Rabbi Gabrielle's Defiance

by Roger Herst

  "Maybe they just don't like a rabbi in the dirty trade of politics. My guess is they don't want you leaving Ohav Shalom."

  "Time for some fresh sermons. It will take them no more than ten days to become accustomed to my replacement."

  Chuck had a cute reply, but refrained from offering it. Instead, he said, "While on the subject of your work here, you have an appointment with the Disney people about the Passover program. Karla Foo said she's bringing a script and wants to inspect Meyerhoff Hall. Sounds like the people who brought us Mickey Mouse know what they're doing."

  "That helps. What we initially envisioned has escalated. My Orthodox brethren are about ready to excommunicate me over this project."

  "Don't flatter yourself," Chuck was quick. "They didn't like you from the moment you stepped onto this pulpit. It galls them to have the Jewish community represented by a Liberal rabbi and a woman to boot. The Passover extravaganza is only icing on the cake."

  "They had an opportunity to run the whole program, but refused. How can they blame me?"

  "Lack of good sense never stopped them in the past."

  Before leaving the synagogue at the end of the day, Chuck knocked on Gabby's door to report, "I've gone through your box of photos twice now and haven't found the picture of Asa you're looking for. Is there any other place you might have put it?"

  She squinted at him before pointing to a stack of papers, top-heavy and threatening, on the windowsill. "Perhaps in that pile. Search there, please."

  After a furtive glance at the manuscripts, he asked, "Do you want me to send regrets to Marsha and Dan Silver for the first night of Pesach or do you want to handle that yourself?"

  "I'll do it personally."

  "I think they'll feel hurt. The Silvers think of you as family."

  "And that's the way I feel about them, but this year I want to have my own seder. Whatever we manage to pull off the second night with the Disney extravaganza, it won't be very personal. Besides, I can't remember a seder in my own home. People just figure I'm too busy to prepare. I certainly won't have the finest food in town, but I can give a decent reading of the Haggadah and that's got to count for something, wouldn't you think?"

  "Yes," he grinned with a playful jog of his head.

  "You're invited, of course, but only if you bring Lawrence. Secretly I'm counting on you guys to produce most of the meal. Any thoughts about that?"

  He nodded, his eyebrows rising with interest.

  "I'm inviting people close to me. The Silvers, of course, but I'm sure they'll want to continue with all their in-laws, children, and grandchildren. I'll phone Lydia and she can bring Judy. And my old friend, Zoe, and her daughter, Clementine, from New York. They're enthusiastic about the idea. Perhaps I can persuade Asa and Anina."

  Chuck liked being with Gabby and the idea of spending the first night of Passover with her was delightful. His sister, Lydia, and Zoe Mountolive and her daughter functioned as her East Coast family. The thought struck him that perhaps there was a hidden reason why she had decided to convene her friends for this particular Passover. He had pivoted around to depart just when she satisfied his curiosity. "I'm also planning to invite my friend, Kye Naah. It's about time you guys meet him."

  That bombshell required a moment's hesitation before he wagged his head in approval, saying to himself, "So Pesach at Gabby's is a trial balloon! There's more to this than politics!”

  ***

  On evenings when Gabby had no official synagogue business, Kye visited her at home. He worked on a laptop connected to a remote server while she poured over DNC documents. They established a pattern early, sipping tea or munching take-out foods he usually picked up while traveling in his new mobile office. Twice, he parked the mobile web trailer in her driveway to provide hands-on experience navigating the Internet from its mobile control center.

  Gabby liked to lounge around at home in fleece clothing and oversized sport socks. Sometimes Kye added a sleeveless leather vest over his T-shirt, yet always left his arms uncovered. She had difficulty picturing him in anything but stonewashed indigo jeans.

  One evening, during a break, she pushed away from the dining room table and sauntered on stocking feet behind the wingtip lounge chair where he was hunched over his laptop. His eyes remained on a combination of video and text material scrolling over his screen and he failed to notice her. It was only when her hand dropped over the back of his neck and began massaging that his fingers stopped their dash over the keyboard. She kneaded her knuckles into the vertebrae.

  "Where'd you learn how to do that?" he asked, half craning his neck.

