PESACH
To celebrate Passover with Gabby, Zoe Mountolive, the New York lawyer who defended Noah Zentner in one of the nation's most celebrated cases of rape, and her 15-year-old daughter, Clementine, arrived on Saturday afternoon and encamped in Gabby's guest room. This friendship had begun in a professional capacity; Zoe as defense counsel and Gabby as witness in the Baltimore trial, but continued long after the sad event receded into history. As single women navigating the shoals of middle age, they shared their fears and dreams. Zoe paraded before Gabby's judgment a host of male companions and related the horrors of bringing up an artistic, rebellious teenage girl in New York City. Gabby vented frustrations at what sometimes felt to her like being a hired gun to a well-meaning, respectful, but exceedingly demanding congregation. In need of relief from mothering Clementine, Zoe would often ship her daughter off to Washington to spend long weekends with "Aunt Gabby," a relationship that both the child and surrogate aunt enjoyed immensely. Together, they visited museums, played tennis, hiked in the Allegheny Mountains beyond Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, and bicycled by the Potomac River. Communication barred between mother and daughter flowed easily between Gabby and Clementine.
Chuck Browner and his latest companion, Lawrence Bourne, arrived at Gabby's townhouse midday Sunday, bringing sufficient food to provision a cavalry regiment. They immediately established themselves in Gabby's kitchen, chopping vegetables and skinning chickens. Gabby took responsibility for providing the traditional seder foods: harosetz, matza balls for soup, bitter herbs, parsley, boiled eggs, and gefilta fish – from a bottle, definitely not from scratch; white fish and pike. From time to time, Zoe and Clementine breezed into the kitchen, sampled the cooking, then helped Gabby set her table with a formal tablecloth and heirloom silverware. Lydia Browner, Gabby's tennis coach and sometimes doubles partner, arrived shortly after 4 p.m. with her roommate, Daisy Seasongood, a prominent actress most often cast in the role of wife or jilted lover in regional theater productions, notably Washington's Arena Stage. Over the years, Lydia had maintained her near perfect figure while a few crow's-feet wrinkles near the eyes revealed her age. Gabby knew that despite her athletic ability, Lydia had no mind for numbers. She collected shoes, toothpaste tubes, and countless household items in lavish, unusable quantities. It came as no surprise that she brought to the seder a full case of California Chardonnay, enough wine, quipped Gabby, to intoxicate the Ten Tribes of Israel lost somewhere after the Northern Kingdom of Israel went into exile in Assyria.
No one displayed astonishment when Kye Naah let himself into Gabby's home with his own key and planted a familiar kiss on the back of Gabby's neck while she was bent over arranging spring flowers for the centerpiece. Introductions were a bit superfluous since he already knew everybody from Gabby's detailed descriptions. They, on the other hand, studied him as though a specimen under a microscope. So this is the man Gabby had been so taken with!
Uncomfortable being idle in the company of active people, Kye immediately assumed various kitchen chores doled out by Lawrence Bourne, who had once been a professional chef in Boston, but had given up his passion for cooking to operate a series of bed-and-breakfasts. When Kye eventually joined Gabby's team working on the table, she took his arm and kissed him upon the cheek, confirmation of a relationship closer than friendship.
Asa and Anina arrived last. He dressed in a conservative gray suit with a maroon necktie that Gabby recognized as Anina's taste in men's clothing. A large silver pin in the design of a blue heron on the lapel of her stunning scarlet jacket immediately became an object of conversation. By five o'clock, preparations for the seder were complete and the guests gathered in the living room to chat. No cocktails. Gabby warned there would be plenty of sweet kosher wine or Lydia's Chardonnay to consume during the festivities.
Since their meeting at Georgetown Hospital, Anina and Kye had spoken often. To Gabby's guests, she praised him for establishing a conference link between Georgetown Hospital's Operating Theater and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. During the first phase of reconstructing Tybee Morgenstern's lower lip, Dr. Mayer Brouggen in Sweden supervised Hank Resnick implementing his Swedish technique. This cyber link produced an unexpected dividend for Anina. In planning for Tybee's first operation, her hostility with Hank Resnick bottomed out and he invited her to scrub-in and assist his surgical team. Having tasted the fruit of Kye's technology, Georgetown Hospital employed Politicstoday to upgrade its Internet linkage, a paying customer much appreciated. The hospital's president, who generally looked upon his institution's quarrelsome physicians as a necessary nuisance he would like to do without, but couldn't, started answering Anina's phone calls. Her name inexplicably turned up on a list of candidates for the hospital's Medical Executive Committee.
