by Noah Gordon
“I’m bothered about the fact that Di Napoli isn’t a Jew,’ Michael said in the restaurant.
Sommers paused in the act of breaking his roll. “What a strange thing for you to say.”
Michael persisted. “I don’t think a Christian can get the proper feeling into a temple design. The identification, the great emotion. The conception is bound to lack what my grandfather used to call the Yiddisheh kvetch.”
“What on earth is Yiddisheh kvetch?”
“Have you ever heard Perry Como sing Eli, Eli?”
Sommers nodded.
“Do you remember how Al Jolson used to sing it?”
“So?”
“The difference is Yiddisheh kvetch.”
“If Paolo Di Napoli agrees to take this commission,” Professor Sommers said, “we’ll end up with something better than a Jewish architect. We’ll end up with a great architect.”
“We’ll see,” Michael said.
But when they arrived at the architect’s office Michael liked Di Napoli from the start. Without being arrogant he offered no apologies for his art. He sat quietly and smoked a short briar pipe and looked at them while they looked at his work. He had strong wrists and mournful brown eyes and thick gray hair and a big mustache like a small jaunty hairbrush on his upper lip; a mustache, Michael thought, that declared him in on whatever game the world was dealing. Among his accomplishments were four truly outstanding temples and half a dozen churches, as well as an unusual and striking children’s library for a Midwestern city. They looked at his sketches and renderings, dwelling over the temple drawings.
On each of the temple plans a tiny sun had been drawn in the east, facing the building façade.
“Why the suns?” Michael asked.
“Personal idiosyncrasy. My private attempt to forge a weak link with the dead past.”
“Explain?” Sommers asked.
“When Solomon’s Temple was built some three thousand years ago on Mount Moriah, Yahweh was a solar god. The temple was positioned so its front gate threw a direct beam on the peak of the Mount of Olives, due east and some two hundred feet higher in elevation. Twice a year, on the days of the equinox, the first rays of the rising sun shining over the Mount of Olives entered the Temple through the open eastern gate. The rays shone down past the heart of the building into the recessed niche on the far western wall, which was the Temple’s holiest place.” His lips curved under the bush. “It just happened that an eastern exposure was fine for these four sites. If it’s wrong for yours, I’m not restricted to temples that face the east.”
“I like the idea,” Michael said. “‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates. . . . Yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors; that the King of glory may come in.’” He exchanged a look with Sommers and they grinned at one another.
Yiddisheh kvetch.
“Do you have the list of rough specifications I asked you to bring?” Di Napoli asked Sommers.
Sommers took it from his brief case. The architect studied it for a long time. “Some of these things can be combined for economy without sacrificing design,” he said.
“It should be a place for prayer. That above everything else,” Michael said.
Di Napoli went to a file drawer and returned with a glossy reproduction of an architectural drawing. The base of the sketched building was a single-storied structure, low and rambling and as stark as the base of a pyramid. The second story covered a smaller area and rose in a group of soaring parabaloid arches to become a vaulted roof at once sensuous and ethereal as it pulsed beautifully upward, pointing to heaven as certainly as a New England church spire.
“What is it?” Kahners asked finally.
“A cathedral that will be built at New Norcia, Australia. Designed by Pier Luigi Nervi,” Di Napoli said.
“Can you give us something that will invoke the same spirit of God?” Michael asked.
“I will try,” Di Napoli said. “I would have to know the site. Do you have it yet?”
“No.”
“The site will determine a lot of things. But . . . I lean toward the use of textured materials. Unfinished brick surfaces. Rough concrete, with warm colors to give the building life.”
“When can you show us preliminary sketches of your ideas?” Michael asked.
“In three months. I will prepare them while I’m in Europe.”
Felix Sommers cleared his throat. “Approximately how much will such a building cost?”
“We’ll have to work within the limits of whatever sum is available, of course,” the architect said, shrugging.
