The members of the Barnard’s Crossing Temple
are bickering again.
The conservative faction,
headed by Ben Gorfinkle, wants Rabbi David Small to publicly take a stand
supporting book censorship and prayer in the schools; plus attacking the
coddling of criminals and denouncing the Civil Rights protests. And Gorfinkle is confident they have enough votes to make this
temple policy.
The progressive faction,
headed by Meyer Paff, wants Rabbi Small to publicly take the opposite stand on
all these issues. They’re aware they
don’t have enough votes for this, and therefore are prepared to break away and
start their own temple, taking a lot of the present congregation, and hopefully
Rabbi Small, with them.
Although the Rabbi is
sympathetic with the Meyer Paff’s group, he doesn’t want have the congregation
split in two. He’d prefer to do anything
except be forced to choose one temple faction or the other.
Like investigate a murder or two,
perhaps?
What’s To Like...
Sunday The Rabbi Stayed
Home is a blend of three storylines.
One is an enlightening discussion of Jewish-vs.-Christian dogma; one is
an insightful look at inter-congregational squabbling; one is Rabbi Small’s
investigation into two local deaths that have suspicious circumstances.
The temple squabbles receive the majority of
the attention and I suspect it will be a recurring theme of this series, since
Book 11 is titled The Day the Rabbi Resigned. A new twist of it crops up here: Rabbi Small is
becoming popular among the Jewish youths, and he’s now considering joining
Hillel, the largest Jewish student organization worldwide, as a counselor.
Harry Kemelman works a lot of
Yiddish religious terms and phrases into the text, and I always like that. Rabbi Small engages in a couple of
discussions with a Roman Catholic priest at the local Newman Center (the Catholic equivalent of Hillel), which both
Father Bennett and myself found thought-provoking. Two of the topics were a.) the role of
Faith and/or the lack of it, and b.)
the importance of what we believe versus that
which we do.
The Rabbi’s investigations
into the two deaths are suitably thorough despite the lack of clues.
Sunday The Rabbi Stayed Home was published in 1969, and I was not
surprised to see marijuana (or “marihuana” as the author spells it) being a
factor in the probes. I winced at the
repeated use of the word “Negro” here, then remembered it was the preferred
term for blacks during that era.
Things build to a so-so
ending. Rabbi Small figures out the “whodunit” by clever deductive reasoning. Unfortunately, all the evidence is
circumstantial, but help comes from an unexpected source.
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.3/5
based on 1,008 ratings and 83 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.84/5 based on 2,108
ratings and 163 reviews.
Excerpts...
“I made my money too late to change my
habits. My Laura is after me I should
have my suits made to order. ‘You’ve got
it now; spend it.’ But I can’t. I can’t get interested enough in clothes to
bother. When I play poker, I play penny
ante, and I notice that I get as much fun out of winning ninety cents as I
would if it were ninety dollars. And
Irving is just as sore at losing thirty-two cents.”
“Thirty-seven cents.” (loc. 8505)
“I told him that I’d had a meeting with a
majority of the board prior to our little talk and that we had decided that if
he refused to go along, at the next a motion would be offered—and
passed—calling for his resignation.”
“You fired him?”
He pursed his lips and canted his head to
one side. “Just about.”
“Nothing personal, of course.”
“I flatter myself that I handled it pretty
well,” said Gorfinkle with a smirk. (loc.
9562)
Kindle Details…
Sunday
the Rabbi Stayed Home is priced at $8.99 at Amazon at present. The other books in the series are in the $0.99-$7.99
range, with most of them costing $6.99. I read this as part of an e-book bundle
containing the first four volumes of the series, and which costs $17.99
right now.
“By God, you nice
respectable people can blunder into a situation and foul it up to make the
angels weep.” (loc.
9572)
There’s only a smattering of
profanity in Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home. I counted just nine instances in the first half of the book, and those were all of the “milder” ilk. The pejorative version of “Negro” (the "N-word") was used
once, but with a negative connotation.
Typos were scarce and mostly involved missing commas and periods.
The portrayal of pot dealers
back in 1969 was a bit skewed. Trust me,
I was a teenager back then, and although drug dealing could be hazardous in those days, that was only true if the drug quantities were large. A couple of joints does not constitute a
large quantity. Methinks Harry Kemelman
took the movie Reefer Madness too
seriously.
The biggest issue I have with Sunday the
Rabbi Stayed Home is the diminished role of the crime investigation. The first murder doesn’t come until 58% Kindle, and Rabbi Small doesn’t start his
investigation until 65% Kindle. It’s almost like the crimes were just a
slapdash add-on to the book's storyline.
Overall, this was a so-so read
for me, probably because I’m reading this series mostly for the crime mystery aspect, not
the religious angles. If you happen to be reading these Rabbi
Small books for their spiritual messages, add a couple stars to my rating.
6 Stars. One last thing. Kudos for the brief mention of (Moses) Maimonides. That was one kewl dude, centuries before his time. If you don’t know anything about him, look him up in Wikipedia.
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