Himmelshine

by Bernard Brachya Cohen

August 18, 2010

You could never really believe women found him attractive. A squat body, capped by a thicket of carrot-red hair that defied combing, this was Himmelshine--friend, then enemy. After more than a quarter of a century, I forced myself to see him again.

He reentered my life when his name appeared on the bulletin board of the only synagogue in our South Carolina town.

Meet Our New Rabbi

Rabbi Herschel Himmelshine

I passed the synagogue almost daily but had never been inside. The building, once a home like the other white frame houses on the leafy street, retained its originalexterior, except for the bulletin board on the front lawn now informing me of Himmelshine’s arrival.

When we'd first met years ago, it didn't occur to me that the short, pudgy man with the unwieldy mop of red hair was like myself, a student. I had just arrived at the rabbinical college by cab from Pennsylvania Station; my trunk, sent earlier by Railway Express, lay unopened on the floor of my dormitory room. To avoid a conspicuous late entrance into the cafeteria, I hurried down the unfamiliar hall to the elevator, accompanied only by the sound of my footsteps on the concrete floor. Students were beginning to gather in the lounge; as I entered a man wearing a baggy suit turned to me, extending a fat hand.

"I'm Himmelshine, Herschel Himmelshine," he said, his smile displaying teeth widely spaced.

We shook hands. I asked, “Do you work here?"

"Rarely."

Himmelshine flashed his gap-toothed smile. When he remained at my side as we entered the cafeteria, pausing to introduce me to other students, I realized he was an upperclassman. Under his guidance, I reached for a plastic tray and stood in line at the serving counter. With grand flourishes of his short arms, Himmelshine provided an orientation to the new setting.

"Here you will find the silverware--napkins here--there is the bread--you can choose coffee, tea or milk."

There were introductions to the white-jacketed staff ladling out food, to the cafeteria manager hovering in the background, and then to the cashier, an elderly woman who punched the meal tickets.

"A new student," Himmelshine announced, as though he were an impresario presenting a star performer.

As we took our trays to a table, Himmelshine reminded me that the rabbinical school provided food as well as lodgings at no cost to the students.

"Yes, we're all on scholarships here. No earthly concerns to keep us from total dedication to Torah."  He finished his soup and patted his lips with a napkin.

I asked, "How is it possible for all of us to receive scholarships?"

“A generous benefactor. Years ago, a noble merchant prince named Joshua Pleat endowed the student body with perpetual feed and a place to sleep. Pleat was a man of humble origins who rose to great wealth--he knew how an empty stomach could distract one from scholarly pursuits."  Himmelshine paused, his voice solemn. "I wrote a poem in honor of our benefactor. Would you like to hear it?"

I said yes, and Himmelshine intoned:

   "Forever indebted to Joshua Pleat

    For our daily portion of bread and meat

   Young rabbis devour his posthumous salary

   Of bed, board, Cabala and calorie."

My amusement lasted for but a moment. I was quite serious about my vocation then and felt a mild aversion toward Himmelshine and his humor. Had he forgotten the impoverished rabbinical students of the past, whose beds were the hard benches of the yeshiva, and who found relief from hunger only on the Sabbath, if fortunate enough to be invited to someone's home?  And further back in time, what of the grim privations endured by Hillel, Akiba and other sages in their passion to study Torah--was not Himmelshine mocking them all?

For the remainder of the meal, I said little. But when leaving the dining room, I felt courtesy required a parting comment.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning at services.

"Himmelshine shook his head. "I won't be there. Prayer is verbal masturbation. I haven't prayed since God knows when."

                                                            #

I immersed himself in the study of Talmud, Bible and Jewish history, made new friends and succeeded in avoiding Himmelshine. But my initial aversion began to fade when I underwent a serious religious crisis. Questions about faith that had never entered my mind before now preoccupied me. At night my ruminations kept me awake. I spent hours in the school library searching classic texts but failed to discover satisfactory answers. I was reluctant to approach my professors, fearing they would ridicule my concerns as being naive, or worse, that they might admit to equally heretical views.

It was to Himmelshine that I finally turned.

