Old rivalry reared its head — and then the shul collapsed

THE RAV.

There’s a satisfaction that comes with walking into shul a half hour before Kol Nidrei with an envelope heavy with money. You’ve been collecting since Elul began, 40 days ago, with repeated pleas to the kehillah to support their struggling peers before Yom Tov, but there’s nothing like a contemplation of mortality as Yom Kippur creeps in to really encourage that last push. And you’ve made it at last. You have enough to get the people who need it most through Succos.

Many rabbanim have lost faith in their congregations. You’re not one of them. You believe that, ultimately, the people around you will do the right thing. It’s what has kept you here for decades.

You have yet to be proven wrong.

You descend into the basement of the shul, where your office is, and put the money into the safe in the wall. It’ll be secure until after Yom Kippur.

Now, it’s time to return to the somber mood of the evening. It’s the month of Tishrei, when you elevate yourself before the King, only to remember that you are dust and ashes, that you’re struggling to survive for another year. You climb the stairs and into the shul itself, settling down in the men’s section with a bottle of water that your wife has sternly instructed you to finish before the fast begins.

You aren’t the first one there, which doesn’t come as a surprise. David Miller is always the first to shul, grumbling to himself as he limps to his seat with his cane. He has ten years on you and looks as though he is 30 older, and you haven’t seen him smile once since he moved to Beachwood. You greet him anyway. “Have you eaten well?” He always fasts, though you would find an exemption for him if he’d ask, and he’s fainted in the middle of Neilah on occasion.

David glares at you. “I’m fine.” He turns to look down at his machzor with studied indifference, insolent and provocative.

You’re distracted by the sound of a blaring horn from the parking lot. You look out the window and see them — two high-end cars, one cutting the other off to take the closest parking spot. The lot is empty, but the other car sounds an irritable honk and whips into the next spot, Michael Oppen tearing out of the car to make it up the steps first. He punches in the code and closes the door an instant before Gershon Kaufman reaches it.

It’s a complicated situation, you know. You’ve counseled Michael and his wife — Gershon’s sister — and you’ve heard about the failed business endeavor, the one Michael had flubbed that left them both penniless. Gershon bounced back. Michael didn’t. They don’t speak to each other anymore.