Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest

by Roger Herst

Their eyes avoided each other until she said in a tone of unhappy resignation, "I must take Tim's remains home to Massachusetts."

  "Yes, of course, you must. But before you do, he has many friends and professional colleagues here. When they recover from their shock, many will want to say goodbye. Can we arrange some form of memorial service?"

  When she fell into a long, meditative silence, he disciplined himself not to wrap his arms around her. A full minute later, she said, "A good idea." "Is there an appropriate venue?" "Tim attended the Bethany Presbyterian Church on Salah-Al-Din Street. He lost his faith in the church, but never his love for its liturgy. He was the only clergyman I know, including many of my rabbinical colleagues, who actually enjoyed attending services conducted by clergy other than himself. I'll ask the minister at the Bethany Church to help."

  "You don't want to do this yourself, Rabbi?" asked Itamar. "I would have thought you would."

  "No. Definitely not me. Tim was fond of Jews, but lived and died a Christian. I only know Jewish psalms. His soul must be ushered into heaven on the wings of Christian prayer. Let God send Christ's angels to accompany him. I was Tim's friend and his lover. Never his rabbi."

  ''And a very strong one," Itamar said.

  "Wrong again. I'm only pretending so you won't think I'm an emotional basket case. I'm responsible for this. I could have prevented it. When you leave and the full impact hits me, I'll cry like a baby."

  "I cried like that, too, when Becky and Gila died," Itamar said. "It lasts for a long time, and sometimes I still weep. Everybody said that the pain would dissipate. It does, but very slowly. Can I stick around and keep you company?"

  "Thanks, but no. I appreciate your empathy, but I've got to come to terms with this myself. Some people need to share their grief with others. By now, you've probably noticed I'm a loner."

  ***

  The unimposing Bethany Church, with its hand-chipped stone facade in the Arab sector of east Jerusalem, had been established by American Presbyterians in the 1920s, primarily as a station for Protestant pilgrims touring the holy sites of Christendom. Tim worshiped there each Sunday morning, except when he made brunch for friends—an act that he liked to joke was closer to God than praying. The resident minister, American-trained Canadian Reverend Christopher Ganz, often invited him to discuss with his parishioners the historical roots of Christianity.

  Gabby suspected that because the Israeli government wished to keep the discovery of Cave XII under wraps, Tim's memorial service was viewed with suspicion. Because the less said about what he was doing at Qumran the better, the government refused to disclose the exact site of Tim’s death, referring to the location only as “the eastern Negev.” But realists, like Itamar, also knew secrecy was impossible. Rumors were bound to circulate. And when it comes to matters of archeology, gossip goes with the territory. Notice of Tim's death and the upcoming memorial service appeared in several newspapers, in Hebrew, English, French, and Arabic. Radio and television stations carried stories about Tim's scholarly achievements, questioning the mysterious circumstances of his death.

  As officiating clergy at many funerals, Gabby felt compelled to conceal her personal grief until alone, making the loss of a friend or associate all the more painful. Her job as an officiating rabbi was to conduct the funeral with the utmost dignity so that others, not herself, could mourn properly. But now stripped of her rabbinical role, she was free to express her grief with the other mourners. Upon first learning of Tim's death, she had felt a sense of shock. Then, as she learned more details of his murder, this turned into anger. In the six days between his death and the memorial service, these feelings morphed into a haunting sadness. It would have been easier, she believed, had she been able to understand the mystery of his disappearance, but Zvi Zabronski's department released few details. Through it all, she could not escape blaming herself for what had happened.

  Itamar offered to accompany her to the service, but she declined. As the hour neared, she feared meeting friends she had purposely avoided since her arrival in Jerusalem. What explanation could she give for not calling? And how should she respond to their condolences? With nothing to do but dwell on her loss, she walked alone from Rehavia across town, arriving at the Bethany Church over an hour early. That the sun had been hiding behind low clouds for two days, obscuring the natural sheen of the Holy City's limestone fascia, compounded her sadness.

