
    â€œNo, my home, my official residence, is in Boston. But I do a lot of traveling, so I’m there not more than a few months in the year. This is my third trip to Israel this year. When I’m in the Mideast, then my home is in Jerusalem. I have offices there, and in Haifa, but Jerusalem is home base. From there I might go to Egypt, Jordan, Iran, anywhere in the area. I used to have to go to Crete first, but since the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, it’s a lot easier. Where are you folks from?”
    â€œWe’re from the Boston area,” said Rabbi Small.
    â€œFrom Barnard’s Crossing,” Miriam added.
    â€œOh, I’ve visited there. It’s a nice town.”
    â€œWe think so,” said Miriam.
    â€œA friend of mine had a boat that was anchored there. Ah, here’s our dinner. Although it’s kosher, they do you rather well on El Al.”
    â€œYou would prefer nonkosher food?” asked the rabbi.
    â€œNo-o. When I stay in an Israeli hotel, I make a regular pig of myself on the breakfast, except that I like butter with my bread and cream with my coffee, and they can’t give it to you if they’re serving meat.”
    â€œI see.” The rabbi tore off a bit of his roll, salted it, and recited the blessing. “Blessed art thou, O Lord … who brought forth bread from the earth.”
    â€œThat’s the motze you just recited, isn’t it?” said Skinner to make conversation as much as to show that he had some knowledge of Jewish practice. “Now, my father would have said grace—”
    â€œBut you don’t.”
    â€œNo, I’ve been away from the Church too long to bother.”
    â€œYou lose something by it,” said the rabbi.
    â€œHow d’ya mean?”
    â€œWell, the blessing that we offer, or your recital of grace, makes partaking of food something other than a mere refueling operation. It’s one of the things that distinguishes us from the lower animals. We can enjoy our food. They can only satisfy hunger.”
    Skinner grinned. “Which is why we get fat and they don’t, and die of diseases induced by being overweight and they don’t.”
    â€œOf course,” said the rabbi. “There is always a penalty for misusing a gift, for overdoing a virtue.”
    â€œI suppose.” He nodded in the direction of a young bearded Hasid with earlocks who was sitting across the aisle and was only just now receiving a tray from the steward, one markedly different from those they had received. “That’s a glad kosher meal he’s getting, isn’t it? I understand it’s a superkosher meal.”
    The rabbi laughed. “Not glad. Glatt . It’s a Yiddish word and means in the context strictly, strictly kosher.”
    â€œI should think you would have ordered the same thing, seeing as how you’re a rabbi.”
    â€œIt’s because I am a rabbi that I didn’t.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYou see,” said the rabbi easily as he poured wine from the small bottle that had accompanied his meal into a plastic glass, “kosher refers not only to the species of animal that is permitted, the grazing animal that chews its cud as opposed to meat-eating predators, but it also refers to the condition of the animal and its method of slaughter. The slaughterer, the shohet , is an observant and learned man and he performs his work on the animal painlessly. He uses a knife of razor sharpness. If there is a nick on the edge that would impede the movement of the knife ever so little but that might cause pain, the animal is rendered thereby not kosher, traife .”
    â€œYes, I knew that.”
    â€œBut the condition of the animal is also important. After slaughtering, the shohet is required to examine the