by Roger Herst
"Thanks. As usual, you did the right thing, Chuck. If people were smart, they'd fire me and appoint you as rabbi. Little do they know the power behind this throne."
"Thanks but no thanks. By the way, what are you and Kye doing for fun?"
"What do you think a couple trying to have a child does for fun, friend?"
"Oh," he exclaimed in embarrassment. "I should have looked at my calendar. There are three red dots on the next three days."
Of all her friends and associates, Gabby felt the closest to Chuck Browner and shared with him almost all her thoughts. "I think we did it this morning," she said without a shred of doubt in her voice. "We nailed it."
"I can't pretend to be an expert," he shot back, "but how would you know?"
"Kye asked me the same questions and I told him that I just know, that's all."
This was not an argument that Chuck wanted to have. "I hope you're right, Rabbi Gabby. Count on me to do everything I can to make your pregnancy easier. Rabbi Landau called just a few minutes before you. She said her husband was out of town and asked if I could have a messenger deliver her salary check to her home."
"What's wrong with the US Postal Service?"
"She said she was short of cash and couldn't wait for the mail."
Gabby sighed her exasperation. "It's not her fault she must stay in bed. I hope you sent it to her. "
"If you want the truth, I was tempted to send it by third class mail, but finally conceded to good judgment and used our delivery service. I sure hope she'll be available for you when you're pregnant."
Dinner on the Monterey Pier was unusually festive, the partners ordering champagne to toast a handshake on terms of the merger of Images.com with Higgens and Rollie and Voters.com. As Kye had predicted, the partners agreed to employ a commercial real estate broker in San Jose to obtain 60,000 square feet of office space somewhere on the Monterey Peninsula. They planned to move their staff to the new location as soon as a lease could be negotiated and the space configured. The idea was for the senior officers to move within eighteen months. How Kye would handle his residence in Washington remained an open question.
Gabby liked the people from Higgens and Voters, open and friendly individuals who seemed to revel in anticipated synergism their merger would provide. At the table, they talked about the natural beauty of the Monterey Peninsula seascape, how they intended to golf at Pebble Beach and sail along the coast. Their wives had already made several trips to the area, visiting prospective schools for their children.
Kye's partners ordered for dinner a giant portion of California cioppino, a combination of local crabs and clams, none of which Gabby felt comfortable eating. The waiter suggested for her fresh rock cod, caught no further than a mile for the restaurant. Animated discussions were fueled with more champagne and various California white wines. In the middle of her excellent rock cod, Gabby's mood plunged. There was change in the air, perhaps a beneficial change. How could one not fall in love with this idyllic coastline? California's optimism and allure was beginning to affect her as it did all those around the table. Yet, she could not help thinking about the play she had seen with Kye in New York. Many scenes remained clearly in her memory, but the play's name eluded her recall. It bothered her that the name wouldn't come while she attempted to make conversation with her tablemates
It was after dessert, when the partners and their wives went for a short stroll on the pier, that her memory finally cooperated. After confinement in the cramped restaurant, the gentle sea breeze, saturated as it was with the aroma of salt and fish, caressed her face. She peered out over the dark Pacific, an ocean she knew well from her childhood and thought about what she had seen in New York. Was Cheryl Teabrook right when she wrote 'Heaven is No Place for the Soul’? Was this true paradise or an illusion? And if it was genuine, could she really be happy here?
A glance at her watch told her that on the East Coast people were preparing for bed. The seventh Chanukah light had long since guttered out.
Seventh Night of Chanukah (CANDLE SEVEN)
THE ODYSSEY OF MORDECAI YOELSON
Over the years of teaching rabbinics at the Reform seminary, I learned how computers could assist my students swim in the sea of Talmud. In order to prepare for my classes, they would have to prepare long hours, looking up references and cross-references. When I was a young student in Ottynia, the only way to discover where a passage originated was to search many volumes. Often, this was a laborious and tiresome task. The Mishneh admonishes a serious student of Talmud to acquire a good teacher for without it he would be lost.