At the seder table, Gabby sat Kye on her right and Clementine Mountolive on her left. Clemmy's animation demonstrated how fond she was of Aunt Gabby. Due to tension between her divorced parents over what church to attend, she participated in no religious school training and was fascinated with the Haggadah's rendition of the Exodus from Egypt. Her questions revealed a thirst for more information about the Bible. When it was time for the youngest member of the family to recite The Four Questions, Aunt Gabby walked Clemmy patiently through a transliteration from the original Hebrew, then an English translation. Gabby followed by chanting a traditional melody she had sung almost every year since her childhood.
"Mah nishtana… Why is this night different from all other nights?" the first question began.
Gabby asked Clementine to read the answer in the Haggadah, and added a personal observation. "For me," she gazed to her left, then right, matching glances from the adults through eyes on the boundary of tears. "This night is special because I have wonderful friends to share it. For years now, I've dreamed about you sitting at my table for Passover. I couldn't do it because I felt obliged to attend other Seders. Couldn't even go home to L.A. to celebrate with my father or to Cleveland, with my sister's family." Soft whispers ceased altogether. "You guys have stuck with me through all the storms and I truly love you for it. And tonight, you've brought people special to you. To the question Mah Nishtanah? I answer, this night is different from all other nights because you are here."
Kye's hand reached across the table in full view to seize Gabby's. His fingers wrapped around hers and squeezed. This inspired Lydia to do the same with Daisy Seasongood.
Gabby's eyes remained glassy as she gave the first of four formal answers to the question, "Why is this night different? On all other nights we eat regular bread, but tonight, only matzah…"
Chuck and Kye appeared to get on well, chatting through the floral arrangement centered on her table. Like a dog sniffing a newcomer to establish rapport, Chuck protectively sniffed out men hovering around Gabby. After dinner, he and Kye formed a dishwashing team to attack the mountain of dirty dishes on the kitchen counter.
Early the following morning Chuck called to thank Gabby for the seder. Best Pesach he had been to since childhood. She was in a hurry to depart for the synagogue, but he held her back with a lancing question.
"Will Kye sit next to you at the congregational seder tonight, Rabbi Gabby?"
"Is there something wrong with that? she sounded testy.
"Nothing wrong with Kye. I like him. A lot."
"Good. You're my official food taster when it comes to men."
Chuck had a habit of being diplomatic and opening a sore subject with a question rather than a declaration. "Do you think this is a good time to introduce him to the congregation?"
That needed an extra moment to deliberate. "He'll create a stir whenever I present him. I've kept enough secrets about my private life. It's always backfires on me."
"A Korean Baptist battling to keep a very controversial web site alive while holding his creditors at bay in bankruptcy court is a big pill to swallow. Don't expect universal approval."
"They'll gossip if I were to bring Moses to the seder. Kye and I are just friends. Don't read too much into that."
"I'll try not to. But my instinct draws me in another direction. A wise old Turk once said 'Beware impossible relationships. They sneak up and catch you by surprise.'"
"I'll keep that in mind, friend. By the way, what's your name in Turkish?"
Anticipating the congregational seder, the synagogue buzzed with extraordinary activity. Sometime Sunday evening a half-dozen heavy production trucks from Disney Productions bivouacked in the parking lot in preparation for the live broadcast the following day. Karla Foo had modified her original plan to air the full reenactment first, followed by the seder at Ohav Shalom. A week before airing, she decided on a more challenging technical format – to run the historical and modern celebrations intermittently, first offering an eight minute selection from the Haggadah at Ohav Shalom followed by a flashback to the historic Sinai reenactment of equal length, then repeating this sequence throughout the evening. This decision meant re-writing the script, as well as coordinating with Gabby the Haggadic portions.
After a brief maariv, morning worship service, attended by a mere handful of the most devout, Gabby retreated into her study to rehearse for the evening's seder. Mindful that this was supposed to be an annual celebration of an ancient ritual and not a television extravaganza, she plugged into the script readings for Asa Folkman and congregational officers, reminding herself that her role was to conduct this event as if no cameras were present – a tall order since it was necessary to schedule breaks for the historical reenactment from Sinai and, of course, for television commercials.
