Free That Day the Rabbi Left Town by Harry Kemelman Page A

fact of the human condition, and we don’t beat our heads against reality. We don’t try to censor thought any more than we censor books. Was that the only difference?”
    â€œOh no, it was all sorts of things, even food. I mean, he wasn’t observant or anything like that. I mean he didn’t go in for all that kosher stuff, like two sets of dishes, but there were things he’d never eaten. When we went out for dinner and I’d order oysters on the half shell as an appetizer, he’d look away. He couldn’t watch me eating them. And after we were married and I’d make a ham steak for dinner, or pork chops, he wouldn’t be able to eat. He’d say he wasn’t hungry.”
    â€œEarly food habits are hard to overcome, I suppose,” said the rabbi.
    â€œYes, but curiously, he likes lobster. But only in a restaurant. He won’t let me buy them and cook them at home.”
    â€œSo what happened?”
    â€œSo I kept my flat, and during the week I stay there, sometimes with Lew, and sometimes alone.”
    â€œI see, and because sometimes you don’t get along with your husband, you became anti-Semitic?”
    She laughed. “Oh, that was just to get a rise out of you. I thought you might get kind of stuffy if I upset you.”
    â€œI see. And if I had, you wouldn’t want to audit my course?”
    â€œOh, I guess I would. I really do want to know what—what makes you people tick.”
    â€œTick?”
    â€œYes, you know, what makes you different. I think maybe it’s because you people don’t believe things, and we do.”
    â€œI’m afraid I don’t understand.”
    â€œWell, for instance, we’re taught to believe in Santa Claus when we’re children. And we’re four or five years old before we get over it. Do you have anything like that?”
    â€œNo, I can’t say that we have,” the rabbi answered, his eyes twinkling.
    â€œAll right. Then we’re taught the Adam and Eve story. That because they sinned by eating the apple, all generations of mankind are born in sin, and if they’re not baptized, they’ll burn in hell forever when they die. We’re usually in our late teens before we begin thinking that it’s more symbolic than actual, and some of us go on believing, at least on Sundays. That gives you a head start on the rest of us: you don’t have to believe in anything if it doesn’t make sense. Life is so easy for you. You don’t have to worry about hell all the time. There was a saint or a holy man of some sort in the Middle Ages who never laughed. He said, ‘My Lord is crucified and shall I laugh?’ Well, we have the feeling that enjoyment, anything that gives us pleasure, is apt to be sinful and may lead to hell. It wouldn’t be so bad if yours was one of those strange Eastern religions like Buddhism, say, but ours derives from yours, and your prophets are also ours. But you can enjoy life while we can’t. So we’re jealous of you. Maybe that’s the reason for anti-Semitism.”
    He smiled. “And you think by taking my course you might learn to disbelieve?”
    â€œYou’re laughing at me,” she said, “but I’m thinking I might get to know Lew better.”

Chapter 12
    Three of the four desks and the several tables had been removed, and a large, oblong table had been installed instead. A dozen chairs had been set around the table, and the rabbi wheeled his swivel chair over. A blackboard had been installed in a corner: the rabbi wrote his name on it and announced, “I am Rabbi David Small.”
    He glanced at his class list and said, “On the basis of the names on my list, I presume all of you are Jewish.” He smiled. “So we have a minyan.”
    â€œThere are only nine of us,” someone objected.
    â€œAnd I make the necessary ten,” said the rabbi. “Being the tenth man at a minyan