Jerusalem Syndrome - Marc Maron [49]
I walked out of the sanctuary and I was about to leave, but Rosalie stopped me. “The rabbi is in his office. He’s been looking forward to seeing you,” she said.
“Really? Right now?” I said. “I don’t know. Is he alright?”
“He has his good days and his bad days. Today seems to be a good day. He’s on a new medicine that seems to work, but it makes his face somewhat expressionless.” She walked me to the door of his office.
Rabbi Celnik was sitting at his desk, and when he saw me he stood up. I had forgotten he was like six foot five. He wasn’t that old, maybe fifty-five. He had the same gray hair he always had, even when he was younger. He had a soft, friendly face and wore glasses. He walked over to me in the same peaceful, humble, warm lope I remembered as a kid when he walked up beside me as I prepared to read from the Torah. We shook hands.
“How are you?” he asked with no expression. “It’s great to see you.” I could see how he felt in his eyes. He was happy.
“Thanks. It’s really great to see you too,” I said. We sat down.
“Tell me what you’ve been up to,” he said.
I had never really spoken to the rabbi as an adult before. I didn’t know what to talk about, so I immediately started whining. I told him that my career wasn’t working out the way I wanted it to. I told him about the end of my marriage. I told him about my family annoying me. I told him how it had been a rough year for me. I just blah-blah-blahed like a little baby. He listened and seemed to understand. I felt comforted by him even though I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years.
I felt selfish, so I asked him how he was doing. He told me about his Parkinson’s and how the new medicine he was on was helping. He told me about his new marriage. His first had ended after his wife had an affair with a member of the congregation. He told me that his new wife was ill with cancer but doing alright and that they had a beautiful new baby. He talked proudly about his older children from the first marriage. It was all very heartbreaking and bittersweet.
When I got up to leave he said, “What you do, Marc, provides a tremendous service to people. We are happy to have you here. You are performing a mitzvah by being here.”
“Thanks. I’m glad I’m here,” I said. “It’s been really great talking to you.” We shook hands.
“Before I leave,” I said, “do you remember my haftorah?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “It was Re’eh. It is a very beautiful one.”
“Can you tell me what it’s about, basically?”
“Basically,” he said through the side of his mouth, “it’s about having faith in the face of disappointment.”
“How’s your faith?” I said.
“Stronger than ever,” he said, eyes smiling.
The night of the performance I was nervous. During the dinner I sat at a table with the rabbi and my old friends Dave and Steve, who had come to see me. I had known them since I was nine. We were all in Mrs. Reinman’s class together. During the dinner Mr. Ross came up to me and whispered in my ear, “You will need to wear a kippa in the sanctuary.”
I said, “Really?”
He shot me a look.
“Okay,” I conceded, cowering.
When I stepped up to the podium I was overwhelmed by warmth. I felt love and loved. I looked out into the crowd and saw all the faces of the people that were grown-ups when I was a kid; they were all old. I felt as if I had been wandering for years and finally came home. Mrs. Reinman sat at the center table. Seeing her brought me back to a simpler time in my mind. A time when saying the Hebrew alphabet all the way through was a great accomplishment, and it was enough.
These people knew me when I was ten. I found that my feelings toward some of them were still the ones I felt at ten. There was Marilyn Bromberg, who was the president