She was about to phone Sandra Jacoby's parents to confirm that their nine-year-old son, Joshua, would be called upon to recite the Arbah Shelelot – Four Questions, in Hebrew – when interrupted by a discreet rap on her study door. She rose to admit the visitor and was pleased to find Cantor Reuben Blass, a short, heavy-set man with a shock of silver hair on his temples and pasty eyelids that she felt bore the full weight of Jewish suffering throughout the ages. His taste in music bent toward the operatic rather than the wailing supplications of traditional cantoral hazanut from Eastern Europe. Yet during the Musuf service on Yom Kippur his baritone voice, laced with affliction and misery, competed with the best of the Orthodox cantors. Calculating that Gabby was usually too occupied for matters of liturgy and music, Reuben seldom visited her study, though she had often invited him. The Disney script scheduled him to chant the holiday kiddush, then lead the congregation in three popular Pesach songs, Dayenu, Adir Hu in Hebrew and Haad-Gadya in the original Aramaic. Gabby offered a friendly handshake and ushered him to the couch kitty-corner to her desk.
Once seated, he lifted a freckled, hirsute hand and shook a CD disc in her direction. "Gabby, have you heard this?"
The question caught her unprepared. "How would I know? What's on it, Reuben?"
"Does Asa talk to you about his private life?"
She thought immediately about his playing in strip bars and conjured a vague reply. "He talks to me about some things. Certainly not everything. What have I missed?"
"How about his music?"
She maintained the same degree of vagueness. "Yes. A little."
"Have you heard his newest composition A Jazzman's Prayer?"
The title stirred her curiosity. "No, I haven't. He's always composing new scores. The way he improvises I can't keep up with his production. Is A Jazzman's Prayer any good?"
Reuben waved the CD in a figure eight with bold gestures. "No. It isn't any good, Gabby."
"The Morgenstern affair has taken a terrible toll on him. It must have an effect on his music, too."
"No. No, " Reuben became animated. "I didn't mean that. What I meant was it isn't just good. It's positively magnificent. This isn't the music of a hack composer with pretensions to following in Prokofiev's footsteps, but a genius. Lots of us try writing scores and sometimes we turn out a decent product. More often than not, we're just mediocre, or inferior to that. But I'm telling you Asa's in a different league. This CD was made by his friends from the nightclub circuit who sent it around. It's a bit choppy in parts, but the composition is off-the-wall fabulous. I hope I'm not talking out of school, but Asa confided in me that he got a call from the San Francisco Symphony Foundation. They want him to score it for a full orchestra."
"Is he qualified to score for an orchestra? I didn't know he was familiar with all those instruments," she sounded her amazement.
Reuben arched his shoulders as if prepared to sing. "If he can compose music like this, he can probably find instruments to play it. Besides, he can hire a professional arranger to help."
"You've got my attention but I can't listen until sometime tomorrow after the seder. Can you leave the CD with me? By the way, are you prepared for this evening?"
"Of course, but I'm nervous. This might be the largest audience of my life. But I say to myself, how many times have you sung Adir Hu? It isn't as if I don't know the music. Besides, I intend to get everybody else singing along with me."
"That's what I prefer; no operatics, please. We don't want our part of this extravaganza to look like a theatrical production. We win if we look exactly like what we are, an urban American congregation celebrating its heritage. Nothing more. We lose if we're discovered by Hollywood."
"Isn't that what happened when Disney approached the congregation?" Reuben eyed her to reveal a playful insight. "But I understand what you're saying. Just allow me a few seconds of glory before the cameras. I promise not to ham it up."
"Do what you think is appropriate, Reuben. Your musical judgment is always superb. You've never disappointed us. I can't wait to hear A Jazzman's Prayer tonight."
By 4:30 p.m., Ohav Shalom was a madhouse. Troops of Disney cameramen, stage lighting and sound specialists, script readers along with their minions of gofors sortied from temporary synagogue command centers. They clashed immediately with caterers who drew a cordon sanitaire around their kitchen, prohibiting Disney employees even to fill water bottles and wash their hands in the kitchen sinks. In Meyerhoff Hall, tempers reached a boiling point. The caterers bristled when TV people marched among fully-set banquet tables to facilitate lighting for their backup cameras. When Gabby emerged from her study to have a cosmetologist make up her face for better contrast on camera, she heard angry voices and immediately detoured to investigate.
