Christmas for Joshua - A Novel (9 page)

“
I’m not sure where exactly.” I held up the pen. “My great-great-grandfather, Patrick Dinwall, sailed across the Atlantic on a whaling ship and worked in the Great Lakes region as a trapper.”

“
Trepp-err?
”

“
He was known in the fur trade along the Canadian frontier for inventing a paw-trap to catch otters underwater.” I winced as Aaron kicked me under the table. “They named a lake after him. You can still find it on the map: Saint Patrick Lake.”

Rabbi Mintzberg repeated, “
Pah-tree-kheh?
”

“
Back then,” Aaron said, “they couldn’t pronounce Pinkhas.” He laughed, but no one else did.

I signed the ketubah and turned it around.

The stocky assistant tilted his hat back and peered at my signature. “What’s this?”

“
My legal name,” I said. “That’s how I sign checks. Do you want me to sign with my Hebrew name?”

The assistant wasn’t listening. He moved the ketubah slowly until it was in front of the old rabbi, who bent over it, lifting his glasses, and examined my signature, reading it aloud: “
Keh-rees-tee-anne?
”

“
That’s right.” I pulled the driver license from my wallet. “Christian Dinwall. My full and legal name.”

Rabbi Mintzberg uttered a strange squeak and turned to his assistant, who said something in Yiddish, which I didn’t understand. But I saw Dr. Levinson’s face go white. He whispered urgently in his son’s ear, and Mordechai said, “How could I know? She calls him Daddy!”

Aaron sighed. “Dr. Dinwall’s first name is Christian, but he’s no longer
a
Christian.”

“
That’s right,” I said. “I’ve gone through the whole conversion process twenty-some years ago.”

“
True,” Aaron said. “Our rabbi can confirm it.”

The assistant flipped open a mobile phone. “What’s the rabbi’s name and number?”

“
Rachel,” I said. “Rabbi Rachel Sher. Area code—”

“
Ray-shayle?
” Rabbi Mintzberg shook his head. “
Oy vey zmeer!
”

“
A woman?” The 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 can’t fix.” I reached behind my back for the door handle. “I’m going to step out of this room and let the five of you—righteous, kosher Jews—find a solution in accordance with Halacha.”

“
Move aside!” The assistant stepped closer to me.

“
Love your friend as you love yourself.
” I focused my gaze on the rabbi. “Isn’t that how Rabbi Akivah summarized the whole Torah?”

The old rabbi looked at me, surprised.

“
Think of this boy.” I pointed at Mordechai. “And of my daughter, who by her mother is also one of you, a kosher Jew, correct?”

Rabbi Mintzberg didn’t respond.

“Use the wisdom God gave you,” I said, halfway out the door, “and find a solution so that you can marry these kids.”

I slipped out and shut the door behind me, grasping the handle, ready for the bully assistant to try and force it open. But he didn’t, and despite the klezmer music in the hall, I could hear their voices inside the ketubah room, rising in rapid, angry Yiddish.

Eventually Aaron came out of the room alone. He wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his tuxedo. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “The old fart agreed to recognize your daughter’s Jewishness—”

“
Was there a doubt?”

“—
after calling some rabbis in the Bronx who knew your in-laws way back when.”

I nodded, swallowing my anger. From their Orthodox point of view, the shock of discovering that the bride’s father wasn’t Jewish had put everything else in question. But they had come around, accepting that Rebecca’s family was Jewish beyond blemish, and therefore so was Debra. “That’s very good,” I said. “So he’ll go forward with the ceremony?”

“
It depends.” Aaron averted his eyes.

“
On what?”

“
Please don’t get upset. It’s the best I could negotiate under the circumstances.”

“
Tell me!”

“
Rabbi Mintzberg won’t proceed unless you stay out.”

“
Out?”

“
He quoted a bunch of Talmudic rules, something about impurity of gentiles. Clearly it’s all because he’s pissed that no one had told him beforehand. He thinks it was intentional trickery so that you could sign the ketubah as if you’re a Jew.”