My attendance at morning services in the rabbinical school synagogue, which had become erratic, ceased completely by the end of my first year. A lifetime of dedication to Jewish observance was crumbling. I began to experiment with non-Kosher foods; first, a surreptitious order of scrambled eggs at a drug store lunch counter--eggs prepared in the same black skillet in which I had observed strips of bacon crackle earlier. Then, a lamb chop dinner in a restaurant a safe distance from the rabbinical college. Next, a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.

Not attending morning services meant sleeping later, at times missing breakfast in the school dining room. One morning I walked several blocks to a restaurant I had not tried before and took a table in the rear. After looking about to make certain I didn't know any of the other patrons, I whispered my order to the waitress, a pretty young woman who had to bend down to hear me. Just as she returned with my bacon and eggs, I was horrified to see Himmelshine walk in the front door. He spotted me at once, his round pink face breaking into a wide grin.

"Aha!" he said. "So you too are a late riser!"

Not waiting for an invitation, Himmelshine pulled up a chair and I watched him with anxiety, waiting for some response to the platter on the table. The waitress appeared and gave Himmelshine a bright smile of recognition. "The usual, my dear," he said.

After she left I asked Himmelshine if he knew her.

"Yes indeed. Her name is Flora."  He added, "I've had a lot of fauna with Flora."

Soon Flora returned with a loaded tray of orange juice, toast, ham and eggs, potatoes and coffee, and Himmelshine explained, "I like a substantial breakfast—you just can’t get this in our dining room."

We agreed that the bright fall day should not be spent in class and after breakfast we took a bus to Washington Square.

In evenings that followed we made the rounds together--dances at Columbia and NYU, bars in the Village. The pattern quickly emerged: Himmelshine charmed the girls and soon he went off with one of them, leaving me behind, alone.

“You’re too intellectual, too serious,” he’d say. “You’re putting Descartes before the horse. Save the philosophy for later.”

                                                            #

Late one night, as we walked along quiet streets from the subway to the dorm, I finally confided in him.

“I’m thinking of quitting.”

“Quitting? Quitting what?”

“Rabbinical school. I’m leaving.”

“Really? Why?”

“It would be unethical for me to stay. I’ve changed.”

I hoped Himmelshine would respond with a quip, dissolving the serious tone of my confession. But before he could he could speak, I found myself blurting out, “It would be dishonest to continue. I no longer believe in prayer. The idea of God--I find it more difficult these days. I’m preoccupied with the Holocaust, not just the horrible events and the books and films. It’s the religious implications. We say in our prayers every day that God has a great love for us, His people. What kind of love did God show during the slaughter of millions?  We sing that the Torah is 'A tree of life for all who grasp it.'  A tree of life?  Isn't that a mockery?  In the Grace After Meals, we say we’ve never seen a righteous man begging for bread–-I can’t recite that passage without recalling the pictures of starving children lying in ghetto streets. Whatever rationalization you fabricate for a God concept, how could I, as a rabbi, honestly lead others in such prayers?  I was supposed to conduct services in a suburban synagogue next weekend--I can’t go through with it.”

Himmelshine shook his head. "Must you believe everything you say?  So what if you sell poetic illusions-isn't every role a deception?  Who is really himself when he earns his livelihood?  Everyone tries to be what the boss, the client, the customer, the patient, expects him to be. Every role is a mask: the difference between people is that some realize they are actors, others don't. I know I'm an actor. In this world of deceivers, my boy, the only real deception is self deception."

“I can’t accept that,” I said. “I can’t tell Jews that there is a God who listens to our prayers and loves us.”

“Okay. Then think of our prayers as poetry. The Torah is myth--poetry on parchment. Probably the best religious poetry ever written. We don’t believe that myths are true but we value them, don’t we?  Just look at Greek mythology, for example.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not good enough for me.”

Himmelshine shook his head in mock exasperation. Looking up, he raised his hands heavenward and asked, "Why do people insist on making a moral issue out of religion?"