Manufacturing calmness, she asked the Disney technicians what they wished to achieve and what kept them from their goal, then inquired of the caterers how facilitating the film crew would detract from the food service. The clash centered around nine tables laid out with glassware and dishes, floral centerpieces and silverware.
Pressed for time, she affected a leisurely demeanor, saying to the Disney representative, "These caterers, who incidentally make food so delicious it's hard for me to make people feel like they're coming out of Egyptian slavery, are short staffed and under immense pressure. If you guys could spare a dozen of your people for fifteen minutes to help move these tables, the job's doable. If not, then you're going to have to live with what's already here. Can you get that kind of help?"
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-full 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."
The congregation stood. Cameras surveyed the room before focusing on individuals in the act of dipping parsley into salt water. In unison they recited a blessing in Hebrew.
"Everyone knows about Joseph from the Bible, the eldest son of the patriarch Jacob and the Matriarch Rachel," said Donald Silvio, as the screen filled with a replication of the young Joseph scything wheat in an open field. "Joseph left the Land of Judah, surrounding modern Jerusalem, and traveled into Egypt, after being sold into slavery not by bandits or highwaymen, but by his jealous brothers. His new Egyptian masters eventually recognized his extraordinary talent for interpreting the symbolic nature of dreams. From a poor, undistinguished slave in the house of an Egyptian officer by the name of Potifar, Joseph's fame as seer spread to the house of Pharaoh where he rose to become viceroy over all that the mighty Egyptian monarch possessed. Meanwhile, Joseph's brethren also journeyed to Egypt and with their brother's forgiving help, prospered and multiplied." On the screen re-enactment, Hebrews were shown in a busy Egyptian marketplace enjoying the bounties of a prosperous land.
"Over the course of the next four hundred years," Silvio's voice-over continued, "the Hebrew nation in Egypt became numerous. The Hittite empire to the northeast, close to the ancestral land of the Hebrews, threatened to invade Egypt. To counter a perceived threat of alliance between the Hittites and Hebrew population in Egypt, Pharaoh Ramses II put his Hebrew subjects into forced labor building famous cities.
The film sequence Disney Productions had previewed to the Ohav Shalom Board of Directors about manufacturing bricks without straw binding appeared on the monitors. A theatrical voice recited the biblical passages describing the cruel suffering these enslaved Semites experienced. In bondage, the meaningfulness to their lives in Egypt ceased. In desperation, they cried out for delivery to the god of their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the deity whom most had forgotten during the four centuries of Egyptian exile. And miraculously, this god heard their woes.
"Stand ready, Rabbi Lewyn," Karla Foo prompted through the headphones. "You're up in twenty seconds."
Theater spotlights fell upon Gabby from opposite directions, encompassing her in a halo of brightness. Her green and yellow skullcap contrasted with the starched white collar of her blouse. Cameramen were instinctively drawn to an attractive female. Dark shadows accentuated the angularity of her chin. Her nose was perfectly set between soft cheeks that curled into dimples when she spoke. Her eyes, highlighted by dark mascara, were deep and Semitic, bridging the modern Jew with ancient brethren in Egypt.
Overhead monitors began to sparkle with white snow, then suddenly went blank. "Oh Shit!" exclaimed Karla Foo into her mike connected with her camera crew. "We've just lost our link to Egypt. Silvio might as well be on Saturn. But we've still got the Egyptian-Sinai footage in sequence and can feed it as necessary. Any sign of a resumption, Ralph?" she spoke directly to the chief engineer in a mobile van parked outside the synagogue.
"Nope. Dead as a mummy from you know where," he shot back.
"All right then. Until we make contact again, we've got to improvise from here. A switch on her belt connected her to Gabby's earphone. "Are you standing by, Rabbi? We've just lost the link with Egypt, but we can still work the original script. Only I must ask you to fill in with historic commentary. Please talk about ancient Egypt and modern America. Can you do that, Rabbi?"
Gabby thought of thousands, no perhaps millions, who might be watching and shuttered. Her next thought was a reprimand for having accepted Disney's invitation in the first place. Once that was dismissed as a waste of time, she accepted her lack of alternatives. "I'll do the best…"
Karla interrupted. "I'm coming up on your inset, Rabbi. For now, just do what you had planned to do. We're down to six seconds. The matzah, please, Rabbi."