But with the advent of the computer and the marvelous invention of global searches, reference could be sought and found in a few keypunches. The power of a computer to sort and order many fragments of data was exactly what I needed to solve a particular problem with respect to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In 1947, when the first Dead Sea scrolls were discovered at Kumran in the Jordanian Desert near the Dead Sea, the larger scrolls were translated and published. But thousands of smaller fragments were also found in clay urns. These were never published or translated because a clique of doddering old scholars from a previous generation preserved the legal rights to this scholarship. For a half-century, they added absolutely nothing to our knowledge of the ancient communities that lived beside the Dead Sea. I learned that there was a concordance of these fragments in the public domain, so I had a graduate student enter the fragmentary parts into his Apple computer and then sort them into the verses from which they originated. We ended up with approximately ten to fifteen words per verse.
By this time, my failing eyesight, which had plagued me since childhood, prevented me from reading, so students spelled out the words one at a time and I, relying upon my lifelong familiarity with ancient Hebrew syntax, fashioned them into meaningful sentences. In this manner, we were able to reconstruct the entire corpus of fragmentary residuals of original Dead Sea Scrolls. With the help of the rabbinical seminary, we published the results with electrifying results.
When our version of these fragments were published, the Huntington Library in Loma Linda, California – trustee for Dead Sea Fragments – reckoned there was no further purpose in keeping the originals secret and released photocopies for public review. The battle over the rights to scholarship had been won. I count this as another step in understanding our ancestors who brought both Judaism and Christianity to western civilization.
How can a man like me, who was permitted to survive the Holocaust and continue to study and teach the sacred Torah, express his gratitude to God? It was the Torah that kept me alive, the Torah that provided my sustenance, both physical and spiritual, and the Torah that engaged my mind.
The Psalmist put it right for me when he sang in the Temple of Solomon, "It is, indeed, a Tree of Life, to those who hold it fast, and all its ways lead to happiness."
Mordecai Yoelson
***
When Gabby finally accepted the idea that someone would replace her deceased mother in her father's life, she learned to be grateful for Samuel Lewyn's second wife, Mickey Charles. Gabby and her sister, Terry, who lived in Cleveland, would often gossip about Mickey, picking at her foibles, but acknowledging how she filled a void in their father's life. In some imaginary "lineup" like the police use to identify alleged criminals, they would have selected a different replacement for their mother. But both agreed that their father wasn't easy to live with and apparently Mickey had learned how.
Since his retirement from the practice of internal medicine, Samuel Lewyn spent time managing his finances, playing a mediocre game of golf, fly fishing, and reading a voluminous quantity of medical journals he would never use in practice. While Gabby and her sister were happy to see him remain active, they were embarrassed by his newest hobby, seeking legal recourse to satisfy each and every one of life's grievances, which seemed to increase as he aged. While other senior citizens spend abundant leisure hours sitting in doctors' waiting rooms discussing their m
aladies, Sam Lewyn frequented law firms. At one time, he had a suit running against his mortgagee, his stockbroker, real estate partner, landscaping company, house painter, and ex-tax accountant, to say nothing of the numerous class action consumer suits he eagerly joined. Gabby and Terry attributed this newfound passion for the courts to his bitterness at getting old. Men who can no longer fight competitive battles in their professions and on the sports field, maintain their vigor by other means. Gabby tried to reason with him, but he proved as intractable on the subject as in matters of his health and his investments. Both Gabby and her sister came to understand that the father they adored as a kind, gentle, and exceedingly generous man also possessed a mean, vengeful streak.