                                                            #

The eve of the Day of Atonement. I found myself in an old, vaguely familiar Orthodox synagogue with heavy mahogany woodwork, cream-colored walls long turned dark yellow, and a women's balcony fading into the shadows. The worship was led by my grandfather, a tall, white-bearded man of awesome piety, chanting the Kol Nidre before the open holy ark. Standing beside him, I peered beyond the Torah scrolls into the recesses of the ark, which as a child I believed contained a hidden passageway to God. On this most sacred night of the year I was surprised to find a small brown paper bag in my hand; I opened it and extracted a sandwich. The praying halted in abrupt silence, and to everyone's horror, including my own, I unwrapped the sandwich, raised it to my mouth, and violating the fast, took a bite. My grandfather's voice pierced the tense stillness with a scream; the old man lunged at me and tried to snatch the sandwich away, but I held on to it and managed another bite. Several worshipers leaped onto the platform in front of the open ark, joining my grandfather in the struggle. Soon I was on the floor, caught in a tangle of prayer shawls and fringes; somehow I managed to pull free. Bounding off the platform, sandwich in hand, I raced to the synagogue exit; I made it safely to the street, and after running for some time slowed my pace, gasping. I glanced over my shoulder and was shocked to see the entire congregation in hot pursuit, the men in the lead with their prayer shawls fluttering in the wind, the women and children close behind. Gripped by fear, I resumed my flight with redoubled effort. Yet the congregation kept drawing closer, and finally a black-bearded man in the lead reached out, seized me by the shoulders and spun me around; in his dark eyes I saw deep pain and then I awoke, heart pounding.

                                                            #

A girl was the reason for staying on a while longer. Annamarie had arrived from Bavaria to study the harpsichord at Julliard. A wispy creature who wore her blonde hair in a bun, her accented English was subdued and halting. She wished to convert to Judaism, and I had been asked to be her tutor in Hebrew, Jewish history, and religion. I knew I was the wrong person for the job, but my reluctance dissolved when I saw her for the first time.

Curiosity as well as attraction drew me to her. During a history lesson one rainy afternoon, when we were reviewing the slaughter of Jewish communities in Europe by the crusaders on their way to the Holy Land, I asked why was she embracing the Jewish faith.

"Why do you want to take on this history of pain?"

She paused, then said, “Because of my family.”

Later I learned that her father was sentenced to death at Nuremberg. “My mother tried to hide it–-she was ashamed. When I found out, I felt I had to do something to make up for what my people did to the Jews.”

Annamarie made rapid progress in her studies, but as we sat together in a corner of the library I was unable to keep my attention on the open texts before us. There were moments of silence that ended only when her glance made me realize I had been staring at her. She responded to my awkwardness with amused but kindly tolerance.

                                                            #

At first, Himmelshine teased me about my preoccupation with Annamarie, for I now spoke of nothing else. However, when I confided that I wanted to marry her, he grew serious and refused to comment.

"The humble man sticks to his area of competence," he explained. "I can tell you all you wish to know about God, but don't ask me about love."

At last I summoned up the courage to reveal my feelings to Annamarie. She phoned one morning before breakfast to say that she couldn't come for her lesson because of illness. Standing in the hall telephone booth in my bathrobe, I offered to go to her home. She hesitated, then with much gratitude, accepted.

She lived with an aunt, a psychiatrist who had offices and an apartment in a Sutton Place town house. At the door I could hear the rhythms of a Scarlatti sonata. A uniformed maid let me in and directed me to a spacious, high ceilinged Victorian living room where I found Annamarie at the baby grand, beside a tall red-draped window. I stood in the doorway until Annamarie stopped playing.

She asked, "Is everything all right?"

I nodded, and we sat down side by side at the small antique table that held her books. She looked at me, waiting, but instead of describing the lesson of the day as I always did, I blurted out that there was something I had to say: I cared for her a great deal. She grew pensive and her smile faded. "I am so sorry."  Gently she said that while very fond of me, there was someone else.

Flooded by a heavy melancholy, I could not speak. At last Annamarie broke the silence by picking up her prayer book and stumbling through a Hebrew passage.

                                                            #

In the days that followed, I took long walks along Riverside Drive, tormenting myself with the fantasy that her boyfriend was probably a music student too, perhaps a violinist with whom she played Bach sonatas. I could see them standing on a stage together, bowing before an enthusiastic, applauding audience. 