Gabby inhaled as though this might be her last breath of air and lifted three square-shaped matzot from the table. The camera moved in to follow her extracting the middle sheet of unleavened bread and presenting it to those at her table. "Passover is a festival with many symbols which remind us today of our forefathers trek from slavery to deliverance. We're not spectators gazing back on history with detached curiosity. No, quite the contrary. Their slavery is our slavery, their epic exodus, our exodus. The foods we eat, the prayers we recite, bind us inexorably with our ancestors 3,200 years ago. And no symbol of this journey is more poignant than this middle sheet of matzah."
Two spotlights converged upon her face, looking down at the matzah. "Half of this, I shall break for eating later,” she almost whispered. "But the other half is called the Lachma Anya the Bread of Affliction. My next words will be in Aramaic, a cognate language of Hebrew spoken for centuries by Jews and the mother tongue of Jesus of Nazareth." She raised this sacred sliver of matzah high for all to see and proclaimed, "Ha lachma anya d'aochaloo ahavatana b'artza d'mitzrayim… kol dichphin, yetev, v'yechaloo…"
The lens captured her conviction as she made eye contact with her congregants, explaining, "All of us, Jew and Gentile, come to this planet from humble beginnings. We are all the children of slaves, immigrants, refugees and vagrants. This particular matzah, called the Bread of Affliction, reminds us of our lowly origins. Our good fortune in America is largely a Divine gift, not our birthright. This is bread of our humility, the bread of the poor, the outcasts, the underprivileged. May those in want share it with us. Let no neighbor or countryman have less than this pitiful sliver of unleavened bread.
"It has not always been our fate to live in a nation of freedom. Let us not forget that had our grandfathers and grandmothers in Europe traveled east rather than west to improve their lives, we wouldn't be here tonight. Like our brethren in Europe, we would have been incinerated in the fires of the Holocaust. Who but the arrogant can ignore his own fortune? When we see Haitians crawling onto Florida beaches, Eastern European refugees on Yugoslav roads, Chinese peasants in illegal ships coming to American shores, Mexican laborers wading across the Rio Grande, our hearts fill with compassion. Who among us has the right to shut the door closed once he has reached the Promised Land? When others are in pain, their pain is rightfully our pain. And our Bread of Affliction is rightly theirs to share with us. Ha Lachma Anyah, come eat with us. How is it possible to celebrate the deliverance of our ancestors three thousand years ago and yet remain insensitive to the suffering of people in our own generation? Ha Lachma Anyah. This, friends, is the Bread of our Affliction, not the affliction of others, but our affliction. God delivered us from slavery so that we might bring freedom to others. How dare we forget those who are still in chains, those who are hungry and those who are struggling to share in the bounty of this good earth!"
Karla Foo prompted her camera team. "We're moving into the footage on the Ten Plagues in fifteen seconds. Rabbi Lewyn, please get ready because we'll be showing your congregants dipping wine onto their plates. Call out the plagues by their Hebrew names and we'll mix that into the sound background with the music."
Film that Disney had screened before the Ohav Shalom Board of Directors appeared on overhead monitors. It showed a frog jumping over a windowsill into an Egyptian home, then Egyptians walking cobbled streets and scratching their heads infected with lice. Simultaneously, Gabby recited the list of plagues while dipping her forefinger into a goblet of red wine and casting drops onto a dinner plate. Karla broke in. "Doing just fine, Rabbi. We've got a great cutaway. But this is where it gets tricky. I need you to fill in for Don Silvio. Read the script or improvise. It's your choice."
Gabby needed a moment to gather her thoughts, but time was a luxury she didn't have. The camera was on her making eye contact with Cantor Blass. Following recitation of the plagues against Pharaoh and his people, the Dayeinu lyrics tracked logically.
"Friends," she said upon the completion of the sequence, "in your haggadahs. Cantor Blass will lead in this joyous song of gratitude."
Without further prompting, the cantor, an indefatigable cheerleader, almost jumped from his seat. Dayeinu is the most exuberant and festive moment in the seder and he let his congregants know he expected them to belt out the familiar Hebrew verses. It was time to let God know how Jews appreciated His bounty. Hold back nothing!
