Rabbi Gabrielle's Defiance (32 page)

The Disney representative thought of himself
as a
can-do
personality who knew how to
flow with the current rather than oppose it. He assessed what his
crew had to lose if an accommodation wasn't made and posed a
counter-offer. "Maybe not a dozen, but this effort won't require
more than eight. I'll get cracking on it immediately."

The caterer eyed him skeptically, as if to
ask what film people could be expected to know about tables and
place settings? To save face, he demanded his own people supervise,
a condition the Disney manager reluctantly accepted.

When Gabby finally dropped into the
cosmetologist's chair, she was stricken by a sense of pending
disaster. Months before, the idea of having Disney reenact the
Passover saga seemed like a splendid idea. To show Gentiles what
Jews do on
Pesach
and combat recurring
mythology surrounding this holiday had a definite appeal. But the
project had escalated out-of-control and now filled her with
forebodings. Her primary job was to conduct an historical
celebration for her congregants, not educate the public. Under
theatrical lighting, made up like a TV emcee that now seemed
unachievable. Despite her best intentions, the decision to
cooperate with Disney transformed the festival into a spectacle,
devoid of spirituality. "The gorilla," she told herself, "has
escaped from its cage."

The cosmetologist highlighted her eyes with
dark mascara and camouflaged normal skin blemishes on her cheeks
with flesh-colored powder. To show off her craft, she withdrew a
square mirror from a traveling satchel and positioned it before
Gabby's eyes. The new Gabby jarred its possessor. No longer
ordinary, she looked glamorous beyond her imagination. Hollywood
knew how transform average-looking women into stars. Had she
succumbed to this vanity?

Back in her office, Chuck commented on her
appearance and joked about his own experience in female drag at a
Halloween party. When she failed to inquire how that felt, he
handed her a fist-f of phone chits that required attention. "I'm
not certain exactly when Kye will arrive, but I may not be able to
greet him," she said. "Please see that he's seated next to me at
the head table, won't you?"

"Yep, boss. Right there beside you foursquare
before the cameras," he quacked in a voice reserved for
sarcasm.

"Don't read too much into that; he's only my
guest at the seder," she corrected.

"That's not how your congregants will
perceive it. You've scrupulously avoided bringing male friends to
synagogue functions. Truth be told, I can't remember the last time.
This is certain to jump-start the rumor mill."

Feeling the pressure of time, she made no
effort to censor her response. "Good. Let them get used to the
idea."

"That's my old Rabbi Gabby. Never one for
subtlety. She carefully keeps her boyfriends shielded from view.
But when she goes public it isn't a nice Jewish boy with a
promising profession, but a bloody Korean Baptist, the
bette noire
of Democrats and Republicans alike in
Washington, with an army of creditors nipping at his tail. And not
in a quiet congregational function, but on national
television!"

"You really think I'm going too far?" she had
learned to respect Chuck's wisdom in such matters.

A coy grimace conveyed his conspiracy in this
devilment. "Oh, hell. Go for it!"

"It's too late to reconsider. Kye will be
here soon and I'm not going to un-invite him at the eleventh
hour."

Asa Folkman, a multi-colored Israeli yarmulke
on his head, brushed past Chuck into Gabby's study to reconfirm his
role in the ceremony. She rose to greet him with a kiss. "Reuben's
ecstatic about
A Jazzman's Prayer
," she
said. "I haven't had a chance to listen, but am planning to this
evening.
Yashar koach
, Asa."

Through the dark clouds that seemed to hover
perpetually over him, she heard an uptick of excitement in his
voice. "The San Francisco Symphony wants me to orchestrate it for a
concert next year, I had no idea anybody would like it."

She seized his arm, turning him toward the
door. "Let's talk about your music tomorrow. For now, we must check
that everything is ready for the seder. I'd hate to have you
explain the
karpas
, only to find it isn't
where it should be on the seder plate."