  As she approached the church, she barely noticed an old man sitting on an apartment stoop because he looked similar to thousands of elderly Hasidim who had made their homes in the neighborhood. He was hunched over as if suffering from lower back pain, holding with quivering fingers a small black book. As she strolled through the church garden of bougainvillea and frangipani, he labored to stand by grabbing onto a window ledge and using both arms to pull himself up. Once steadied on his feet, he looked directly at Gabby and offered a smile without opening his lips, then hobbled toward her.

  "I know who you are," he said in a low, guttural voice laced with a Yiddish accent. "Timothy spoke about you often. A rabbi, yes?" The word rabbi stuck in his throat as though difficult to pronounce.

  She reached forward to shake his hand in greeting, but he refused to accept it. "And you are?" she said, showing no umbrage.

  "Schreiber," he answered.

  One word, one name, one Hasidic face. That was all Gabby needed to identify this stranger. She had always suspected that Tim had collaborated with a Talmudist to write his book. "I know who you are, too," she said.

  "You shouldn't. He promised never to tell anybody, even you."

  "Tim never did. I know what he was capable of. There had to be a Torah scholar helping him. That made the most sense."

  Schreiber glanced around as though afraid to be seen in a churchyard, especially talking with an attractive, unmarried woman, someone who called herself a rabbi. Not a rebbitzin, mind you, but a full-fledged rabbi. "Timothy left in my cousin's Volkswagen. He never returned. More than a week. I worried, but what could I do? He spoke to me about how he feared the future. I read about him in the papers."

  She half-turned toward the church, waving a hand for him to follow. "You'll come for the prayers?" she asked.

  He staggered, barely able to hold himself erect, and nodded no. "I cannot go there."

  She felt embarrassed for suggesting it. For a Hassid to enter, much less pray, in a church was sacrilegious. Schreiber could work with a Presbyterian minister and talk with a female rabbi, but entering a church was a line he could never cross. "What happened to your work with Timothy?" she asked.

  "Nothing. Now it won't be finished. He came to me with more words and phrases on a computer disk. Clusters, single words, individual letters. We were assembling them into verses. He gave me an envelope if anything happened to him. I didn't open it, hoping he would return. But when I read of his death in the papers, I did. He told me to give you these new words and phrases. He made it clear you would know what to do with them. There's a personal letter for you in the envelope." The idea of inheriting Tim's fragments had never occurred to her. Gabby's first thought was that this was stolen property. She asked Rabbi Schreiber, "Original texts or copies?"

  "Copies. I haven't seen originals of anything."

  She sighed in relief. If Tim didn't have the originals, who did? It occurred to her that perhaps they never existed, that the computer copies were fake. But upon further thought, she rejected the idea. Tim, more than any scholar in the field, would have known the difference between genuine and bogus material.

  She asked, "Could I come and see them?"

  "You can read them?" he asked, expressing astonishment.

  "Better then Timothy, I believe."

  He thought about that for a long while, then recited his address. 46 Haydam Street, Apartment Gimel. His phone number followed. "I will give you everything Timothy had."

  She repeated the address and phone number to engrave them in her memory, planning to write them down at the first opportunity. "Tomorr
ow, I'm taking Tim's body to his family in the States. I'm planning to return to Jerusalem in a few weeks. Can you wait for me?"

  His eyes glimmered with a touch of mirth. "Why, only a few weeks! These fragments are two thousand years old. Of course they can wait a bit longer!"

  "Won't you change your mind about attending the service for Tim?"

  He stepped back, shaking his head, then turned around and slowly shuffled away.

  Father Benoit Matteau's Arab chauffeur now drove his Subaru. Gabby noticed him drive past the church, looking for a parking space. On the second attempt, he dropped off the Dominican priest near the garden entrance. Simultaneously, other mourners, many of whom Gabby didn't recognize, began showing up. Father Benoit walked with ramrod posture despite chronic pain in his hip. As he approached, he opened his arms to Gabby, as though he were prepared to wrap them around her for comfort. She stepped back before he reached her, skeptical but dutifully polite. "Good day, Father," she said.

