MY RABBI, RAY CHARLES, AND SINGING BIRDS
EVANIER, DAVID
PERSPECTIVE MY RABBI, RAY CHARLES, AND SINGING BIRDS DAVID EVANIER I thought of my rabbi recently when my wife underwent a dangerous operation at Mount Sinai Hospital. (I call him my rabbi...
...Rabbi Levine held up the newspaper in his hand and proclaimed, "This is a terrible insult to the Queen...
...Well...
...Bagels are a big business in the States...
...I stood up...
...One sabbath, Susan and I were seated with twelve others in the church where his tiny congregation was forced to meet...
...I left five dollars on the table and left her standing there, shouting at me...
...I won't set fire to you...
...What day—what are you talking about...
...It's the big opportunity of the year to make money...
...On alternating weekends, when planes flew to the States with missions, I was on those planes...
...She'll have to be sent back...
...Perhaps you'll let me come to your home and spend time with you...
...Why not...
...Weeks passed, Sheila did not call us, and we did not call her...
...But I won't...
...It was human darkness that he had trouble understanding...
...He had trouble with bar mitz-vahs as well...
...I called Rabbi Levine and told him what happened...
...You're sitting on top of the world...
...I said...
...When I went back to my apartment alone at night, I couldn't sleep, and I put a Ray Charles record on...
...He remained a rabbi...
...again of Rabbi Levine...
...We went to see him for a last time...
...During the day, in her hospital room, I had watched the doctor probing the hole in her neck...
...Beside him was an obese, limpid girl in a swollen black dress...
...On our way into the services, there were two armed guards stationed at the door...
...1 heard what you called me that day...
...One day, I was seated alone at a restaurant...
...Here there is an emptiness...
...His face suddenly lit...
...When he sang "For Mama," I lay in our bed and saw the doctor all over again probing Susan's neck...
...I closed my eyes, but opened them again, because it was her skin...
...and without waiting for an answer, left the room...
...You called me a Jew—" "I didn't...
...My Army days...
...I thought of my rabbi then, for he let us play a Ray Charles record at the beginning and the end of our wedding...
...I felt at home...
...I'm sorry...
...He shook his head...
...he would begin his conversion session...
...So the guys worked it out...
...He likes them...
...I would have to see them, naturally...
...We were silent...
...I would have to see them...
...no one has taken his place...
...My own building...
...I heard what you called me that day," she hissed...
...I've been watching you both," she said...
...My last congregation...
...On Passover, he went through a crisis with the congregation...
...I tried to laugh...
...What day...
...I only show them to rabbis...
...Sidney, I sincerely hope that someday you will remember this day and wish you'd done better...
...She stared at Susan...
...They have onion bagels, cheese, pumpernickel, garlic, blueberry, sesame, and so on...
...She had a vacant, sullen, withdrawn look...
...Chickie, a fulsome lady, rested her elbow against the wall...
...People around us stood up, some walked out, one man shook his fist at the rabbi...
...The poem begins: Upon Israel and upon the rabbis and upon the disciples and upon all the disciples of their disciples and upon all who study the Torah in this place and in every place, to them and to you peace The poem goes on to ask for safety for all the persecuted Jews of the world...
...People around us looked up proudly at the boy, and expectantly at the rabbi...
...We said we wanted the poem to be read intact...
...One Friday night, the bar mitzvah boy had completed his speech, and it was time for the rabbi to speak...
...I call him my rabbi although I have not seen him in four years, since I left Calgary, Canada...
...The look of someone who wasn't used to talking with people anymore...
...Suddenly he smiled...
...And doing what...
...We backed away...
...Again, in the dark, I shielded my eyes and opened them...
...Well...
...We sat with him in his closet study, the dog barking, the children running about, and Chickie battering the dishes in the kitchen...
...I've thought about this for a long time...
...We heard muttering in the congregation, and a lady beside us said aloud: "You call this a sermon...
...I never—I would never—" "You called me a dirty Jew...
...Not moving on, but making a change...
...Services, too, often seemed mechanical and by rote...
...He thought that as a writer and editor, I might offer her encouragement...
...I wish I could go back to Texas...
...Here is our number...
...Ask Rabbi Levine about my poems...
...I'd like to open up a storefront synagogue...
...He finally agreed...
...You called me a dirty Jew...
...Of course that has been in my mind...
...YOU CALLED ME A DIRTY JEW...
...I wrote it down...
...But wherever we moved, we saw Sheila, standing alone, staring at us...
...I don't want you to judge them...
...What kind of change...
...Perhaps you too should be thinking of moving on," I said...
...Rabbi Levine called me once and said he wanted a favor of me...
...Oh yes...
...What...
...It has a meaningful message...
...The following Friday, Rabbi Levine was incensed about an ad that had appeared in the local paper...
...He had traced the queen's lineage back over the centuries and had come to the certain conclusion that she was descended from King David...
...He looked rueful, and stroked his beard...
...You're getting rid of me very easily...
...We stared at their pistols as we showed them that we were entitled to enter the synagogue...
...Will you publish my poems...
...At our wedding, we had also asked Rabbi Levine to read a favorite poem of ours, "Kaddish," by Charles Reznikoff...
...What...
...Texas...
...Greenland...
...Put on a pair of jeans, go to where the people are, and take them off the street...
...We played the Ray Charles record one day at his home and asked his permission to use it at the wedding...
...My poems are written for rabbis...
...I like it...
...I thought she was getting better," he said...
...Committed, motivated members...
...You are so lucky...
...For some time now I've thought of opening a bagel shop...
...I wish you the best but you already have the best...