On the screens, the imposing figures of Moses and his brother Aaron, with their backs to the cameras, were arguing with Pharaoh while the monarch's courtiers circled around, disdainful and dubious. Ramses, his face to the screen, looked puzzled, as if wrestling with a premonition that these Hebrew slaves were destined to vex him.
In Meyerhoff Hall, Gabby explained the historic sequence to her congregants. The cards were stacked against Pharaoh. How could he possibly have known that a divine power far larger than himself had taken these woebegone slaves into his care? How could he have foreseen that these people would escape into the Sinai Peninsula and later march onto the pages of history? What would clue him that these seemingly impotent and destitute slaves would receive a revelation to reshape Western Civilization? The moment was pivotal not only for Judaism, but for Christianity and Islam. Poor Ramses was clueless.
On cue, Asa Folkman rose to lead his congregants in the traditional blessings over bitter herbs bread and matzah. Each required an explanation and to each he brought a modern touch. On the monitors slaves were on the run into the eastern desert of Egypt, with the hot sun baking a flat, moisture-less bread on sheets of bronze. Miles behind, Pharaoh's cavalry had begun it fruitless chase.
The mental concentration necessary to pull off both a public and private seder simultaneously enervated Gabby. By the time Disney had signed off the air, she felt ready to run from Meyerhoff Auditorium to a quiet sanctuary anywhere. Her congregants approached the head table with mixed reactions about what had just occurred. Several voiced their opinion that they would prefer not to see the experiment repeated on subsequent years, their opinions stated in less than respectful tones. To them, the time-tested traditional way was preferable, raising doubts in Gabby's mind whether merging of the past and present really worked. About the same number held the opposite view and praised her innovation in making the old relevant to modern times, their position stated with much less hostility.
Exhausted though she was, she could not ignore dubious expressions of wonderment when she introduced Kye Naah. Eyes invariably darted about in confusion. What was he doing with their rabbi, especially when Ohav Shalom was enjoying television exposure in many thousands of American households? What impression would this leave in the minds of fellow Jews who were having enough trouble digesting the idea of a female rabbi?
"I was skeptical about this," Stan Melkin shook her hand rigorously. "But thanks to you, Rabbi Folkman, and Cantor Blass, we did pretty well. We'll soon hear reaction from the community. I'd be interested to learn what your rabbinical colleagues think."
"They probably didn't see this. Most were conducting ceremonies in their own synagogues or homes. A few might view it later on videotape. Between you and me, I don't expect much. Anything that challenges the status quo is threatening. Remember, rabbis are paid to defend the past and uphold tradition. Innovation," she paused to punch a friendly knuckle into his shoulder, "comes slowly."
Saying good night to hundreds of congregants added to her fatigue. Kye asked to follow her home and be certain she arrived safely. While this was not necessary, she enjoyed his attentions.
Outside her garage, he faced her with a rare expression of uncertainty. "I'd invite myself in, but I know how tired you must be. What I want to say, I can say here on the street. You were wonderful, Gabby. Your words were golden and your timing perfect. At a moment like this, it makes me sad to think of you in politics. You have much more to give in your current job."
"I appreciate that, Kye. More than you know," she said, looking vulnerable. "It's important to me to be the best rabbi I can."
He leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. After a single peck, she angled her face toward his and returned the kiss on his lips, then gathered him in a full-body embrace. In breaking away, she muttered, "There will be hell to pay for this, you know."
He squinted his willingness to participate in the conspiracy, but at the last moment asked, "How so?"
"Couldn't you read their eyes tonight? My people want to know who you are and what you mean to me. You're a Korean Baptist. Jewish girls are supposed to date Jewish men. I'm supposed to be a role model for their daughters and dating handsome, talented Korean men like you is definitely not what they have in mind."
His eyes dropped to the pavement but quickly returned to hers. "I'm sorry, Gabby. I am who I am."
"Someone else said those identical words a long time ago."
"Who was that?" "God. In the Book of Exodus. When Moses asked for his proper name. God replied, 'I'll be who I'll be.' So that shows you that Yahweh, deity to the ancient Hebrews, was history's first existentialist."
On her doorstep they embraced again. "I'd invite you in, Kye, but I need to decompress. I've got to conduct a service tomorrow morning and I haven't yet thought what to say. Time has run away from me."
