Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out by Harry Kemelman Read Free Book Online Page A

the opposite? What’s the antonym of sin?”
    “Virtue?” Mrs. Froelich offered. “A good deed.” suggested Mrs. Allen.
    The rabbi nodded. “It’s both of those things in English, but in Hebrew we have a single specific word for it, the word is mitzvah, and it means a commandment. When we perform what has been commanded us, we have done a mitzvah, the important thing to keep in mind is that a commandment carries with it the implication of something that you would not ordinarily do of your own accord, we do it because it is commanded, the reason for some of the commandments are obvious, the commandment to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest is something that we can readily understand, a day of rest once a week – that makes sense. You might do it without a commandment. But you might not be so willing to extend the privilege to your servants, hence, the commandment, the commandment that proscribes the mingling of linen and wool in garments, shatnes, is harder to understand, but devout Jews do it even though they can’t see the reason for it. Because it is commanded.”
    He paused to look at each of them in turn and then went on. “The important thing to remember is that while we are responsible for what is commanded, we get no extra points for doing what is not commanded, we are commanded to recite prayers three times a day; and there is no extra virtue in reciting them six times a day. In Christianity there is, the priest may prescribe the recital of a dozen Hail Marys as a penance, they have religious communities of monks and nuns who have vowed to pray all day long. While a pious Christian may spend a good deal of his time in prayer, it is not so in our religion. In study, yes, but not in prayer. Keep that in mind. It’s important. If you recite the blessing on wine or bread, and then don’t drink wine or taste a morsel of bread, it is not a mitzvah, but the reverse, the classic example is that of the person who, while away from home, hears fire engines and prays that it is not his house that is burning. Such a prayer is considered sinful for two reasons: because it implies that you want it to be someone else’s house that is burning; or because you are praying for an impossibility, that something that has already happened will not happen. Do you understand?” He peered at them eagerly through his thick-lensed glasses.
    “You mean,” began Mrs. Froelich uncertainly as she tried to frame her thought, “that – I can understand the first reason, but –”
    “Let me try to make it a little clearer.” said the rabbi. “I have a relative, my cousin Simcha. Simcha the Apicorus, we call him in the family, an Apicorus is an agnostic, from Epicurus, the Greek philosopher, and a mistaken notion of his doctrine, although Simcha is actually a pious and observant Jew, he has some queer notions about some of the commandments. For example, he does not consider chicken as meat in the context of the dietary laws, he argues that since the reason we do not mix meat and dairy foods is in elaborate adherence to the commandment. “Thou shalt not seethe the flesh of the kid in the milk of the mother.’ it does not apply to chicken, since chickens don’t give milk.”
    “Say, that’s cool,” Mrs. Allen exclaimed.
    The rabbi smiled. “He also refused to affix a mezuzah to his doorframe on the grounds that the commandment is ‘To write them on the doorposts of your house.’ and he argued that it wasn’t his house, that he was only renting. Now. I grant you that that’s a pilpul, a matter of splitting hairs, and pretty extreme at that, but it gives the general idea that a commandment is an obligation, not necessarily welcome, that one carries out because it is commanded. In the same vein, a famous rabbi said that one should not say of the foods forbidden by our dietary laws – pork, shellfish, and the others – that we will not eat them because they are unpleasant and unpalatable, but rather that they are tasty and even