When they arrived in Meyerhoff Hall, both
were mortified. No longer a gathering place for a religious
ceremony it had been transformed into a television production
studio! Powerful lighting bathed the room in dazzling illumination.
Electrical lines, secured by gaffing tape, snaked like tree roots
in a rain forest over the floor. Oversized TV monitors hung from
the ceiling above a platform with four technicians, their ears
cuffed with earphones, hovered around a sound-mixing board. Karla
Foo, wired like an NFL football coach, was barking orders into a
mouthpiece. A section of the reenactment filmed on location in the
Egyptian Sinai was scrolling across the monitors. The familiar face
of Donald Silvio, anchor of CNN Worldwide News, suddenly appeared
simultaneously on several screens, then the camera cut to the
colossus of Ramses II at Abu Simbel in the southern Egyptian
desert. Karla spoke directly to Silvio through a mike connected to
her earphones. A junior production assistant requested Gabby to
take her place at the head table to be miked. As she marched
forward, the ceiling monitors overhead flickered before going
black. Donald Silvio's image disappeared.

Karla met Gabby at the table. "Must be a
technical problem in Egypt where we don't have sophisticated backup
equipment. We get crazy uplink phenomenon in remote places. Let's
cross our fingers we'll have transmission before we start your
seder. Otherwise, I'll have to ask you to improvise. That's not
likely, but I'd like to give you a heads-up."

"Improvise? Easy for you to say," Gabby
mumbled under her breath.

Members of Ohav Shalom's Board of Directors and
their spouses assembled near the head table, exchanging holiday
greetings and kisses. A production assistant adjusted a lapel
microphone on Gabby's jacket and handed her an earpiece through
which Karla Foo would issue staging cues. Stan and Dottie Melkin,
who took their places beside a vacant seat left for Gabby's escort,
exchanged eye signals in speculation about whom their dinner
partner might be.

A din of voices permeated the hall as
transmission from Egypt resumed, flashing scenes of the Temple of
Karnak with their mammoth granite carvings of Egyptian god-kings,
vestiges of a far different era in human history.

Powerful theatrical stage lights converged on
Karla Foo sashaying before the head table. Spots followed her
around as if on a stage, with two men in T-shirts trailing behind
clearing cable connected to the switching station. Her voice
suddenly penetrated the cacophony of voices, calling for attention.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please! A word of introduction, please."

After sixty seconds, the audience quieted in
anticipation. "We're now a little less than ten minutes before
broadcast. You've all been briefed about this presentation. Our
satellite link with Egypt is now open and Donald Silvio will soon
be seen on the overhead monitors, talking to us from Abu Simbel.
Soon after his introduction, we'll begin our broadcast of your
seder. Rabbi Lewyn knows when we're planning to cut away from the
service to present the Exodus reenactment. Eight minutes later,
we'll pop back here, just in time to catch up with your
celebration. It's imperative to act as though you are experiencing
a normal seder. We'd like you to forget what my production team is
doing, though I know that's asking an awful lot. Above all, please
don't look at the cameras. My producers in the mix box will
automatically delete shots where people are doing that. We'll be
shooting several angles at all times, so you might find yourself
targeted by more than one camera at the same time. I know you have
a custom of lounging around the table on Passover. Do it now. We
want authenticity. The reenactment will show what happened in the
days of Moses; your seder should show how American Jews celebrate
these ancient events today."

Karla's words concluded with melodic music
written for an event no less epic than the exodus of Hebrews from
Egypt and the subsequent revelation of the Ten Commandments on
Mount Sinai.

Gabby reminded herself that she had
officiated at many Seders and knew, almost by heart, the
Haggadah
. She was silently rehearsing her
opening statement for the fourth time when a hand squeezed her
shoulder and familiar fingers touched her neck. Kye planted a
passing kiss upon her cheek just before sliding into his seat.
"Sorry, I'm a little late," he whispered. "You wouldn't believe
why."

Overhead lighting suddenly illuminated the
room. Dottie Melkin rotated sideways to greet her dinner partner,
reaching across to take a hand and introduce herself.

A mouth of strong teeth underscored his
smile. "I'm Kye Naah," he said, reaching in front of Dottie to take
Stan Melkin's hand. "
Gut yomtov
, if that
doesn't butcher your language.”

