Rabbi Gabrielle Commits a Felony

by Roger Herst

  "Women here don't think about exercise. It's just not in their mindset. Most are overweight. We're taught that to look beautiful is a temptation to the yetzer ha-rah, the evil inclination in men and that should be avoided. Married women tell me it doesn't make any difference if they're fat because they already have their husbands, but I tell them about the health benefits of being slim. A few inquired about finding a gym where we could exercise in private. Baruch doesn't think that's a very good idea and has asked me not to talk of this in public, at least not until we're married. After that, he's promised I can re-open the subject."

  "I'm afraid I've missed something, Carey. Why should exercise be so controversial?"

  "Baruch doesn't want to rock the boat. He already thinks I'm a feminist. He's being considered for entry into Rabbi Olam v'Ed's elite Z'chut Avot, Merit of the Fathers, where only the best students study with the master himself. To be chosen, you must demonstrate your ability to memorize enormous tracts of text and interpret them correctly. Baruch fears I might injure his chance of being chosen."

  "Is there a chance we could visit your shul, Carey? I'd love to see your community, even if you think Rabbi Olam v'Ed wouldn't approve of me."

  "If you're game to walk in the rain, I suppose. After maariv – evening– prayers, the men have a pretty neat tradition. On one side of the shul is a chamber where members of Z'chut Avot study. Members bring out Seferei Torah and dance with them around the shul. Today's Sunday, so it's Yom Rishon and there will be only one Sefer Torah. On Motzey Shabbat – Saturday evening – they bring out one for each day of the week."

  "What's a little rain when there's a chance to come closer to God? Do the women also participate in this dance?"

  "No. Most women are home with their children and very few attend maariv. Sometimes Rabbi Olam v'Ed accompanies the Torahs. He's a very enthusiastic. If we're lucky, we'll see him, though he won't talk with you. He prefers to communicate with women via email."

  After Carey had set their mugs into a pyramid of dirty bowls and plates in the sink, she used the bathroom, then removed a raincoat from the hallway closet. "We'll probably see Baruch at the shul. I generally like to go to maariv later in the week, when they bring out more Torahs."

  Just before the stairs, Gabby asked. "Are you in love with Baruch?"

  Carey appeared confused and didn't answer.

  "I mean do you feel a hunger for him? Any physical tingle, you know where?"

  Carey led down the stairs without pausing. "That was my old life, Rabbi. Sure, I had my heartthrobs when I was at the U.Conn. But things are different now. We think about duty, not love. I will learn to love Baruch and our children."

  Gabby knew that scientific studies on arranged marriages showed them to be generally successful. But Carey had not been brought up in a culture where marriages were arranged. What modern woman would allow others to select a lifetime mate for her? For a few moments, she felt as a proxy for Norma and was about to voice her concerns, but muzzled herself. "How does Baruch expect to support the family you intend to make with him?"

  "We're going to Jerusalem. Rabbi Olam v'Ed runs a yeshiva in the Old City where Baruch will study. If money becomes necessary, they'll find him a job. The Rabbi raises a lot of money in New York so his students may study both here and in Israel. For the time being, there's no need to worry about living expenses. I suspect that, in time, we'll have to make some decisions. Ha Shem will provide. He has in the past. There's no reason to believe that won't continue."

  From Utica Avenue, they made their way along Morton Avenue. Bearded Hassidim in dark blue and black suits multiplied on the puddled pavement, their possessors with eyes purposely cast away from Carey and Gabby. The men walked with focused purpose, carrying books and small packages. On Ferner Street, the numbers of Hassidim were replaced by thickly beaded men in tattered frock coats, their head enshrined with ermine-brimmed strimels. Carey nudged Gabby to inform her that these newcomers were the followers of Rabbi Olam v'Ed making their ways to maariv worship.

  "Beth Sh'erit ha-Pletah doubles as a yeshiva and shul," Carey explained as they shielded themselves from a gush of wet wind. "We won't be able to go into the study area, but there's an azaret, balcony, where we can pray and look down. Mincha – afternoon – and maariv prayers are said consecutively on Sunday afternoons a few minutes before sundown. I'll point Baruch out for you if I can spot him. That's not so easy because our men wear the same head coverings so it's sometime difficult to identify individuals from above."