Continuing as her teacher was unthinkable. I sent a letter terminating our arrangement, only to berate myself for having cut off the possibility of ever seeing her again. The desire to look at her one more time grew overwhelming, and one warm day after class I went to her house, posted myself unobtrusively across the street and waited. The hours seemed endless; streams of cars, trucks, and people passed; then at dusk a cab drew up. The door swung open and Annamarie, laughing, stepped out with her escort. Himmelshine. They walked hand in hand to her house and soon were gone.

I managed to get back to the school dormitory where I found a spot in the lounge near the elevator and waited. Close to midnight Himmelshine appeared, jacket over his arm, tie pulled loose at an open collar. He stopped suddenly when he saw me. I rose, my sadness swept away by fury.

"Why did you do it?"

Startled, Himmelshine pulled back. His belly, hanging over the edge of his belt, seemed about to burst out of his wilted shirt. I punched hard and with a grunt he toppled back into a leather armchair.

"You know how I felt about her."  My voice echoed through the empty lounge. "I thought you were my friend." 

I stood over him and he raised a protective arm.

"You're not my friend,"  I said. "You're my enemy."

Himmelshine looked up at me and tried to smile. "I am both," he said. "Isn't every man?"

                                                            #

After being certain all these years that he was out of my life, a family crisis compelled me to bring Himmelshine back in. I had to tell him about my son. On my way home from teaching late one afternoon, I tried to open the front door of his synagogue, hoping to find Himmelshine inside. The door was locked. I tried again the next morning on my way to work, and this time the knob turned.

I entered a closet-sized vestibule. One wall displayed an honor roll of donors to the building fund; on the facing wall, a bronze memorial plaque bore the names of deceased congregants. Alongside a few of the names a miniature electric bulb radiated a soft glow, commemorating the anniversary of death.

From where I stood I could see the sanctuary--rows of seats, all empty, yet retaining the aura of absent worshipers. I glanced down the aisle toward the holy ark, its door covered by a gold-embroidered curtain. Above the ark stood an engraved replica of the Ten Commandments, guarded on either side by a carved golden lion, sentinels that had failed to protect the ark from my son.

I turned away and found two offices, one with a sign reading “Rabbi” on the door. The door was slightly ajar and while I couldn’t see Himmelshine I heard his voice; he was on the phone. I waited for the conversation to end, then knocked.

“Come in.”

A strange uneasiness seized me as I opened the door. I saw bookshelves lining a wall, holding tall volumes of the Talmud plus ordinary volumes and paperbacks. Where the wall held no books, the space was taken by framed photographs, diplomas and certificates.

Himmelshine sat behind a large, paper-cluttered desk. His hair, streaked with gray, had thinned and lost its luster; the pudgy face, heavily lined and bejowled, was now a flabby distortion of what I had remembered. But the widely spaced teeth, a bit yellowed, remained the same.

As Himmelshine rose, looking puzzled, I realized my old schoolmate did not recognize me. After a momentary twinge during which I wondered if age had dramatically altered my own appearance, I realized that prematurely white hair and a beard now masked my identity. I chose to hide behind the disguise--why add old pain to the new?

“Yes?”

“Rabbi--I teach at the College. Can I speak to you for a few minutes?”

He stood up. “Of course, of course.”  With a familiar grand gesture, he pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Professor. What can I do for you?”

"I learned about a recent theft--here, at your synagogue."

Himmelshine raised his eyebrows. "A theft?”

"Yes."

"What do you mean?"

"Torah ornaments. They were stolen from your synagogue."

Himmelshine leaned forward. "What are you talking about?"

"Two days ago Torah ornaments were stolen from the holy ark."

Himmelshine stared at me, then rose quickly. "Let's go and look."

I followed him into the sanctuary, pausing to take a yarmulke from the box near the last row. Placing it on the back of my head, I felt an odd sensation from the past. Himmelshine stood before the ark, drew open the curtain, then pulled aside the wooden doors, exposing a blue velvet covered Torah scroll resting against the wall.

"They're gone!” Turning to me, he demanded, “The shield, the finials--where are they?”

Feeling accused, I said, "I just learned of the theft."

"Yes, but what happened?  Where are the ornaments?"

"I can arrange their return."

Himmelshine closed the ark. "Let's go back to my office."

We walked in silence, Himmelshine grim, his strides rapid. He seemed heavier than I remember, and somehow shorter. He closed the office door, then faced me across his desk.