"I understand, honey," he kissed her forehead while clinging to her upper arms. "I'm looking forward to some private time with you. Remember, you promised to let me teach you about Internet fluency. And that's tough when you're so busy at Ohav Shalom."
A gush of cynicism escaped from her lips. "I warned you about interruptions in my schedule."
"What if we get out of town and you don't answer the phone. I've got the perfect place in mind."
"Where?" she was curious.
"A secret getaway. Pack for an overnight and bring along your jogging clothes," were his final words before she pulled away to unlock her front door.
Gabby's duties seemed endless, and there was still one last unfinished item on her day's agenda. She showered and prepared for bed, then from her kitchen counter unhooked a CD player and reconnected it into a wall socket beside her bed-stand. Flannel sheets she used during the winter months felt warm and inviting to her touch. She rested her spine against the headboard and settled under a puffy goose-down comforter that had replaced a malfunctioning electric blanket.
Cantor Blass's CD disk disappeared into the player and a slight adjustment to the volume prepared her to hear Asa's A Jazzman's Sorrow. It began with provocative clash of disharmonious chords, the way Asa often introduced his compositions to gather attention. But immediately, it resolved into an infectious syncopation of opposing rhythms, preparing for an overlay of melody. She knew the cantor to be something of a musical snob who reserved his praise for superb music, usually composed by the classical masters. Almost immediately she sensed why Reuben had been unreservedly enthusiastic. Here was no ordinary coupling rhythms and melodies, but a skilful weaving that seemed to transcend the piano, base violin, and drums in the recording. Asa's Sorrow spoke with an inner voice, conveying a mixture of emotions through syncopation and melody. Tired as she was, her attention remained focused. Part of her wanted to respond to her exhaustion, another to be transported by the notes. She always knew Asa to be a superb musician, but until this moment didn't appreciate exactly how good.
The angel of rest took possession of her, but only after the CD player fell silent.
***
The cycle of Jewish festivals is interminable. Gabby and Asa returned to the synagogue early the following morning to conduct worship for the second day of Pesach. Before the service, she was not surprised to find her voicemail filled with congratulations for her role in From Slavery to Freedom, which by most accounts had been successful. Non-members of the congregation left short messages of appreciation, among them effusive praise from Gordon Stack, Senior Vice President for Programming at Disney Productions. More meaningful were congratulatory words from Karla Foo, whom Gabby intended to call to express her gratitude. Too bad, she thought, Karla beat her to the punch. And there was a message from Stan Melkin, but it said nothing about the Passover presentation. He asked her to call his office about several business issues. He sounded distant and businesslike, foreshadowing the growing chill she could feel in their relationship.
During the Pesach service, she found her mind thinking about being alone with Kye, free from interruptions. So when he arrived the following day in a Politicstoday van to take her away for a few days, she was ready in every sense of the word, including foresight to bring matzot to eat during the remaining days of the Pesach festival.
Driving south into Northern Virginia in Kye's Ford van cluttered with electronic equipment behind the driver's seat, she tried guessing the secret place he had in mind. A turn in a westerly direction on Interstate 64 confirmed her suspicions. "We met on a mountain trail," he disclosed. "It's time to revisit the scene of this fortuitous crime."
The van provided a single front seat, unobstructed by a gear shift. Gabby inched closer like a dating high schooler, close enough to plant a kiss upon his cheek before contributing her approval: "I like nostalgic men. Only I forgot to bring along my deer costume."
Their first afternoon at Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, was devoted to working on joint laptop computers. She practiced storing and retrieving email, clustering multiple messages for dissemination to thousands of people simultaneously. Next came lessons on merging electronic address books and culling from them desired characteristics, then attaching to them audio and visual material. Politicstoday possessed a prodigious memory. And if required, additional memory could be borrowed from allied servers.
Before sunset, Gabby and Kye jogged to the golf course and headed north into the hills along vaguely familiar fire trails, synchronizing their pace. His longer legs provided an edge, but her breathing was superior. As the grade ascended they drew together, their sweat-encrusted shoulders bumping.
"No deer hunters in spring," he huffed.
"And no dogs to trip over," she added.
The sun had begun to fall in the west, painting early blooming locusts and sycamore trees bordering a trail resplendent orange and yellow. Somewhere in the interlocking matrix of fire roads, they had become confused and were unable to identify where they accidentally met in December. Their pace eventually slowed and then stopped, their arms coiled around each other's waists, two bodies merging into a single form. Their lips found each other, then separated and pecked at different places along the neck, both soaked in perspiration.