...You can't see them...
...came a shout from the kitchen...
...We sat a moment, looking at Rabbi Levine and his majestic beard...
...There was a girl who had come to him and shown him her poetry...
...Birds outside began to sing very loudly...
...You can ask him...
...We backed away...
...You are so lucky...
...I was young, I was intense...
...My wife is well now, and I think David Evanier is the former Associate Editor o/Hadassah Magazine...
...Stop me if I'm repeating myself...
...Kugel or tzimmes with the roast chicken...
...His study had no door...
...Chickie was in Brooklyn and I was in Greenland...
...You don't know how lucky you are...
...I was young, I couldn't stand it...
...You know what I really want to do...
...You're so pretty," she said to Susan...
...I smell bad...
...I was afraid she would strike me...
...She was alone, a little troubled...
...When we called Rabbi Levine to tell him, I began, "We've decided—" "—to get out of Calgary," he finished the sentence for us...
...What a difference...
...He stopped talking...
...Shaken, we left the building...
...The church would be filled for a change on such occasions with the family and friends of the bar mitzvah boy—some of whom might conceivably join the fledgling congregation if the rabbi were appealing...
...Jew...
...Upon Israel and upon all who meet with unfriendly glances, sticks and stones and names—on posters, in newspapers, or in books to last, chalked on asphalt or in acid on glass, shouted from a thousand thousand windows by radio...
...he paused for a moment...
...He said he would perform the marriage, but on the condition that Susan faithfully attend conversion sessions with him for several months during which he would immerse her in the history and meaning of Judaism...
...Rabbi Levine was giving his sermon...
...You edit a magazine...
...They only wait for the jokes...
...His stories have appeared in Commentary, The National Jewish Monthly and Midstream...
...It would certainly be a first for Calgary...
...Kugel it will be...
...I will have to call her psychiatrist...
...It was written in 1936...
...There is kindness in your eyes...
...Queen Elizabeth was visiting Calgary, and a local citizen had taken a full-page ad entitled: "Queen, You Have Nothing To Be Ashamed Of...
...You have everything going for you...
...Why do you insist that I be Jewish...
...Kugel...
...But look, call us...
...Actually it was the psychiatrist who told me she was improving...
...On a Friday night after the service, Susan and I were having coffee and cake when Rabbi Levine walked over to us...
...He lowered his head into his hands...
...She went back to the kitchen...
...I'm used to it...
...They had no building...
...Her name was Sheila Levin...
...This is Sheila," he said, and walked off...
...Don't trouble with me if you don't want to...
...The rabbi placed a hand on the boy's shoulder...
...Can I call you up on the phone...
...It was during one of his conversion sessions that he was conducting with Susan, whose parents were non-observant Protestants...
...In Hebrew school, I was taught to read without learning the meaning of the words...
...Yes...
...I showed them to Rabbi Levine...
...who are pushed out of their class-rooms and rushing trains whom the hundred hands of a mob strike...
...What can I say that is as beautiful as that...
...But how can I judge them if I can't see them...
...You're getting rid of me...
...That left us only one choice, and that is how we came to know Rabbi Levine, the one Reform rabbi in freezing Calgary...
...Sheila did not bother us again...
...Her stare swung to me...
...He smiled...
...My wife and I decided to leave Calgary and return to New York...
...Jew...
...Actually it was Chickie's suggestion...
...Which is perhaps why, on the following night, Rabbi Levine's sermon was on the theme that Jonathan Livingston Seagull was Jewish...
...He paused again...
...We walked to other corners of the room and talked with other people...
...I won't set fire to it...
...We joined Rabbi Levine's congregation...
...I sometimes went with Susan to these sessions, which were held at Rabbi Levine's home—a one floor house next to a row of like houses...
...I trust him...
...I'm sorry...
...She stood over me...
...We had brought the record along and played it for him and his wife, Chickie...
...She would work out front...
...I spent the night in Brooklyn, the next day I went back to Greenland...
...But in Levine's congregation, watching him stumble, grope, argue, and express his arbitrariness in truly amazing ways (One night he said on five different occasions: "Maybe I'm tired of being Jewish...
...You have everything...
...I had never belonged to a synagogue before, and often felt like a stranger in one...
...I pleaded with them that it was a terrible thing, but when I came to the services myself, there they were...
...When my wife and I planned our marriage, we had to find a rabbi who would convert her...
...I heard you...
...After the song, "All I Ever Need Is You," ended, Chickie said to us, "Are your friends pretty informal...
...Yes, sure," I said...
...Rabbi Levine agreed to read the poem aloud, but made a suggestion: that we remove the last two lines...
...You're very, very lucky...
...I'll leave your pretty face alone...
...Sidney, I could ask you to try again...
...To do the whole thing over again...
...I've been thinking about leaving the rabbinate...
...Will you publish my poems...
...The board of the congregation, they're businessmen you know...
...Later in the week we sat with him on the couch...
...I don't know...
...I have no one...
...They decided the only way to make sure we would collect fees from people coming to services (the ones who only come on the holidays) would be this way...
...I'm used to it...
...I signaled for a check and started to move away...
...It would be a good deed...
...But your phone is unlisted...
...They had real guns...
...No trap doors will slam down on you...
...Where did I leave off last time...
...Shortly after that we were at his house again for Susan's next conversion lesson...
...May the birds continue to sing for him, and may Rabbi Levine continue to stop at their song, look up, and not know what to do...
...I know it wouldn't do any good...
...We asked why, and he said he thought they were too depressing, too disturbing...
Vol. 4 • November 1978 • No. 1
