Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (Harry Kemelman)

Kemelman is great at making the whole ethos of Judaism accessible and tangible even to Gentiles. Rabbi Small is also a great character.

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Quotes:

It is perhaps simplistic, but nevertheless indicative, that our equivalent of “Give us this day our daily bread” is “Blessed art thou, O Lord, for bringing forth bread from the earth.”

You would never know that this is the spiritual home of a people who for three thousand years or more considered themselves a nation of priests sworn to the service of God, because every bit of the energy of the congregation and the rabbi too will be bent on showing that this Jewish church is no different from any other church in the community.”

“I would not presume to suggest what a priest would or would not do, chief, but anything that a man might do a rabbi might do. We are no different from ordinary men. We are not even men of the cloth, as you call it. I have no duties or privileges that any member of my congregation does not have. I am only presumed to be learned in the Law by which we are enjoined to live.”

He knew it by a sudden realization that the great majority were all the same type: sleek, successful professional men and businessmen who belonged to the temple primarily as a social obligation, who were used to and expected the best of everything, who could be expected to have the same attitude toward a casual, unfashionable rabbi as they might toward an inefficient junior executive in their employ.

You have a hierarchy of saints who can intercede for the sinner, and finally you have a Purgatory, which is in the nature of a second chance. I might add that you have a Heaven and a Hell that help to right any wrongs in life on this earth. Our people have only the one chance. Our good deeds must be done on this earth in this life. And since there is no one to share the burden with them or to intercede for them they must do it on their own.”

“I know very little about these things,” said the rabbi, “but as a Talmudist I am not entirely without legal training. Your theory has a thousand loopholes.”

“Oh no, we stem from different traditions, all three of us. Monsignor O’Brien is a priest in the tradition of the priests of the Bible, the sons of Aaron. He has certain powers, magical powers, that he exercises in the celebration of the Mass, for example, where the bread and wine are magically changed to the body and blood of Christ. Dr. Skinner as a Protestant minister is in the tradition of the prophets. He has received a call to preach the word of God. I, a rabbi, am essentially a secular figure, having neither the mana of the priest nor the ‘call’ of the minister. If anything, I suppose we come closest to the judges of the Bible.”