  An outside entrance dedicated for women led from the street to the third-floor women's balcony at the rear of the synagogue. Gabby struggled with the indignity of being shut out of a Jewish school and house of prayer because of her gender, reminding herself that she had not been invited to Beth Sh'erit ha-Pletah to pick a fight. Seated on the first row of wood benches were two women, one in a black widow's shawl and the other in her early twenties. The older woman ignored Carey and Gabby, but the young one nodded a greeting.

  Gabby studied the expansive space below through a screen of fine mesh designed to hide women from those studying and praying on the floor below. In the sanctuary, the walls were lined with shelves of black Talmudic tomes without a single picture, glass window, or touch of human art. Tables and chairs were unvarnished and upholstered. Men and boys crowded together, chanting responses to each other in a cacophonous jabber. The scene reminded Gabby of the pre-war Eastern European shtetle, about which she was writing for her upcoming Chanukah story. But here there was one major difference. In the shtetles of Europe, students clustered around Talmudic books opened flat on wooden benches, reading as they conversed. But here there was only a single tractate of the Talmud open. Most of the learning appeared to be conducted orally, the students rarely referring to open pages of the text before them.

  "They're trained to memorize everything," Carey responded to a question about this. "Of course, from time to time they must refer to texts. That's usually done in the morning when the mind is fresher. It is our custom to put away the books in early afternoon and work from memory. Rabbi Olam v'Ed insists that Talmud must be preserved in the mind as well as in print. Only students who demonstrate their ability to memorize large tracts are promoted to higher levels of study. Because Baruch is blessed with an extraordinary memory, he's in Rabbi Olam v'Ed's favor."

  After ten minutes, the din of voices in pilpul argumentation over Talmudic passages stopped abruptly and several students shifted fluidly into the recitation of afternoon prayers. Gabby whispered her observations to Carey, who kept her eyes trained below. When one resonant voice rose about the others with a melodic chant, the others immediately fell into cadence. Gabby looked around for a prayer book and discovered three unused Sidurim in the corner. Carey's moving lips told that she already knew the prayers and did not require a book. Neither did the other two women.

  During the recitation of the eighteen Amidah blessings, Gabby stood, and when the men chanted in unison, lifted her own voice in prayer. They went through the first two blessings without incident, but eventually someone below recognized the sound of a female voice originating from the women's balcony. Many male worshippers stopped chanting to listen. One elderly worshipper turned and barked in English with a thick Yiddish accent. "Please be respectful of ha-Shem and pray silently. Your voice interrupts our prayers."

  Carey placed a finger against her lips to signal Gabby that women must pray silently.

  Gabby stopped long enough to ask, "Why should I? Is a woman's voice excluded from Heaven?" She looked menacingly at the two other females who devoured her through reproving eyes. "What kind of women are you? Will you let men intimidate you into submission? Your silence enables them to dominate. I won't quarrel with your system, Carey, but never shut out a woman's prayers from Heaven. Are they not equal to those of men?"

  A clambering on the wooden steps leading to the balcony drew everyone's attention. Within a few moments, elder worshippers presented themselves at the rear of the aza
ret and stopped short to discover a woman who covered her head with nothing more than a small silk yarmulke, leaving the bulk of her hair uncovered! "Who are you?" a man in his fifties with a salt and pepper beard and a pudgy red face demanded sharply.

  "She's a family friend," Carey answered for Gabby.

  "Then you are responsible to see she observes our decorum. You're Baruch Teitelbaum's fiancée, are you not? You should know better. What is your friend's name?"

  "I'm Rabbi Gabrielle Lewyn from Washington, D.C." Gabby introduced herself.

  This took the spokesman by surprise until his subordinate reminded him that liberal Jews were ordaining women into the rabbinate. The leader snorted his contempt. "What you say is a profanation of the Divine Name. We have every right to ask you to leave immediately. If you are willing to pray silently and not disturb us, you may stay. Otherwise, you must go."