  "A sad one," he replied. "The Lord doesn't make many men as good as Timothy Matternly. He has left a giant shadow over biblical scholarship."

  Gabby nodded in agreement, searching for words to reflect her feelings. Before Tim's murder, Father Benoit was the one person who could have been helpful in locating him. How was it possible for Tim to have been in Cave XII without this well-informed priest knowing? The thought had often crossed her mind that he also knew about Tim's discovery of a lifetime. And perhaps about his death.

  "We need to talk," he said. "Not now, of course, but after Timothy is properly at rest in Heaven."

  "I'm taking him home to Massachusetts," she said in a response sharper than was her habit, especially during a time of mourning.

  "A loving gesture. Everybody needs someone to take them on the final journey. Will you return to Jerusalem?"

  "Hopefully, in a few weeks. I must first visit with the sponsors of my thesis in Chicago. And spend time with my family in Los Angeles who believe I've abandoned them altogether."

  "Then, I'll call in three weeks. Come, have lunch with me in Bethlehem."

  From a side path through the garden, Itamar was arriving at the church. He stepped over to Gabby and drew her into a polite embrace before acknowledging Father Benoit with an artificial smile, as if to indicate that this was not the right time to air their differences. Several members of Benoit's faculty, dressed in black suits with stiff white clerical collars, also approached in small groups. They spoke in French, but switched to Hebrew and English as they extended their condolences.

  In the sanctuary, Tim's friends and colleagues sat meditatively in the pews while a choir sang Tim's favorite hymns. Reverend Ganz opened his service with an extended interval of silence so the mourners could remember the deceased privately. Psalms from the Old Testament and parables from the New. After a short eulogy in which Reverend Ganz sketched the family life and career of a fellow minister and scholar of great repute, he asked if members of the congregation would share their thoughts.

  Gabby, who was sitting beside Itamar, tried to hide, but the reverend's eyes caught hers, filling her with resolve. She rose in her pew and swept up the mourners with her eyes, then in a clear voice, unaffected by the tears that flowed along her cheeks, said, "Many of you knew Tim as a friend and scholar, a man passionately interested in the past. A man who believed with all his heart in another mortal who lived nearby some two thousand years ago. To Tim, Jesus was a beacon, guiding others by his supreme example of love.

  "But I had the good fortune to know another part of him. As Jesus was his beacon, he was mine. I don't understand why he was taken from us so soon. Someday, perhaps, we'll know more. But for now, I must say goodbye to a wonderful human being. And to you, I say from my own Jewish tradition, 'May the Lord comfort us all among the legions of mourners who grieve for their loved ones.'"

  She sat down, closed her eyes, gathering together a hundred sadnesses. Itamar took her hand and squeezed gently. She returned the gesture with even more pressure.

  ***

  Under an overcast sky in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Tim’s funeral was a solemn parting, his family still confused by his premature death. Gabby spent two days with his mother and sister, allowing herself the luxury of weeping openly with them. They had many questions, only a few of which she could answer to their satisfaction. Officiating at funerals had been an integral part of her previous rabbinical duties, yet no amount of doctrinal wisdom prepared her for the emotional freefall. Time, as she had learned, was the only healer and, at the moment, not nearly enough had passed.

  She volunteered to ship from Israel Tim's personal belongings and left with his sister keys to their home in Chicago with an invitation to remove any of the Matternly family memorabilia even before probating his will. After numerous promises to keep his folks posted about developments in Jerusalem, the time had come for Gabby to catch a plane for Los Angeles.

  ***

  When Dr. Samuel Lewyn remarried after the death of her mother, Gabby resented the woman her father had chosen as a replacement. Her relationship with his second wife, Charlie, was formally polite, but lacking in personal warmth. Yet over the years, Gabby grew to appreciate the care this woman lavished on her father and felt guilty for having been so childish early on. Fortunately, Charlie had entered her second marriage a wise and experienced woman, fully aware of what perils being a stepmother might bring. As Gabby's stepmother, she would have been entitled to carry a grudge for the shabby treatment early on, but fortunately never did.

