The New Rabbi by Stephen Fried

Author:Stephen Fried [Fried, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-553-89712-8
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2002-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE PLAGUES

RABBI JACOB HERBER WAKES AT 2 A.M. and greets Shabbat morning with an hour of projectile vomiting. He goes back to sleep and, at 7:30, crawls out of bed to get ready for services. In the shower, he finds himself barely able to lift the bar of soap.

“You’re crazy, don’t go,” his wife says. But what else can he do? There is no other rabbi.

Actually, Rabbi Wolpe has just returned from Florida. But he is supposed to be on sabbatical—he isn’t planning to come to Har Zion for Shabbat this week—and Jacob isn’t sure he is allowed to call him. Even though, God knows, the Wolpes have certainly called him enough times at 8 A.M. on Saturday morning. When he hears Elaine’s voice saying, “Jerry is sick,” he knows to go throw together a sermon and quickly prepare something to say to the bar mitzvah kids. But, truthfully, Jacob doesn’t really want to call Wolpe. He only gets to run the shul for six short months before the new rabbi comes, and now that Wolpe is home he will probably be attending more services and synagogue events. Jacob relishes every opportunity he can get to fly solo, without his mentor looking on in what sometimes feels like judgment. If Wolpe is even in the sanctuary, Rabbi Herber feels like he’s being scrutinized.

So he walks the mile, mostly uphill, from his apartment building to the synagogue, even though he can barely breathe and his chest radiates pain. The first congregant he meets takes one look at his chalk-white skin and says, “You’re going to lie down right now.” He goes to sexton Joshua Perlmuter’s apartment, in the basement of the synagogue building, and lies on the sofa. Jeff Blum comes down to see him and has four words of advice: “Don’t even get up.” He agrees to rest for another hour, leaving Blum, Lew Grafman and other officers to run the service.

A little past 10, he lumbers up to the sanctuary to tell the bat mitzvah girl what a good job she did and to give the sermon. It’s a new sermon and he doesn’t know it that well, all about Shabbat and how one finds time to benefit from the wonder and relaxation of the day. Somehow, he stands and delivers. Then, instead of walking back off the bimah, he decides to stay, assuming the cantor will, for this ragtag service, do the abbreviated version of the Musaf, the additional service. Instead, the cantor does the complete album version, with all the repeats, and Herber is stuck up there, standing and sitting and standing again, for another twenty-five minutes.

Several days later, I ask him if he prayed for strength while on the bimah.

“I was more concerned with sleeping than praying,” he says. “God gave me the intelligence to realize what my body needed.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.