  "From my father, who should have been a surgeon, but spent his medical career practicing internal medicine. Dad would massage my neck when I was feeling blue."

  "Are you feeling blue now?" he lowered his head to expose more of his neck.

  For an instant her fingers ceased moving, then resumed. "Not particularly. I'm just overwhelmed and scared. I'm converting my congregants into enemies. My stock there goes down daily while Lyle waits for my decision. I can remain indecisive only so long. But once I give Lyle the green light, all hell will break out."

  His hand reached behind his neck to take hers. "But I'm going to be there for you. I'm committing everything I have left of Politics. The blitz we'll put on will dazzle the public."

  "And if I decide not to run, what then, Kye?"

  "I don't want to think about that."

  "Our friendship will end, won't it?"

  "I won't let that happen. I love being with you. Running in the forest. Or just having you nearby when I'm working."

  Her fingers returned to his neck, but this time ranged out and along his jaw, massaging the flesh of his cheeks, then encircling his eyes. As he relaxed backward he exposed his forehead to receive a gentle kiss from her lips.

  "I like that, too," he whispered.

  "And I like doing it," she replied, planting a second kiss upon his forehead, her fingers now massaging his temples. Possessed by an idea, she suddenly pulled herself erect. "By the way, I forgot to invite you to my seder here the night before Disney comes to Ohav Shalom. It's traditional for Jews to celebrate Passover in their homes. I usually spend the first night with special friends, but this year I want to have my own seder, with my close friends, not theirs. And you, of course."

  "But isn't Passover for Jews?" he inquired, now twisting fully in his seat to study her.

  "It's the only Jewish festival to which Gentiles are customarily invited. The freedom theme of Passover is universal, which I hope to make clear on television the following evening. I want you to come both here and to the synagogue."

  "That's a hard invitation to turn down. How many people are lucky enough to attend a seder with Rabbi Gabrielle Lewyn?"

  ***

  As corporate counsel to Dominion Mutual Insurance's operations in the Mid-Atlantic States, Horace Corcoran hired litigating counsel to defend multi-million dollar claims against the company. But like most insurance companies, Dominion preferred to minimize the cost of litigation and settle out of court. Senior executives at Dominion's national headquarters in St. Louis offered the Morgensterns seven and a half million dollars to make their lawsuit disappear. But attorneys for the Morgenstern family refused to consider a sum so far short of the forty-six millions demanded. To plot their strategy, Corcoran called a meeting at Dominion's Charles Street offices in Baltimore City. Stan Melkin requested Shirley Delinsky and Marvin Jankelrod to accompany him.

  A battery of young lawyers from Jameson, Crew and Gottwin, who had been hired to shepherd the Morgenstern case to its resolution, clustered around their team leader, Delmont D'Foro, a silver-haired personal injury specialist with a reputation for playing hardball in the courtroom. Dominion Mutual executives seated themselves on the opposite side, while Stan Melkin and his associates squeezed into the tight space at the foot of the table. Like an island archipelago, piles of documents dotted the tabletop. The temperature, a Spartan 68-degrees Fahrenheit, dis
couraged the participants from stripping down to shirt-sleeves.

  "How far away from the seven and a half million offer are we?" Stan Melkin directed his question to Delmont D'Foro.

  D'Foro furrowed his brow and shook a weary head, slurping his speech. "Anybody here know this fellow Marc Sutterfeld? He must have taken Negotiation Strategies 101. Employs some of the oldest tricks in town. When I told him by phone we were thinking of a settlement in the neighborhood of seven million, he snapped back at me in a wheezing voice. His sports metaphors give me diarrhea. 'What are ya talkin' 'bout, Mr. D'Foro? Mexican pesos or Italian lire? I'm legally bound to forward your offer to my clients, but I doubt it will raise them from the dugout onto the field. I wouldn't waste another quarter to call until you're ready to play ball in our league. I got one kid who's singing in the celestial choir right now and another who will never be a high school cheerleader or the homecoming queen, if you catch my drift. Tybee Morgenstern won't make a pretty picture before a jury.' I'm afraid, Mr. Melkin, Dominion Mutual has only two and a half big-Ms before we hit the ceiling of your E&O coverage, then the ball's in entirely in yawh court. So instead of you ask'n me, I should be ask'n you."