  Gabby was inclined to fight the war of the sexes right then and there, but feared involving Carey in a battle she did no wish to fight. No words of hers, even those meticulously selected and well delivered, were going to change any of these minds. She would have liked to call them male chauvinists, but knowing this would be offensive, uttered different words, "I make no apologies, but m'peney darkey shalom, for the sake of peace, I will say my prayers silently. If God possesses ears, He will hear the silent prayers of this woman."

  "Ha Shem makes the rules, not you," another middle-aged man grumbled as he led the delegation back down the stairs to resume their prayers.

  "I'm sorry," Gabby addressed Carey. "It didn't occur to me that they would be so offended. I should have been more sensitive. Frankly, I think they're bullies. But I have no business injuring you."

  Carey appeared uneasy, speaking with a tremor in her voice. "I feared something like this might happen. It will reflect badly upon Baruch."

  "That was not my intention," Gabby said.

  A door opened near the far corner of the main floor. Worshippers rose to their feet; those already standing ceased praying aloud. Then simultaneously, the entire body of Sh'erit ha-Pletah practitioners began singing a peppy tune and clapping their hands in unison. They swayed together with interlocking arms, making a path for a Torah scroll that entered the sanctuary high on the shoulder of a large man. The tempo of the chant escalated with the intensity of the dancing. As the Torah weaved through the throng, men seemed lost in the infectious rhythm. Some kissed the white dressings of the Sefer Torah before returning to song in ever louder voice, their arms interlocked for balance as their feet rose into the air.

  "There's Rabbi Olam v'Ed," declared Carey.

  "Which one?" asked Gabby.

  "The tall man with the thick strimel to the right of the Sefer Torah."

  The others were pawing the tall man's sleeves and, in the midst of their dancing, bowing their heads in deference. While the mantra was sung over and over Rabbi Olam v'Ed's hands were outstretched to his disciples, touching one after another on the lips, as though distributing sparks of divine favor. Gabby had seen a corresponding custom on the streets of Jerusalem during the festival of Simchat Torah, when Zaddikim fed sweet cake directly into the mouths of their disciples. It was obvious that the rabbi's followers revered him.

  "What gives Rabbi Olam v'Ed his charisma?" Gabby asked a question that had long been burning insider her.

  Without hesitation, Carey said, "His intellect. Baruch tells me he has an unbelievable memory. No detail is too small to be stored inside his brain. With respect to Talmud, he's absolutely encyclopedic and expects his students to follow his model. That's not as easy as it might seem. All students are given extensive memory training, but some have minds more retentive than others. Those who cannot retain their texts eventually leave the society. Rabbi Olam v'Ed rewards those who can demonstrate prodigious acts of memory. I think the ability to remember is a genetic trait, so it really doesn't matter how hard you train. But that idea would be heresy here, so I keep it to myself."

  "Let's just say memory is a gift from God that can be improved upon," Gabby whispered. "What did Shakespeare say? 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.' I'd like to talk with Rabbi Olam v'Ed someday."

  "That's not likely," Carey was curt as she finally lifted her eyes from the raucous scene below and regarded Gabby. "He rarely speaks with unmarried women. He knows his power over women and avoids contact that might lead to rumors. Scandals have happened with other great religious leaders, you know."

  Gabby snickered her agreement. "Yes, I know all about that from Rabbi Greer. Olam v'Ed sounds like a very disciplined man." Gabby was so taken by the repetitive rhythm of the dancing that time got away with her. A glance at her wristwatch told that she had stayed longer than planned and that she would have to move quickly in order to catch the last Washington Shuttle at LaGuardia.

  "Is there anything you want me to tell your parents?" she asked Carey headed for the stairs to the street.

  "No."

  "Can I tell them you are happy in the life you've chosen here."

  Gabby noted Carey's momentary hesitation before saying, "Yes. Tell them that for the first time in my life, I'm very happy."

  CHAPTER THREE

  FBI Agents Janna Phearson and Claudia Dellum were waiting for Gabby when she arrived at Ohav Shalom at 12:45 p.m. Under normal conditions, she made a point of seeing visitors promptly, but her desk was piled high with phone messages that required immediate attention and there was no alternative but to make the federal agents wait for eighteen minutes while she returned emergency calls. She was apologetic when Chuck finally ushered them into her study.

