Sweet Like Sugar by Wayne Hoffman

need to get off my feet for a moment,” he said.
    One of the congregants opened the door to B’nai Tikvah, while another took the rabbi’s elbow to lead him back inside the synagogue. A wall of backs turned to me.
    â€œYou could lie down on my couch,” I offered to the backs of their heads.
    The rabbi stopped. Turned. Nodded at me once.
    Had he chosen me over his fellow worshippers? Or merely my cushioned futon over B’nai Tikvah’s wooden benches? The man at the rabbi’s side stepped back and I took the rabbi’s arm, walking him slowly toward my office. The congregants stood for a moment, waiting.
    â€œThank you very much,” the rabbi said to them without looking back. “Gut Shabbes.” And they dispersed.
    Leaning on me for support as we walked across the parking lot, past his closed bookstore, the rabbi had no words for me until we reached my office. Then he spoke.
    â€œYou were at work this morning?” he asked while I unlocked the door. “On Saturday?”
    I nodded. He shook his head. I opened the door.
    â€œNo lights,” he said, holding up his hand to stop me as I reached for the switch. “It’s Shabbat.”
    We weren’t stuck in the dark; I simply opened the blinds and let in the daylight. But I quickly realized that “no lights” had other implications: Observing the Sabbath meant no computer, no phone, no writing. No work. What was I supposed to do while he was there lying down?
    We could talk. That, at least, was allowed.
    He kicked off his shoes, put his hat on my desk, and draped his suit jacket over the doorknob. His white shirt was missing a button and his collar was stained from sweat.
    Then he lay down on my couch. He hadn’t been there for weeks.
    â€œSo what happened?” I asked him finally.
    â€œWhat happened?” he repeated. “I fell.”
    â€œI know you fell. But why?”
    He shrugged.
    â€œAre you sick?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œIt can’t be the heat this time,” I said. It was a gorgeous eighty-degree day, the kind Washingtonians long for all summer.
    Another shrug. This wasn’t going to be a heartfelt dialogue, I could tell. It was more like pulling teeth.
    I asked the rabbi if he wanted a glass of water. He said no.
    I asked the rabbi if he’d eaten anything. He said no. He’d forgotten.
    I told the rabbi I’d get him something from the sandwich shop. He said no. It was forbidden to use money on Shabbat. Besides, everything in that shop, he said, was treyf.
    â€œThey have veggie subs,” I said. “Mrs. Goldfarb says those are kosher.”
    â€œShe is wrong,” he said.
    I’d forgotten about the thousand degrees of kosher. For some Jews, the ingredients had to be kosher; for others, the pots and pans and dishes had to be, too. Some were concerned only about the food, while others demanded certification of the entire restaurant from a central authority. No matter where you fell, one person would think your rules were unnecessarily strict, while another would consider them too lax.
    I’d been eating bacon cheeseburgers so long, I’d forgotten about how, when I was growing up, my family had our own mishmash of rules, not unusual for a Conservative Jewish household. We checked packaged goods for a “K” certifying they were kosher, bought meat at a kosher butcher, and never had pork in the house. But Chinese food containing shrimp was granted a special exemption as long as it was eaten directly from cardboard carryout containers with plastic forks. And while my mother would never mix meat and dairy on the same plate, she’d serve kosher ice cream for dessert after a kosher chicken dinner. When I mentioned all this to my sixth-grade Hebrew school teacher, she told me that there was no such thing as “sort-of” kosher, so my mother might as well have served us pork chops and pepperoni pizza. What would the rabbi have said