"Now tell me. What's this all about?  What's going on?"

It was an echo of the confrontation in the student lounge that ended our friendship. Himmelshine asked the questions this time, staring at me, waiting for a reply.

“It’s my son.” I paused, trying to keep an unexpected surge of feeling under control. “He’s seventeen–-a good boy, basically, but under the influence of an undesirable friend. The two of them–-they entered your synagogue through a window two nights ago and stole the ornaments.” 

“Where are the ornaments now?”

“My wife found them hidden in my son’s bureau drawer while she was putting away some underwear. He admitted the break-in. His friend is on probation with a police record. He told our boy to hide the ornaments in our house until they could be sold.”

Irritation in his voice, Himmelshine asked again, “Where are they?”

“I have them. I’ll return them today. I wanted to speak to you first.”

“Get them. I’ll wait.”

“I have classes. How about later today? This evening, after dinner?”

“Seven o’clock. I’ll be here.”

                                                            #

Carrying the shopping bag containing the ornaments into the synagogue seemed surreptitious and I was relieved not to be seen by anyone. Himmelshine took the bag and carefully laid out its contents on his desk, examining each piece.

“It’s all here,” he said.

“Fine.” I got up to leave.

“Wait a minute.”

I stopped at the office door.

“This isn’t over,” he said. “I’ll have to contact the police.”

“That’s really not necessary.” I tried to remain calm and hide my dismay. “My son was pressured by the older boy, he confessed readily to us, and everything has been returned.”

Himmelshine shook his head. “I’m sorry–-I’ll have to do it. If this is overlooked, it may be repeated–-perhaps worse next time.”

“But he promised it would never happen again. Why destroy a boy’s life?”

Silent, Himmelshine returned to the chair behind his desk. I stood before him.

“I’m really pleading with you. As an old friend.”

He looked up at me with narrowed eyes. I waited for a moment, hoping for a dawning of recognition; it didn’t occur. I gave him my name and his jaw dropped; he stood, extending a pudgy hand.

“My God! I can’t believe it!” He pointed to a chair. “Sit down! Sit down!”

We looked at each other for a silent moment, registering the impact of change. The desk no longer between us, Himmelshine sat back, smiling, nodding all the while.

“What a surprise--after all these years!  So you are a professor. What do you teach?”

“Philosophy.”

"That's what all you guys do." Himmelshine displayed his familiar smile. "When you quit the ministry, you go into philosophy or psychology. Still searching for the human soul."

I laughed, conscious that the tension had begun to melt. I asked, “And you?”

He shrugged. “In the same business, more or less. I’m an exile from Manhattan. A sad story. I came here from a... shall we say, a rustic congregation in Alabama, where I stayed for two years. Do you want to hear the details?”

I couldn’t object and Himmelshine went on.

“I had a wonderful congregation in Manhattan. Small, but intelligent. Well off. They liked me. A civilized place in a civilized city.”  He paused. "It's a long, complicated--and I must say, at times shameful--story."

"Shameful?”

"Rise and fall. From Manhattan to little one-shul towns. From marriage to divorce."  He gestured with his short arms. "From prestige to scandal. You see before you a man in decline, but ever hopeful."

It was the Himmelshine of old, the familiar self-mocking sham eloquence. Was the aim to amuse, or were the words to be taken seriously? And what of Annamarie?  Had he married her?

"It started with a woman. Isn't that always the case?  One woman of many. A synagogue clerk. Unfortunately, our cantor, who long resented what he felt was his secondary position in life and blamed me for it--he walked into my study unexpectedly one evening when the clerk and I were on the sofa. I hadn't locked the door and he didn't knock. Soon the leading members of the congregation knew about the relationship, then the synagogue board, then my wife. Let's face it, blame it on the Cossack in my genes, my only loyalty has been to infidelity. I lost my job and my wife on the same day.”

We were interrupted by a telephone call--a congregant reporting a death. Expressions of sympathy by Himmelshine were followed by a discussion of funeral arrangements. I wondered if we would ever get to my son and Annamarie. Should I break in when the call ended?  But Himmelshine had more to say.

“I thought of quitting the rabbinate and doing something else, but with my age and lack of training, what else could there be?  I had no choice but to go on. As it is, my position here is part-time. I also sell burial plots.”