"Why yes, of course," Stan stammered, he eyes
opened wider than normal and his brain racing for answers to a host
of questions he had never entertained until that very moment.

There was a youthful freshness in Gabby's
smile as she confirmed to others that Kye was, indeed, her evening
companion and that it had always been considered a
mitzvah
to invite Gentiles to participate in the
seder. Middle Eastern music, haunting and exotic, suddenly
permeated the hall. Images of Pharaoh Ramses II filled the overhead
screens. Momentary glimpses of the Nile River flashed.

"Here we go everybody," Karla Foo's sharp,
commanding voice resonated through the Meyerhoff loudspeaker.

Donald Silvio's celebrity face filled the
screen, then receded as the camera pulled back, leaving him a
miniature martinet before the colossus of Abu Simbel. "
Gut Yomtov
and
Hag-sameach
,"
he opened first in Yiddish then Hebrew. I am standing at this
moment on the very threshold of history, in the year 1212 before
the Common Era, in the presence of one of Egypt's mightiest rulers,
Ramses II, whose empire encompassed much of the civilized Middle
East. However powerful this god-pharaoh, he proved to be impotent
before Hebrew tribes that had once prospered and multiplied in his
lands adjoining the Nile River, then became enslaved. Our story is
the conflict between him and the divinely inspired slaves who broke
their chains of servitude to eventually become the children of a
new god. And that marriage of a people and its god has endured
through the ages. Today, modern Jews, great grandchildren of these
Hebrew slaves in ancient Egypt, enjoy history's oldest legacy. This
evening, you will see the events which triggered this epic exodus
and watch the descendants of these slaves, Jews in Washington,
D.C., commemorating their past around the Passover table. Follow us
and together we shall traverse the road of history,
FROM THEN UNTIL NOW
."

The Disney director left Egypt and instructed
her cameramen to pan the Ohav Shalom celebrants, then sweep across
the head table and come to rest on the rabbi as she instructed her
congregants how to pour water from a pitcher over their hands in
ritual purification. The name of Rabbi Gabrielle Lewyn scrolled
across the bottom of the screen. Canter Blass stood to her left to
chant a blessing over the holiday candles while Dottie Melkin lit
the tapers. A bit of trick photography projected Gabby's image
behind the candelabra, her eyes devout, the soft indentures of her
dimples augmented by candlelight. Reuben Blass's baritone voice
resonated richly in the background.

A panoramic view of the Egyptian desert, shot
from a helicopter, suddenly captured the overhead monitors. "And
so, we begin this epic journey…" Donald Silvio said in voice-over.
Small spots on the landscape represented laborers working in the
hot desert sun at a nearby construction site. The shot morphed from
the present into a distant time, with a caravan of Hebrews entering
Egypt in search of food to counter the effects of famine in their
Canaanite homeland.

"Ready now, Rabbi Folkman," Karla Foo cued
Asa to explain why contemporary Jews eat green-leaf vegetables at
their Seders. He stood and gathered a healthy sprig of parsley in
his fingers. Upon a signal from Karla, the overhead monitors
switched from Egypt to Ohav Shalom.

Asa's ease at the piano before audiences
conveyed to the synagogue. He spoke without a trace of
nervousness.

"The observance of
Pesach
is governed by a lunar calendar and that's why
it falls on a slightly different date each year, though always in
the spring. In ancient times, this lunar calendar was superimposed
upon a solar calendar because the sun also governed the lives of
ancient peoples. Our ancestors were farmers and shepherds whose
livelihoods were dependent upon crops and herds. Each Jewish
festival, Passover included, is therefore an amalgam of two themes
and two calendars – the agricultural theme, in which the sun
calendar is dominant, and the spiritual-religious theme, in which
the lunar calendar prevails. Eating the spring vegetables, such as
this parsley, is a remnant of our agricultural past and the
farmer's petition for healthy crops. But descendants were not
content to leave it at that. They dipped this spring greenery into
salt water to remind us of the salted sacrifices offered in the
First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Some say salt also reminds
us of human tears shed under slavery. Let's now stand, dip a sprig
of parsley into salt water and recite a blessing, thanking God
first for our food and secondly, for our freedom."