He whispered, "Gabby, I have some wonderful news. I wanted to wait for the right moment when you were free from pressure at Ohav Shalom. The reason I was late for your Passover at the synagogue is that Lyle Carberri and I are communicating again by email. Clandestinely, of course. He wrote yesterday that the president wants to establish himself as the first chief-executive to utilize the full potential of the Internet, like Roosevelt and Reagan did with radio broadcasts and Clinton, with television. He's agreed to go on an Internet chat site with you to inaugurate your campaign. The DNC will heavily advertise this event. We'll get thousands, maybe tens of thousands of hits. Who wouldn't like to chat with the president?"
The notion sounded utterly preposterous and she could respond only with incredulity. "The President of the United States? With me?"
"In Washington, nothing is free. You're perfect for him. He's getting a head start into the technology of the future with a charismatic candidate who just charmed the public on the Disney Channel. In exchange, you get awesome publicity and his name recognition. Toby Ryles can't begin to match this."
They started jogging again, this time descending at a faster clip as their banter trailed off into silence. For Gabby, a chat session on the Internet with the President of the United States was utter dream world. She asked herself if she had lost her bearings altogether? Then followed up with a more important question: does falling in love make one abandon all sanity?
The sun had set when they returned to the east lobby of the hotel. Once in their room, they repeated their embrace on the mountainside. Only this time, the merging of complementary bodies was accompanied by arousal. Both acknowledge it. For some time now, their path had been heading in this direction. Neither could think of a more fitting venue than the historic Greenbrier Hotel, after a wonderful jog together in the hills.
"I need to shower first," she told him.
"I love you sweaty and smelly and just the way your are." He sounded truthful, not impatient.
"Just give me a few minutes to clean up."
"Can I join you in the shower?"
"An inviting suggestion. But a bathing woman isn't a graceful woman."
He nibbled at her ear and folded his hand through her hair. "When I watched you explaining the Bread of Affliction at Ohav Shalom, I saw the most magnificent woman I've ever been close to. I can hardly believe she is with me at this moment."
"There are so many differences between us, Kye. Neither of us can afford to be blind."
Near her ear, he whispered, "True, but let's fly together in a poet's chariot, wild and free, letting our feelings overrule stubborn minds. Why not live as Shakespeare's lovers?"
"I've always been trained to live with facts. They govern everything, you know. But tonight there's a new set of facts and I don't care about the old ones. Just give me a few moments in the shower first."
"Pull back! Pull back!" a voice admonished her while stripping a jogging bra from her shoulders and stepping from a pair of running shorts. If ever there was a need for caution with a man, this is it. And yet a counter voice asked why should she turn away because God made Kye a Baptist. Every man she had wanted was flawed in some manner. Where was it written that all stars in a constellation must line up perfectly? By such standards, she would never find a man to love.
All questions became moot when Kye knocked on the door and, without waiting her approval, slipped into the bathroom, dressed only in his Jockey shorts. Warring factions inside her ceased conflict as she studied his bronze, hairless skin and the strong definition of his shoulder muscles. For an instant, he let his eyes rest upon her breasts, then dropped over her waist to the groin. Her hands reached forward to remove the last impediment to their nudity. Inquiring if he was circumcised was not the kind of question a woman would ask while dining under candlelight. She knew she should have asked before this moment, but shyness inhibited her. She dreaded the moment as her eyes moved from his chest to his abdomen, descended to his groin and what she feared – his member partially erect, but uncircumcised, the symbolic difference between her race and his. Her trepidation, she hid.
The tight confines of a hotel shower brought them into close proximity under the warm tap water. They took turns shampooing each other's hair, then lathering bodies with rich, aromatic soapsuds. Washrags permitted them to touch without embarrassment, but soon they substituted their hands, exploring new flesh and unseen crevices.
Drying each other continued the exploratory adventure. New flesh stimulated new intimacy. They clung together, stepping over to the king-sized bed, covered with a bedspread of spun cotton in emerald greens and ochre. Crisp sheets and puffy pillows awaited them below. They fell onto the mattress, devouring each other with uncensored appetite. As their breathing increased so did their words of endearment.