It was Mickey Charles, not her father, who stepped forward to greet Gabby at the gate in Los Angeles International Airport after a flight from Monterey. She was nineteen years Samuel's junior, but looked at least thirty years younger than him, still trim and immaculately manicured, with short, stylish hair, recently colored light brown to hide the gray. Sam Lewyn had allowed his paunch to expand and his posture to slump. He was a step behind Mickey, waiting until after she had angled her cheek to accept Gabby's kiss, then enveloping his daughter in a bear hug practiced during her childhood. He pressed his flabby stomach against her and rubbed his soft, well-shaven cheek along her cheek.
Since they communicated weekly by phone, there were few new medical or family matters to catch up on during the drive from the airport. After telling them about the home she and Kye were staying at in Carmel, Gabby asked Mickey about her children and grandchildren, an opening that she accepted with gusto. Her response fortified Gabby's knowledge of how close she was to her children – Karla, a single mother, who became a computer programmer and made an excellent salary, plus lucrative stock options from her software company; Jeannie, a struggling actress who periodically appeared nude in skin flicks and was chronically short of cash, and Alexander who, after a stint in Asia, returned with his North Vietnamese bride to sell irrigation pumps in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. Karla often availed herself of her mother's love of babysitting grandchildren to watch her two boys. The entire clan gathered together for Thanksgiving and Pesach.
Mickey had completely re-decorated the Lewyn home, stripping from it most of what Gabby remembered. Only a few minutes after Gabby had settled herself in the guest room – her childhood room had been dedicated as a playroom for the grandchildren – Jeannie dropped by to say hello. One look at her was enough to convince Gabby that men would pay a premium to see her without clothing. She possessed a Hollywood figure, slim at the hips and moderately heavy in the bust. Her teeth had been bleached white and her skin perfectly tanned, most probably in a studio rather than by the sun.
Gabby wondered what she would have in common to talk about with Jeannie and was surprised to find her conversant in subjects other than the entertainment business. She had become an avid tennis player and knew of Gabby's reputation in the game. Her reading list included novels by Proust and Stendhal and she attended scholarly lectures at UCLA. Sam sat silently listening to the banter of females. Gabby felt dismayed by his passivity, a characteristic she noticed in elderly men in her congregation, particularly those who lived with women as strong as Mickey.
They talked about Terry in Cleveland and the family reunion they planned during Terry's son's Bar Mitzvah, only eights months away. Eventually, conversation turned to Sam's medical problems and the medications he was taking for a series of small strokes. He took a strong interest in the therapies prescribed by his cardiologist, discoursing about the merits and demerits of the drug regimes. His last TIA temporarily eliminated movement in his legs and made speech difficult. Thank God both returned, but they left a fear of something worse to come.
Samuel Lewyn sometimes uttered statements with uncensored bluntness, a trait that often caused Gabby embarrassment. She was unprepared when he asked out of the blue, "Are you and Kye planning to have any children?"
"That's certainly in the game plan, Dad," she replied without taking umbrage.
"Game plan?" he snorted. "Do I have to sit you down on my knee and tell you once again about the birds and the bees?"
She emitted a dry humorless laugh. "Well, maybe I didn't get all the details right. I'm liable to take you up on the invitation. Do you think you could hold me there?"
"I most certainly could. But I'd prefer a grandchild on my lap to tell a story or two. Terry's way ahead of you and I always thought you were the most precocious of my daughters."
That evening, they dined in Italian restaurant and returned home early because Sam was getting tired. The outing they planned for Thursday morning had to be changed when Karla deposited her children for her mother to watch. A walk to a local park where there was a playground sounded like the most practical thing to do.
"Kye's merging with two California companies," Gabby told her father as they strolled arm in arm around a duct pond in the park. "They agreed to locate their headquarters in Monterey."
Sam Lewyn had a habit of stopping each time the subject of conversation changed. He halted and turned toward Gabby. "Not a bad ambience. Does that mean you might be moving back to California. You know, I'd love that. Nothing, absolutely nothing, would make an old man happier. We'd be able to see each other far more often."