“Most of it will have to be raised,” Michael said. “You’ve seen our specifications. Visualize the kind of temple you want to create. With economy. But nevertheless something that is art, a beautiful sanctuary for the worship of God, like Nervi’s cathedral. How much is needed to make such a place?”
Paolo Di Napoli smiled. “Rabbi Kind, you are talking about half a million dollars,” he said.
39
Several weeks later a large, handsome white sign with blue lettering was erected on the lawn of Temple Emeth: LET US RISE UP AND BUILD—Nehemiah 2 : 20.
Next to it was painted a twelve-foot-tall black thermometer, calibrated in thousands of dollars instead of degrees of temperature. At the top of the thermometer, next to the words OUR NEED, was the figure $450,000. The red line was only a little way up the thermometer, at forty-five or fifty thousand dollars.
Unfortunately, the sight of the device depressed Michael, reminding him of the basal thermometer Dr. Reisman had given to Leslie and which she now popped into her mouth each night upon retiring, lying propped against her pillow with the bed lamp on, an open book in her lap and the thermometer hung from her lips like a lollipop stick, while he lay on his side and waited for the verdict on how he would spend the next quarter of an hour.
Ninety-eight-point-two or above and he could go to sleep. Ninety-seven-point-two to ninety-seven-point-four meant that for twelve hours the goalposts were in sight and he would manfully rise to the occasion and become a plunging back.
No, he thought that night as he sat in the kitchen in his pajamas and waited for his wife to take a shower so he could do his duty: a bored intern inserting a canula, a milkman doggedly delivering the goods, a mailman dropping a letter, a worker bee struggling to unload his pollen in an inconvenient crouch Dr. Reisman called the Thighs Flexed Position, with his wife’s soft tanned legs on his shoulders and her pelvis and vagina tilted skyward like the mouth of a lily, at an angle designed to reduce spillage and provide major receptivity. Guaranteed. By Dr. Reisman and Good Housekeeping.
Moodily he walked to the kitchen counter and sifted through the household mail. Bills. And Felix Sommers’ first fund-raising effort. He poured himself a glass of milk and sat down at the table again to drink it.
Dear Congregation Member:
There are almost seven hundred reasons why Temple Emeth needs a new home. And you and your family are some of them.
These reasons are constantly growing in number, ken yirbu, may then continue to increase.
In little over three years, there has been a doubling in our membership. In twelve neighboring communities which do not have temples, builders are raising hundreds of new homes. With the reservoir of unaffiliated families only slightly tapped, there is no doubt that a corresponding increase will be experienced in the years immediately ahead. . . .
In the bathroom the shower stopped. He heard the hard whisper of the shower-curtain rings sliding along the metal rod and then the sound Leslie made as she stepped out of the tub.
. . . Yet it is a fact that we are presently not equipped to serve the needs even of our existing members.
Our Hebrew School lacks the facilities which are so necessary to an educational institution. Our sanctuary is merely a large room without pews which is utilized as banquet hall, auditorium, carnival area and classroom. During the High Holidays double services have had to be held, splitting up relatives on the most sacred of occ
asions. Too many family simchas such as weddings and bar mitzvahs are held outside the temple. The reasons are simple. Our dining facilities are cramped and unattractive. The kitchen is small and inadequately equipped. Caterers find it difficult to work here.
Clearly, we need a new home. An architect has been engaged to design it for us. But in order to make our dream a reality, each of us must sacrifice. Will you begin to consider what your fair share contribution will be? A member of the building fund committee will call on you in the near future.
In giving, we must realize that we are not giving to strangers, but to ourselves and our children.
Sincerely yours,
(signed) Felix Sommers
Chairman,
Building Committee
There was a cardboard scale attached to the letter, with a little sliding window labeled Your Annual Income. He moved the window to eleven thousand and saw that his suggested pledge was three thousand five hundred dollars. He grunted, dropping the letter on the table.
He heard Leslie run into the bedroom and the sound of the bed as she got into it.