  Upon arrival in Los Angeles, Gabby found her father mortified by Tim’s death, acting as if this was his first encounter with murder, which, as a practicing internist for thirty-nine years, it certainly wasn't. While the Los Angeles visit lasted only three days, Gabby felt good about reestablishing family bonds, strained as they were, no longer by personality conflicts, but by long absences.

  On a plane to Chicago, she could think of nothing but the events in Israel. Before she left, Itamar had stressed that Tim's murder did nothing to exonerate him in the eyes of the Antiquities Authority. By now, neither he nor the police doubted Tim had been involved in looting Cave XII. But what he had actually stolen remained mere speculation. For that reason, he wrote Gabby several e-mails saying that it would be dangerous for her to return to the Ussishkin Street apartment and inviting her to use the guestroom in his Katamon home. She replied by declining his hospitality and asking, "What would the neighbors say?"

  "That I'm making good progress," he wrote back.

  "No," she answered in a brief message. "Be honest, Iti. I would create gossip. And you have enough problems at the Authority without me adding more."

  She stayed in her Hyde Park home in Chicago where Tim's ghost seemed alive in every room. The furniture, books, and particularly the kitchen, with its butcher-block island and hanging copper and brass pots and pans, triggered a flood of memories. Since almost everything belonged to his heirs, the house was certain to go up for sale once his will was probated. Their rented apartment in Jerusalem was less complicated because only four months remained on the lease. And she had little desire to renew it because, while conveniently located near the center of town, the apartment stirred too many unhappy recollections.

  On the campus of the University of Chicago, Gabby showed up early for an appointment with her thesis advisor, Dr. Alexander Cross. While she had come prepared to talk about the lack of progress on her dissertation, Professor Cross was preoccupied with Tim's death, convinced that his colleague had been a victim of foul play. He told Gabby how he had demanded that the University president force the Department of State in Washington to open a formal inquiry, but to date no action had been taken. When Gabby said that she had it on good authority why the Israeli government would do little or nothing to punish suspected Bedouin murderers, he exploded with venom. No university in the world had contributed more to archeology in the Holy Land than the University of Chicago, and as a member of its distinguished faculty, Tim Matternly deserved be
tter treatment. The discussion in Cross's office, once focused upon Tim, never made it to Gabby's thesis. Nor was there any mention of her earlier feud with American evangelists or her discussion with Professor Simon Pines and himself at the Faculty Club before her departure for Israel.

  Tim's academic colleagues organized a memorial service in the University's Bond Chapel, remarkable for its array of ornate stained-glass windows. In dark oaken pews, the mourners meditated silently until Gabby stood up, inviting them to recall memories of Tim. Many did. Clearly, he was well liked and highly respected. Two professors spoke about his willingness to leave the academic sanctuary and venture into the field, a very dangerous place, as it turned out. Solemnly, they retired to the department chairman's home to share more memories over coffee and cake.

  The following day, Gabby met again with Professor Cross, who seemed to have been calmed by Tim's memorial, but now expressed displeasure at her lack of progress. He understood her emotional strain, but felt compelled to keep all his PhD candidates under a tight rein.

  After refreshing himself from a folder he kept on her thesis, the professor said, "And are you still comfortable with your hypothesis on the prophets? The characterization you've sent me of early prophets is rather conventional. Nobody will quarrel with that. But what you're suggesting about prophets who followed them in the first century, why that breaks new ground."

  "I'm trying to show that the last generation of prophets seemed to have prepared themselves to receive revelation before they became God's spokesmen. And this may be true of the big three as well: Moses, Jesus, and Mohamed lived roughly twenty to thirty years before they began their ministries. During these formative years, they seemed to have led acetic, scholarly lives in training. I'm trying to show how biblical prophets put in their time and punched the right tickets. Today, modern evangelists sip orange juice and munch on donuts at a prayer breakfast in church, then stand up to proclaim how they've just spoken with the Lord. No preparation at all for this feat, except perhaps their raw will to communicate with Heaven."