“
I don’t know enough to argue. It’s been decades since I opened a page of Talmud, you know?”

“
I’m not angry at you. Fine. I won’t sign it.”

“
Signing isn’t even on the table.” Aaron paused and looked at me.

“
Spell it out already!”

“
Rabbi Mintzberg issued a
Psak Halacha
, a religious judgment. He would go forward with the marriage ceremony only if you comply with certain conditions.”

“
What conditions?”

“
First, you may not continue to pretend to be a Jew.”

“
But I
am
a Jew!”

“
Not by his criteria. He wants you to stop misleading
real
Jews.”

“
Asshole.”

“
I agree.” Aaron sighed. “He demands that you remove the yarmulke and don’t participate in reciting blessings or in any singing or play a Jewish tune on any musical instrument.”

I felt my face burning. I had been a Jew for so long—not only because I had fallen in love with Rebecca, but because I had fallen in love with Judaism as well and embraced it as my own spiritual identity. I was a Jew when I woke up every day, chanting, “
Adon Olam, Master of the Universe, creator of all,
” and I was a Jew before falling asleep every night, reciting quietly, “
Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God, He is one.
” And I was a Jew during the day, every day, especially when a patient’s condition turned for the worse, and my lips moved as if on their own, “
Heal us, God, and we shall recover, save us, and we shall be saved, because You are the king of healers, compassionate and loving.
” And my little prayers helped to clear my mind and sharpen my eyes and steady my hands as I tightened a loose suture or singed a stubborn bleed. For over two decades I had spoken to God as a Jew, and He had listened to me as a Jew. But now, standing in a corridor at the Pillars of Joy, I was told to pretend that I wasn’t a Jew at all, that my embrace of this purest form of worship and my direct and honest relationship with the God of Abraham must be broken off. Rabbi Mintzberg had decided that I was a fake, and if I refused to acquiesce, my daughter’s happiest day would turn into her saddest night.

“
Here!” I removed the yarmulke from my head. “What choice do I have?”

“
There’s more.” Aaron hesitated.

“
Go ahead.” I mulled the yarmulke, my thumb rubbing the golden embroidery,
Debra & Mordechai’s Wedding.

“
No physical contact. In other words, you may not shake hands with any relatives or guests unless you first inform them that you are a gentile so they know to wash their hands afterwards.”

“
Do you have a red Sharpie? Just scribble it on my forehead:
Beware!
Filthy shaygetz
!”

“
I’ll write something on Mintzberg’s forehead!” Aaron blew air through his teeth. “Also, you may not touch food or wine or any tableware, dishes, cups, or containers that might come into contact with food or wine.”

“
I’ve lost my appetite already. Tell him I agree.”

“
It’s not all.” Aaron glanced up at me—he was a head shorter—and I saw tears in his eyes.

“
You kept the worst for last?”

He nodded. “You must remain at least nineteen feet away from the bride and groom. You may not come near the chuppah nor participate in any dancing nor speak with Debra or Mordechai for the duration of the wedding. No exceptions.”

I coughed to clear the tennis ball that suddenly materialized in my throat. “Why nineteen?”

“
It’s the numeric value of the Hebrew letters
Gimal
,
Vav
, and
Yod
.”

Even I, with my limited Hebrew, knew the word: “Goy.”

He nodded.

“
It’s a good thing he didn’t go with SHAYGETZ. I’d be swimming in the East River.”

Aaron wasn’t fooled by my sarcasm. He could tell I was about to break down. “It’s an abomination. You don’t have to agree.”

“
Really?” I pointed down the hallway at the crowded foyer, where a group of young women clustered around Debra. Beyond the foyer, the wedding hall was already full with guests. “There’s over five hundred people here!”

“
Screw these black hats. If Mordechai really loves her, he could walk out of there right now, fly to Arizona with us tomorrow morning, and get married in our synagogue.”

For a moment I was able to imagine it actually happening.

“
Let me go back in there,” Aaron said, “and have a word with Mordechai!”