He smiled at my stunned reaction. “You seem surprised. I have to make a living. I can say I represent both heaven and earth.”

I glanced at my watch and Himmelshine looked at me and said, “I’m sorry. You’re concerned about your boy and I'm  talking about myself. Let me reassure you–-I won’t contact the police. But you must tell your son that if this occurs again--any vandalism or anti-Semitic act for that matter--I’ll call the police at once. And of course that goes for your son’s friend as well.”

Greatly relieved, I said I understood. “My wife and I are very grateful.”

“Now tell me about you,” he said.

“Well--after graduate school, my first teaching appointment was here. I met my wife-–she was a local South Carolina girl. Her family has its roots here–-she wanted to stay. It’s a quiet, peaceful life–-I’ve grown to like it. No real problems except for my son.”  I felt a surge of pain, but decided to be open. “We don’t get along very well. He’s unhappy with the fact that he has a Jewish father.”

Himmelshine nodded. “Who doesn’t have problems with children?  You are not alone. My boy wanted to convert to Christianity. He joined a group.”

I asked, “Jews for Jesus?”

“No. Kikes for Christ.”

My laughter burst out, uncontrolled, a release of residual tension, and with it the realization that what lingering resentment I had toward Himmelshine had faded. He smiled with satisfaction at my response to his joke, but then with a wave of his hand signaled an end to levity.

"It's not a laughing matter. I shouldnt make light of it. It's my fault it happened--my cynicism, making jokes of everything. My son was looking for seriousness and that's where he found it. But I can't help myself--let's face it, I'm an actor, a Jewish ham. The rabbinate--the ministry in general--is like show biz, only more secure. You have a captive audience, the script doesn't change, the run never ends."

"What happened to your son?"

"He returned to Judaism. Why? He wanted to model his life after Jesus. I asked him, if Jesus were to return today, in what church would he pray? My boy was stumped; he couldn't answer. I asked, 'Would he go to the Vatican? To the Church of the Holy Sepulcher? To the Cathedral of St. John the Divine? To the Al Aksa mosque? Where would he go to pray?"

"My son thought for a while then said: 'His first stop would be the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He would put on a tallis and t'fillin. He'd keep kosher. He'd study Torah.'  So now my son is studying at a yeshiva in Jerusalem. He lives there with his mother."

Himmelshine paused; it was getting late. “One last question,” I said. “What happened to Annamarie?”

He appeared puzzled. “Annamarie?  Who is Annamarie?”

Had he forgotten? The girl who broke my heart, who shattered our friendship?

“The German girl. The convert. Her father was sentenced at Nuremberg.”

“Oh–-of course. She quit.”“Quit?”

“Yes. About a month after you left, she decided not to go on with her conversion. She eventually went back to Germany.”

I leaned back in my chair, shaking my head in disbelief.

Himmelshine smiled. “Did you think guilt lasts forever?”

                                                            #

We decided to meet in a week for lunch. Three days later, walking home after an evening class, I saw flames in the sky, then heard the siren of the town’s only fire engine. It drew closer then roared past, two volunteer firefighters hanging on to the rear, yellow-striped black coats flapping behind them.

I hurried my step; the synagogue was ablaze. Barriers were in place to hold back the increasing number of onlookers. Flames spilled out of a shattered window and a section of charred wooden siding dropped in a shower of sparks. The murmuring crowd grew larger, and then I felt someone pushing from behind; it was Himmelshine, heading toward the barriers. I reached out to grab him.

“Don’t go,” I said.

He gave me a quick glance, then tried to pull away, almost freeing himself from my grasp.

I extended my arms, encircling his short, heavy body in a tight grip that grew into an embrace.

“Don’t do it, Herschel. There are many Torahs; there is only one you.”

For a moment Himmelshine seemed to hesitate, the tension ebbing from his body. Then with a spurt of animal strength, he yanked himself free and burrowed through the crowd to an opening. I didn’t see him again.

Bernard Brachya Cohen's short stories have appeared in Inkspill, Workers Write Journal: Tales from the Couch, Midstream, The Villager, The Reconstructionist, The Jewish Spectator, Lines and Letters, and elsewhere.