  Janna Phearson was a thin, wiry woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in business suit with a colorful flowered blouse for a touch of feminism. She walked into the study with purposeful strides, her eyes darting from the bookshelves to Gabby's desk, so messy that she wondered how anybody could function effectively while working on it. Phearson's younger, red-headed colleague, Claudia Dellum, moved behind her like a shadow. Gabby noticed immediately her concaved cheeks and lean jaw, the signature of a dedicated jogger. Both wore solemn expressions as they waited for Gabby to clear magazines and papers from chairs and balance them on top of a large stack that threatened to tumble over.

  "We're making progress in our investigation of the break-in here," Phearson said directly, recognizing that the rabbi was a very busy woman and didn't have time for introductory banter. Her wary eyes shot over to the pile of papers she expected to collapse at any moment.

  "That's good news," Gabby was surprised because she thought the FBI probably had more pressing investigations than the theft of a Torah scroll. "I'm curious to learn what you've turned up."

  "That Ohav Shalom isn't the only synagogue that has lost a holy scroll recently," Phearson said, taking her eyes off the stack of papers for the first time.

  "Were they from the Holocaust collection, like the one we lost?" Gabby asked the first question that came to mind.

  "That hasn't been established yet," said Claudia Dellun. "Our data bank only lists Torahs, not what variety. Frankly, we didn't know there were any differences until you brought this fact to our attention."

  Gabby posed a second question that had been loitering in the back of her mind. "I'm a bit confused why the FBI is involved in this case. I'm not a lawyer, but I thought that hate crimes are handled by the states."

  "That's generally true," Dellum entered the conversation, "but when a similar crime is duplicated in different states, we tend to think of the pattern as a national issue. The states where the crimes are perpetrated usually defer to us. The reality is that hate crimes are a nasty business that stirs strong emotions. State prosecutors are just as happy to delegate the task to us."

  "Can you share with me where those robberies occurred?" Gabby seemed satisfied with the explanation.

  "One in Buffalo, New York. And one near Greensboro, North Carolina," reported Dellum.

  "Were they break-ins like what happened here in Washington?
" Gabby asked as though examining a witness on the stand.

  "That isn't clear from our records. We've made inquiries from our agents in Buffalo and Greensboro, but the answers have not come back yet," Dellum responded.

  "Were these recent robberies?" Gabby followed up.

  Phearson referred to a notepad for dates. "Depends what you believe to be recent, Rabbi. Our records show that the robbery in Buffalo happened almost a year ago last November. The one in Greensboro occurred on May 5th, a year before that."

  Gabby sifted that information through her mind while scribbling down the dates on her desk blotter.

  Phearson carefully watched Gabby for any physical movement that might produce a vibration and send the pile of papers tumbling off the desk onto the floor. As soon as she felt comfortable that would not occur, she said, "We'd like to ask you about what value these Torahs might have to the thieves."

  "They certainly have a value," Gabby said, "but it's difficult to ascertain. Every Torah is hand written by highly trained scribes, which makes the writing of a Sefer Torah, that's what we call a Torah scroll, a labor-intensive enterprise. No mistakes are tolerated, so the text is checked and rechecked. If a single error is made, the scribe must remove an entire section of the parchment, sew in a new section and begin afresh. If you had to purchase a new Torah on the market, you're talking many thousands of dollars. Now, if you're talking about a scroll from the Holocaust collection, as ours was, then you're talking about something more than money, something of sentimental and historic value which, as you know, is usually in the eye of the beholder. I'd be very curious to know if the stolen scrolls were from the Holocaust collection. That might help identify the thieves, don't you think?"

  "We'll look into that," Dellums said. "Have you a ballpark figure for what one of these Holocaust Torahs is worth?"

  Gabby arched back against the spring in her desk chair and held that position, careful not to make any vibrations that could upset the precarious balance of papers. "Not off hand. I've never actually purchased a Torah, but I'm sure we can find an expert who knows that. I've been thinking that the thieves who tied me up obviously wanted our Holocaust scroll and none of the others. My first thought was perhaps some neo-Nazis were trying to finish the work left undone by their predecessors in Germany. I assume law-enforcement agencies are monitoring their activities."