Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry by Harry Kemelman

contract or no contract, this place will be too hot to hold him.”
     
    “It wouldn’t have hurt to show some enthusiasm, David. He was trying so hard to be nice and friendly, the least you could have done was to compliment him on the design.”
    “Honestly, Miriam, I tried, but the words stuck in my throat. I kept thinking how ridiculous the temple would look with that what did he call it? rich, simple, elegant, classic monstrosity along with his schmoosing gallery, and the words wouldn’t come out. Sorenson’s design may not be much, but it is simple and it has an austere grace that Schwarz wants to spoil just so he can show he can build something besides a supermarket. We need a chapel about as much as we need a bowling alley. We don’t need the extra space. And when the sanctuary is used for secular purposes, there’s no reason we can’t put a simple screen in front of the Ark as they do in other synagogues. Don’t you see, he wasn’t interested in improving the temple – only in advertising himself.”
    “All I see is that he was trying to be friendly, and you turned him down.”
    “I couldn’t buy his friendship on that basis. I don’t think for a moment that Goralsky would ask my opinion, but if he did I couldn’t give him a false impresson just to curry favor with Schwarz.” He could see she was still unconvinced. “Look, Miriam, as the rabbi of the congregation, a sort of public figure, I have to be nice to all kinds of people. I have to pretend an interest in things that truthfully don’t interest me at all. I have to busy myself with matters that aren’t worth the time I spend on them. And I do it. No matter how much I resent it, I do it. I do it because in some small way, they help the congregation or the community. But if I gushed all over Schwarz about how wonderful his design was, and how wonderful it would be for the congregation to have a little jewel of a chapel which could never be profaned by anything mundane or secular, and if I assured him that I would back him to the hilt in dealing with Goralsky, then I’d be doing it just to get in good with him, to make my job more secure, and that I couldn’t do.”
    “I don’t think the design is really so bad,” she said tentatively.
    “By itself, no. It’s a little fancy for my taste, but well within the range of acceptability if it stood alone. But when you slap it up against the wall of our present structure, don’t you see what the effect would be? The two buildings don’t blend. They clash. And because our present structure is simple with clean lines, and the proposed building is ornate and fancy, he’s hoping that people will make the comparison. What he’s saying in effect is, ‘See what you would have got if you had engaged me originally.’ “
    Still she did not answer. Her silence made him uncomfortable. “What is it, Miriam? What’s troubling you? Are you worried about what Schwarz can do?”
    “Oh, David, you know I’ve gone along with you in every important decision. After you got your degree, when you turned down that job in Chicago that paid so much money because you didn’t like the kind of congregation it seemed to be, I didn’t say a word although we were living on my salary as a typist – that and whatever occasional fees you got as a fill-in rabbi for the High Holy Days in small towns. And then there was the job at a good salary down in Louisiana that was the right kind of congregation but which you refused because you felt you couldn’t serve effectively in the South. Then there was the job as assistant rabbi in that Cleveland temple that paid more than most full rabbi jobs, but you said you didn’t want to serve under someone else and have to subordinate your own thinking to his. It was near the end of the hiring season, and you yourself felt that Hanslick was getting tired of offering you jobs you kept turning down. And it was I who urged you to turn it down; I told you I didn’t mind continuing my job