“Michael,” she called softly.
How could they ask a man for one third of his annual income? How many temple members would be able to meet such a pledge? It must be that the committee was asking far more than they expected to get, in the hope that this would make the “compromise” pledges higher than they would otherwise have been.
It troubled him; it was not the right note to begin on, he told himself.
“Michael?” she called again.
“Coming,” he said.
“That’s the way it works,” Sommers told him the next day when he objected to the fund-raising letter. “Other congregations have found out that you have to do it that way.”
“No,” Michael said. “It’s not honest, Felix. You know it and I know it.”
“Anyhow,” Sommers said, “we’ve hired a professional fundraiser. It’s his business to raise funds the right way. Let’s just place ourselves in his hands.”
Relieved, Michael nodded.
Two days later, the man came to Temple Emeth. The business card said he was Archibald S. Kahners of Hogan, Kahners and Cantwell. Fund-raising for Churches, Synagogues and Hospitals. 1611 Industrial Bankers Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 10133.
He pressed the janitor into service and unloaded three large crates from the rear of a new black Buick station wagon. They made three trips. The cases were heavy, and by the end of the second trip they were sweating. When all the boxes were on the floor in Michael’s office Kahners dropped into a chair and leaned back and closed his eyes. He looked like a dissipated Lewis Stone, Michael thought, gray-haired with a ruddy complexion and a little too much weight so that the flesh of his neck peeped just a tiny unpleasant bit over the collar of his carefully cut shirt. Both the shoes and the gray suit of heavy tweed looked very English.
“We don’t want a high-pressure campaign, Mr. Kahners,” Michael said. “We don’t want to offend our membership.”
“Rabbi . . . uh . . .” Kahners said, and Michael realized that the man had forgotten his name.
“Kind.”
“Yes, Rabbi Kind. Hogan, Kahners and Cantwell have raised funds for two hundred and seventy-three Catholic and Protestant churches. For seventy-three hospitals. For one hundred and ninety-three synagogues and temples. Our business is to raise huge sums of money. We have developed proven techniques which accomplish this. Rabbi, you just sit back and let me handle it.”
“What can I do to help you, Mr. Kahners?”
“Make out a list of half a dozen names. I want to meet with six people who can tell me about every member in the congregation. Approximately what each man makes annually, what he does for a living, how old he is, what kind of a home he has, how many cars he owns and what makes, whether his kid goes to private or public schools, and where he goes when he’s on vacation. And get me a list of local donors to the United Jewish Appeal.”
Michael peeked again at the business card. “Will Mister Hogan and Mister Cantwell be here to work with you on the campaign?”
“John Hogan’s dead. Two years. Now we got an employee handles the Catholics.” Looking down, Kahners noticed a smudge on his gray suit, and on his tie a tiny piece of brown paper from the flap of the cardboard carton. He flicked the paper off and rubbed the smudge with his handkerchief, spreading it. “My Protestant partner I don’t need for just a four-hundred-thousand dollar Jewish drive,” he said.
The mimeograph machine and two typewriters arrived early the next morning, and by mid-afternoon both secretaries were seated in front of folding tables typing lists. The clatter drove Michael out of the office to make pastoral calls, and when he returned to the temple at five o’clock it was deserted and ringing with silence. Papers littered the floor, the ashtrays were full, and he saw that two coffee rings like two thirds of a Ballentine’s sign had appeared on the shining surface of his mahogany desk.
That evening he attended the first meeting of the Fund-Raising Committee with Kahners. It was more of an indoctrination than a meeting, with Kahners delivering the lecture. He used the United Jewish Appeal contributors lists for the past five years as his textbooks.
“Examine these,” he said, flinging the small green UJA booklets onto the table. “See who your biggest contributor was each year.”
Nobody seated around the long table had to look at the books. “Harold Elkins of Elkhide Knitting Mills,” Michael said. “He gives fifteen thousand dollars every year.”