  Stan curled his lips, glancing to Shirley and Marvin on his left. "Looks as if we've got ourselves a dog fight on our hands, precisely what Ohav Shalom doesn't want." And returning to D'Foro he asked, "I presume your team has had an opportunity to review the case thoroughly."

  D'Foro's red-headed associate, freckled like a brown-trout and looking young enough to be a college undergraduate, spoke for his boss. "As you all know, the law of torts is relatively simple. The prosecution will attempt to establish that reasonable precaution was not taken. We will prove that Congregation Ohav Shalom rabbis acted within the standards of the rabbinical profession. Objective minds should be able to sort this out. Unfortunately, juries are not always objective, especially when children are victims."

  "Have we any reason to believe the family might waive its right to a jury trial?" Marvin Jankelrod asked. "To preserve privacy sometimes a family prefers to go before a single judge. That might suit Tybee Morgenstern's interests."

  "Sutterfeld has a reputation for courtroom theatrics. He'll want to parade a maimed child before the jury, knowing we won't dare submit her to hard cross-examination. I fear we must prepare for the worst. Of course, there's still the option of raising our offer."

  For the first time since formal introductions had been made, Horace Corcoran registered his thoughts. "We're near the ceiling of this company's liability. From what you say, Delmont, that barely gets us to first base and there's still a long way around the diamond. Juries think insurance companies are made out of money. Look around, we're not plush. Everybody wants us to settle for outrageous sums. For an insurance company, that's death by a thousand stabs. Rack up a string of high-priced settlements and we're out of business."

  "Don't assume that Ohav Shalom will make up the shortfall or longfall as the case may be," Stan Melkin added. "We pay our bills from cash flow generated by membership dues. The endowment is already committed. The only way to come up with the sum suggested here is to sell our synagogue building for condominium development. I can't imagine a jury sending Ohav Shalom into Quonset huts and tents."

  "So that drives us back to a jury trial," D'Foro stated flatly, as though it were no revelation to him. "This isn't going to be a picnic, but our arguments are strong. It's essential Ohav Shalom doesn't appear insensitive to the family's suffering. That would be counterproductive." He addressed Stan Melkin, "I suppose you're reconciled to the inevitability of this case?"

  "Have I an alternative? This isn't going to please our rabbis. I've had talks with our Senior Rabbi, Gabrielle Lewyn. She's conflicted. On the one hand, she wants the Morgensterns to be compensated for their losses. But on the other, she is adamant that neither she nor her colleague, Rabbi Folkman, have been negligent. Before a jury, she can be very convincing. I don't wish to lecture to a roomful of smart lawyers, but we all know that more often than not, the system works. We'll just have to see how badly the Almighty wants Ohav Shalom to survive."

  Since Dominion Mutual was paying handsomely for his lawyer's time, Horace Corcoran rose to end the meeting and recite words often used when talking with his hired counsel. "I guess we all know what we must do next. Let me remind you that the court has given us a preliminary trial date, subject, of course, to a cleared docket. I'm surprised it's so early next month. Judges like to expedite settlements, and the earlier they come to trial, the sooner they usually get settled. But perhaps not this time."

  CHAPTER NINE

  PESACH

  To celebrate Passover with Gabby, Zoe Mountolive, the New York lawyer who defended Noah Zentner in one of the nation's most celebrated cases of rape, and her 15-year-old daughter, Clementine, arrived on Saturday afternoon and encamped in Gabby's guest room. This friendship had begun in a professional capacity; Zoe as defense counsel and Gabby as witness in the Baltimore trial, but continued long after the sad event receded into history. As single women navigating the shoals of middle age, they shared their fears and dreams. Zoe paraded before Gabby's judgment a host of male companions and related the horrors of bringing up an artistic, rebellious teenage girl in New York City. Gabby vented frustrations at what sometimes felt to her like being a hired gun to a well-meaning, respectful, but exceedingly demanding congregation. In need of relief from mothering Clementine, Zoe would often ship her daughter off to Washington to spend long weekends with "Aunt Gabby," a relationship that both the child and surrogate aunt enjoyed immensely. Together, they visited museums, played tennis, hiked in the Allegheny Mountains beyond Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, and bicycled by the Potomac River. Communication barred between mother and daughter flowed easily between Gabby and Clementine.