She shook her head. "No, Dad. That's not in the immediate plans. The new company will need an office in Washington, which Kye will run. But he'll be coming to California often. And that means I'll probably be making more trips, too. That is if I can get additional rabbinic help. My current associate is a total loss. She's absent far more than she's on duty. This time, it's a difficult pregnancy."
Sam Lewyn turned to resume walking slowly. He had to think about the implications of what his daughter had told him. "Well, that's an improvement, at least. You know I'd love you to be nearby. Do you think that that someday you might return?"
"Possibly, but not for the immediate future. I love what I do, Dad. Ohav Shalom is a dream congregation. I have a place in the community. Washington is perhaps the most thrilling, exhilarating city in the western world. That's a lot to leave, even for the most beautiful patch of seascape in the world, where Kye and I are staying for the week."
After dinner on Thursday, Gabby took a plane from LAX to the Monterey airport. During the short 48-minute flight, she elected not to read but to think about her father. With each visit, she noticed further signs of aging. The vitality of his earlier days was gone and he seemed perfectly content to let Mickey plan and organize his life. And that included her children and grandchildren. On the one hand, Gabby was angry with Mickey for taking control. But on the other, knew she had no right to object. She and Terry had defaulted. If they had not left Los Angeles, things might have been different. Their father needed someone to take care of him. It required a woman with Mickey's strength to carry it off.
Kye was at the small airport when the regional jet landed. They stopped in Monterey for a beer, then drove to their borrowed home. Kye made a fire in the bedroom fireplace while Gabby prepared for bed. When it was his turn to use the bathroom, she sat, mesmerized by flames darting from the kindling wood to pine logs. The chimney amplified the crackle of the sap-rich wood.
Gabby and Kye talked about her father's condition until they had worn the subject thin and cuddled into each other affectionately. The music of Pacific waves beating the coast wafted through slatted side windows. They were enjoying familiarity of each other's bodies when the telephone sounded.
"How do it know?" Gabby sounded her exasperation with the punch line from a popular ethnic joke. "I purposely didn't let Carey know where we're going, so it couldn't be her. It could be my father."
The caller was persistent, allowing the phone to ring eight times. Kye was about to lift the receiver when Gabby shot an arm over his chest to snatch it first.
"Rabbi Lewyn?" a familiar voice inquired on the other end.
"This is she."
"It's Miles Boronsk
y. I apologize for disturbing your holiday, but I thought it was important to let you know the news immediately. Rabbi Landau's had a miscarriage."
"Heavens no," Gabby exclaimed. "Where is she?"
"At Sibley Hospital. Her mother is at home with the children, but we can't find her husband who is somewhere in Latin America. Rabbi Landau doesn't even know which country, so there's no way to locate him."
"Is Cici all right?" Gabby asked.
"I think so, but I haven't heard any definitive medical report. I learned this from Rabbi Gould who went to the hospital, but apparently she was sleeping and he didn't want to disturb her. Mrs. Green told him that she had spoken with her daughter by phone and she was terribly depressed."
"Do you know what caused the miscarriage?"
"Rabbi Landau said the fetus just stopped breathing. A nurse at Sibley told him that this is one of the mysteries of childbirth. The doctors can't put a specific cause to the phenomenon; some fetuses just stop breathing. I'm afraid I haven't got anything more definitive. Vacations are sacred, but it seemed only proper to let you know. I hope I haven't interrupted anything pleasurable with this unfortunate news."
"Oh nothing," Gabby fibbed, looking at Kye who kept shaking his head in disbelief. "Do you have the phone number at Sibley?"
Miles took a moment to look it up.
"I may have to cut my vacation short and come home," she said, her eyes still on Kye who frowned the moment he heard that.
"I'm sure that's not going to be necessary," Miles said.
"I know that Abner seldom calls his family when he travels abroad so it's likely to be a long time before she has any support, other than her mother. It's wrong to expect Rabbi Gould to step into this tragedy."