Free Christmas for Joshua - A Novel by Avraham Azrieli Page B

assistant put down his phone. “A woman cannot be a rabbi or perform a valid conversion under Halacha!”
    “ For God’s sake,” Aaron protested. “Rusty is the president of our synagogue!”
    “ President schmesident!” Rabbi Mintzberg’s age-spotted hands grasped the edge of the table for support as he slowly stood up. “He’s a shaygetz!”
     
     
    At first the whole thing was too surreal for me to get upset. I remained seated at the table with Aaron and Mordechai while Rabbi Mintzberg, his assistant, and Dr. Levinson huddled in the corner of the room, conversing intensely in Yiddish.
    After a few minutes, Levinson came over. He rubbed his goatee and seemed to be searching for the right words. “The rabbi…will not proceed.”
    Mordechai jumped to his feet and stepped over to the wall, facing it, his back to us. His father watched him for a moment and said quietly, “We must call it off.”
    “ Are you kidding?” I gestured at the closed door and the music that came through it. “Listen to them—it’s a wedding, for God’s sake.”
    “ I’m sorry.” He looked at his son’s back. “We have…no choice.”
    “ But why? My daughter is perfectly Jewish!”
    Levinson shrugged. “Rabbi Mintzberg isn’t sure anymore. He wants to reexamine the whole lineage. He feels deceived.” From the tone of his voice I gather that he too was feeling cheated, as if we had been hiding a dark family secret from him.
    “ This is outrageous!” Aaron pounded the table. “We’re in America, not in Galicia!”
    The old rabbi beckoned Dr. Levinson, who came over and stood before him like an admonished student before his headmaster. Rabbi Mintzberg murmured something we couldn’t hear and leaned on his assistant’s arm as they headed for the door.
    “It’s a shanda, ” Aaron said, “a desecration of God’s name!”
    The rabbi stopped and turned slowly. He didn’t look at me or at Aaron, but at Mordechai, whose forehead was pressed to the wall, a slight tremor in his shoulders the only evidence of his crying. Rabbi Mintzberg adjusted his glasses, shook his head again, and continued to the door.
    “Wait!” I was surprised at the loudness of my voice. An image jostled me into action—the vision of this revered old rabbi and his assistant leaving the ketubah room, walking slowly across the foyer in plain view of hundreds of guests, right in front of my daughter in her bridal throne, to the exit. “In the name of God,” I said. “Please!”
    Dr. Levinson raised his hand to stop me, but I ran to the door and blocked their way.
    Rabbi Mintzberg was a small man, but his assistant was massive. Judging by his bulging belly, pinkish skin, and heavy panting, he was a good candidate for bypass surgery or a massive heart attack, whichever came first. But neither would come soon enough to stop him from pushing me out of the way, so I held my open hands forward and said, “These hands might belong to a shaygetz according to strict Halacha, but they operate every day on very sick patients.”
    The assistant looked at the rabbi like a dog seeking permission to attack. But Rabbi Mintzberg removed his glasses and looked at my hands as if examining an unusual specimen.
    “And every day,” I continued, “when I cut open my patients’ chests, the hearts I find inside look the same, smell the same, and beat the same, no matter if it’s a Jew, a Christian, or an atheist.”
    The rabbi looked down at his own chest. His lips parted, but he didn’t interrupt me.
    “ I’ve held hundreds of beating hearts in my hands—human hearts that look no different than what’s inside this chest!” I pounded on mine. “Or what’s inside yours!” I reached forward and touched the rabbi’s black coat, which caused him to take a step backward, almost losing his balance.
    The assistant’s bearded face reddened as he steadied the rabbi. “Let us pass, or else!”
    “If you leave, my daughter’s heart will break in a way that I