“And below him?” Kahners asked.
Michael closed his eyes but didn’t have to consult the books.
“Phil Cohen and Ralph Plotkin. They give seventy-five hundred each.”
“Exactly half of what Elkins gives,” Kahners said. “And who are the names under theirs?”
Michael wasn’t sure.
“I’ll tell you. A man named Joseph Schwartz. Five thousand dollars. One third of what Elkins gives. Now—” He paused and looked at them, Mr. Chips teaching his last class. “There’s an important lesson to be learned here. Take a look at this.” He threw another UJA booklet on the table. “This is the list for six years ago. It shows that for that year, Harold Elkins gave ten thousand dollars instead of fifteen thousand.”
“Phil Cohen and Ralph Plotkin gave five thousand instead of seventy-five hundred.
“Joseph Schwartz gave thirty-five hundred instead of five thousand.” He searched their eyes. “Do you get the message?”
“Do you mean to tell us there’s always a proportionate pattern that stems from the highest contributor?” Michael asked.
“Not always, of course,” Kahners said patiently. “There are always exceptions. And the pattern extends only so far down the line; it’s very hard to predict about the nickel-and-dime contributors. But as a rule, this is how it works with the principal donors, the people who are really important to the success of a campaign. In every community we’ve handled, for a great many years, we’ve seen it work this way.
“Look,” he said. “Sam X gives less than usual to charity. So Fred Y says to himself, ‘If Sam, who has twice as much money as I have, can give less this year, then who am I to deny that business has been ahf tsorris? I usually give two thirds of what Sam pledges, I’ll give half this year, too.’”
“What if Sam increases his pledges?” Sommers asked, clearly fascinated.
Kahners beamed. “Ah. The same principle applies. But how much more happily. Fred says to himself, ‘Who the hell does Sam think he is? I can’t compete with him, he can buy or sell me; but I can stay in the same league as that phoney. I always give two thirds of what he gives, and that’s what I’ll give now.’”
“Then you believe that Harold Elkins’ donation is the key to our entire campaign?” Michael said.
Kahners nodded.
“How much do you think he should be asked to contribute?”
“One hundred thousand dollars.”
Somebody at the far end of
the table whistled.
“He’s not even much of a shulgoer,” Sommers said.
“He’s a member?” Kahners asked.
“Yes.”
Kahners nodded, satisfied.
“How do you interest a man like that?” Michael asked. “I mean, sufficiently to cause him to donate such a large sum?”
“You make him your General Chairman,” Kahners said.
40
Michael and Kahners called on Harold Elkins together. The door of the refurbished farmhouse in which the manufacturer lived was opened by Mrs. Elkins, a white-blonde woman in a pink silk housecoat.
“The Rabbi,” she said, shaking his hand. Her grasp was firm and cool.
He introduced Kahners.
“Hal is expecting you. He’s out back, feeding the ducks. Why not go right out and see him there?”
She led the way around the house. She had a fine, free walk, entirely without self-consciousness, Michael thought. Beneath the swaying hem of the housecoat he saw now that her feet were bare. They were long and slender and white in the gathering darkness, with manicured toenails gleaming with dew, like little red shells.
She brought them to her husband and then left and returned to the house.
Elkins was an old man with gray hair and round shoulders over which he had draped a coat sweater despite the evening warmth. He was throwing corn to about fifty quacking ducks at the shore of a small pond.
He continued throwing the corn while they introduced themselves. The ducks were lovely birds, large with iridescent feathers and red beaks and feet.
“What are they?” Michael asked.
“Wood ducks,” Elkins said, still casting corn.
“They’re gorgeous,” Kahners said.
“Mm-hmm.”
One half rose in a flurry of wings, but got only a few feet off the water.
“Are they wild?” Michael asked.
“As wild as anything.”
“Why don’t they fly away?”
Elkins’ eyes gleamed. “Pinioned ’em. Clipped their wings.”