  Chuck Browner and his latest companion, Lawrence Bourne, arrived at Gabby's townhouse midday Sunday, bringing sufficient food to provision a cavalry regiment. They immediately established themselves in Gabby's kitchen, chopping vegetables and skinning chickens. Gabby took responsibility for providing the traditional seder foods: harosetz, matza balls for soup, bitter herbs, parsley, boiled eggs, and gefilta fish – from a bottle, definitely not from scratch; white fish and pike. From time to time, Zoe and Clementine breezed into the kitchen, sampled the cooking, then helped Gabby set her table with a formal tablecloth and heirloom silverware. Lydia Browner, Gabby's tennis coach and sometimes doubles partner, arrived shortly after 4 p.m. with her roommate, Daisy Seasongood, a prominent actress most often cast in the role of wife or jilted lover in regional theater productions, notably Washington's Arena Stage. Over the years, Lydia had maintained her near perfect figure while a few crow's-feet wrinkles near the eyes revealed her age. Gabby knew that despite her athletic ability, Lydia had no mind for numbers. She collected shoes, toothpaste tubes, and countless household items in lavish, unusable quantities. It came as no surprise that she brought to the seder a full case of California Chardonnay, enough wine, quipped Gabby, to intoxicate the Ten Tribes of Israel lost somewhere after the Northern Kingdom of Israel went into exile in Assyria.

  No one displayed astonishment when Kye Naah let himself into Gabby's home with his own key and planted a familiar kiss on the back of Gabby's neck while she was bent over arranging spring flowers for the centerpiece. Introductions were a bit superfluous since he already knew everybody from Gabby's detailed descriptions. They, on the other hand, studied him as though a specimen under a microscope. So this is the man Gabby had been so taken with!

  Uncomfortable being idle in the company of active people, Kye immediately assumed various kitchen chores doled out by Lawrence Bourne, who had once been a professional chef in Boston, but had given up his passion for cooking to operate a series of bed-and-breakfasts. When Kye eventually joined Gabby's team working on the table, she took his arm and kissed him upon the cheek, confirmation of a relationship closer than friendship.

  Asa and Anina arrived last. He dressed in a conservat
ive gray suit with a maroon necktie that Gabby recognized as Anina's taste in men's clothing. A large silver pin in the design of a blue heron on the lapel of her stunning scarlet jacket immediately became an object of conversation. By five o'clock, preparations for the seder were complete and the guests gathered in the living room to chat. No cocktails. Gabby warned there would be plenty of sweet kosher wine or Lydia's Chardonnay to consume during the festivities.

  Since their meeting at Georgetown Hospital, Anina and Kye had spoken often. To Gabby's guests, she praised him for establishing a conference link between Georgetown Hospital's Operating Theater and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. During the first phase of reconstructing Tybee Morgenstern's lower lip, Dr. Mayer Brouggen in Sweden supervised Hank Resnick implementing his Swedish technique. This cyber link produced an unexpected dividend for Anina. In planning for Tybee's first operation, her hostility with Hank Resnick bottomed out and he invited her to scrub-in and assist his surgical team. Having tasted the fruit of Kye's technology, Georgetown Hospital employed Politicstoday to upgrade its Internet linkage, a paying customer much appreciated. The hospital's president, who generally looked upon his institution's quarrelsome physicians as a necessary nuisance he would like to do without, but couldn't, started answering Anina's phone calls. Her name inexplicably turned up on a list of candidates for the hospital's Medical Executive Committee.

  At the seder table, Gabby sat Kye on her right and Clementine Mountolive on her left. Clemmy's animation demonstrated how fond she was of Aunt Gabby. Due to tension between her divorced parents over what church to attend, she participated in no religious school training and was fascinated with the Haggadah's rendition of the Exodus from Egypt. Her questions revealed a thirst for more information about the Bible. When it was time for the youngest member of the family to recite The Four Questions, Aunt Gabby walked Clemmy patiently through a transliteration from the original Hebrew, then an English translation. Gabby followed by chanting a traditional melody she had sung almost every year since her childhood.