Free Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home by Harry Kemelman Page B

of it originally as a business deal.”
    “You mean you were planning to put up another bowling alley here?”
    “You bet. But not just a bowling alley. I was going to combine it with a restaurant, maybe a dine and dance place, maybe billiards instead of bowling – it’s getting big these days. And then while we were talking last night, I got to thinking what happened the day before, Friday –”
    “You mean Ted’s speech?”
    “Believe me, that was just the climax. All day, from one town to another I got nothing but grief. You know, one of those days. So when we were talking last night, I thought to myself. What do I need another business enterprise for? At my age? Then I began thinking about this place as a temple. Lots of temples nowadays are converted homes – and a lot of them not half so fancy as this, let me tell you.
    We could set in some beams and pull out most of the interior walls on the first floor. That could be the sanctuary, and it would seat a couple of hundred people easy. We’d have to put in a new heating system and maybe the plumbing. But that’s all. Structurally, it’s sound. And then all the rooms on the second floor and the third floor could be used for a school.”
    “So you’d have an old ramshackle place,” said Kallen, “with a bunch of little bedrooms you’re going to try to make into classrooms and a sanctuary, which, no matter how you arrange it, will still look like a dining room and living room knocked together. Like that place in Salem that started with fifty members, and they’ve still got about fifty members. For the last ten years now they’ve been trying to raise money to build, and they still haven’t been able to.”
    “That’s right, Irvbaby, but there’s a difference. Ours would be a shore front property.”
    “So?”
    “Let me show you.” He led them down the path to the beach, talking all the while.
    “So what do people join a temple for? Some, because maybe they want to be big shots, but the great majority, they don’t want to be members of the board of directors. They know it costs money, that the members of the board are always being hit. Most of them just want a place to go for the High Holidays and a place where they can send their kids to a school. But once you get started, that isn’t what keeps a temple going. The High Holidays are only three days in the year. And daily prayers – there isn’t a temple in the entire area that can guarantee ten men for a minyan every single day of the year. As for Friday night services, how many are we drawing now? Fifty? Seventy-five? Now for all those things, our place would be big enough and more than big enough.”
    He stopped abruptly to let them fully take in the water view. “The thing that really pulls in the members are the facilities for the Bar Mitzvahs and the weddings – the parties, in other words. Now you just think of the vestry in our temple, which is all we have for parties. Compare that with what we can offer here in Hillson House.” He led them to the sea wall. “Think of it during the summer when most weddings take place. Think of a patio out in front here with a view of the beach. Now you’re going to have a wedding, and you’re going to spend anywhere from three to ten thousand dollars, and your wife and daughter are determined that things are going to be just right. You may not care – You’re just the guy that foots the bills. But they care. They take a look at the vestry in the basement in the present temple, and then they come down to us. We show them they can have their wedding in a beautiful old mansion facing the ocean, and if the weather is warm, they can hold it outside, out of doors. You know, as a matter of fact, that’s the Orthodox way to have a wedding, outdoors under the stars. Which would get the nod, the old temple or our place? You can bet that they would come to us. And we could afford to be exclusive. We wouldn’t take just anybody. They’d have to petition for