Sacred and Profane

“I’ll say,” Brian said lecherously. The other kids gave him reproving looks. The boy blushed.

“Lindsey seemed to be a nice girl,” Decker said. “Considerate of her parents, not wanting to hurt their feelings by going with Chris. Enthusiastic about cheerleading. Anybody want to add anything?”

“She was a doll,” Lisa said. “Not real heavy on the gray matter-”

“Like you are?” Brian said.

“Shut up, Armor.”

Suddenly Brian became enraged. “Will you quit picking on me!” he screamed, turning crimson.

The room fell silent. A minute passed, then Brian let out a hollow laugh.

“She was a great kid,” he said in a cracked voice. “She was nice to everyone…Even me.”

“She was real sweet,” Marc said softly. “The world could use more positive people like her.”

Decker had to admit it; she didn’t sound like a prototypical runaway. No evidence of heavy drug use, she didn’t seem to hate her parents, she had a supportive peer group and was involved in school activities. It was begi

Decker folded his notepad and distributed his cards.

“If any one of you thinks of something that might help, give me a call.”

Lisa squinted and mouthed the word “Decker.”

“You got a daughter on the intramural track team?” she asked.

Decker nodded. “You know Cindy?”

“Not personally. I just remember this long-legged redhead named Decker who competed last year. Ran like lightning. She should go into the Olympics or something.”

Despite himself, Decker swelled with parental pride.

His watch said 6:15. Hard to believe that he’d been in there for over an hour and a half. He was supposed to meet with the rabbi at eight, so he had plenty of time to fix himself di

A nice girl disappears and turns up a corpse, murdered gruesomely. The scenario suppressed his appetite. Making matters worse, the case had little to go on.

It became all too clear to him why he had transferred out of Homicide. Any victim was better than a dead one. True, he’d seen his fair share of assholes getting blown away in sour drug deals and junkies who kicked themselves. The memories didn’t keep him up at night. It was cases like this one that left the bile in this throat.

A nice girl.

He thought of his own daughter. She was safe, he assured himself. She was careful. But the words seemed empty. Careful wasn’t enough.

His daughter. Alone in New York.

He took out a cigarette.

He’d call Jan the minute he got home. Cindy and Eric living together? He thought that was a fine idea.

6

“Very good,” Rabbi Schulman said, twirling gray wisps of beard around his index finger. “You’re making very good progress.”

“Thank you,” said Decker.

The Rosh Yeshiva closed the chumash-the Jewish bible. They were learning bible in the rabbi’s study, a spacious, wood-paneled room that reflected the warmth of its host. The picture window revealed a tranquil evening, the foliage dappled with moonlight like early morning frost on a winter’s landscape. Decker felt a spiritual calm, even though the circuitry of his nervous system was pushing overload.

“Study next week’s portion and we’ll go over it together. Use the English of course, but try to look at the Hebrew also. Remember what I told you about looking for the shoresh-the three-letter root-in the word.”

“I will.” Decker stared back at his open Bible and began shuffling through back pages, not quite ready to call it quits.

“And you’ll be spending Shabbos weekend with us?” the rabbi asked.

“I’m pla

“I will do that. And Zvi Adler wants to have you over for Shabbos lunch. I think it would be nice if you accepted the invitation.”

“That’s fine.”

“Sarah Libba would have called you, but she’s exquisitely shy, so Zvi asked me invite you.”

“Tell him I’d be delighted.”

Schulman stood, his posture as rigid as a T-square. He sensed Decker’s jumpiness and went to a liquor cabinet.

“A shot of schnapps, Peter?”

Rotgut, Decker thought. It was amazing the man had any lining left in his stomach. Yet, here he was in his seventies with more energy than someone half his age.

“Thank you, Rabbi. That would be nice.”

The rabbi gave Decker a shot glass and raised his cup in the air.

“L’chaim,” he said.

“L’chaim,” Decker repeated.

The old man peered over the detective’s shoulder and noticed the open chumash.

“Fascinating isn’t it”-Schulman downed the liquid fire in a single gulp-“to read about our ancestors, God’s chosen people? He said to Yaakov, ‘I shall remember your seed, and they shall be as numerous as the stars in the sky.’ And then we learn that Yaakov’s sons sold their brother, Yoseph, into slavery because they were poisoned with jealousy; that Miriam-a prophetess-was turned into a leper because she spoke ill of Moshe’s wife; that Tamar, dressed as a harlot, seduced her father-in-law, Yehudah, in order to secure her rightful seed; that Shimon and Levi-brothers in spirit as well as blood-avenged the rape of their sister by wiping out a nation. Superficially, one would think we descended from a bunch of hoodlums.”

The old man coughed.

“Such is not the case at all. Those men and women were righteous, Peter. On a far higher madraga-level of spirituality-than we are today. You must remember they were worth enough to have been recorded in the chumash for prosperity.”

“But they were still human beings,” Decker said, “with human frailties.”

“This is true.”

Decker closed the book.

“It’s family, Rabbi,” he said. “It brings out the best and worst in us. Whenever a crime is committed, the first place cops look is the family. Almost always, the perpetrator is a relative or friend. Yoseph was sold by his own brothers. No surprise. If that crime happened today, we could have saved Yaakov years of grief.”

“Chas v’chaleylah.” The rabbi frowned. He sat down and put his arm around Decker. “God forbid! Hashem had a bigger purpose in mind, Peter. Yoseph was supposed to go down to Egypt. Had he not gone, Yaakov and his sons would have been wiped out by famine. Hashem knew what he was doing.”

Schulman took off his oversized kipah to smooth his white hair, then placed it back on his head.

“And of course, the Jews would have never been slaves in Egypt. And that would have been terrible, because then we wouldn’t have had Passover!”

He broke into a broad grin at his own joke, then grew serious.

“Events in Jewish history have a way of coming in through the back door,” he said. “Like the selling of Yoseph. Out of that came the Exodus: Moses, the Revelation, the Torah. It is said that even the messiah will not come to us openly. Why? Whenever good comes openly, the yetzer harah-the evil spirit-is there to destroy it.”

“I don’t subscribe to the concept of an evil spirit, Rabbi.”

Schulman refilled Decker’s cup.

“You don’t come into contact with it daily?” the old man asked.

“I come into contact with a lot of bad people,” Decker answered. “And most of them know darn well what they’re doing is wrong. They just don’t care. Ask them why they robbed or raped or killed and you’d be surprised at how creative their excuses are. It’s a rare criminal who’ll accept responsibility for his own actions. An evil spirit seems to me to be another way to pass the buck. The devil made me do it, et cetera.”

“Judaism sees it as just the opposite of what you’re saying,” Schulman explained. “Evil is in all of us. So is good. Man has free will to choose either. There is a very interesting midrash about that. Before Mount Sinai the angels asked Hashem to give them the Torah instead of mankind. After all who is better equipped to do mitzvot-good deeds-than an angel? Hashem refused. Mankind was the only acceptable recipient of the Torah because only mankind could elect to honor Hashem. The angels were programmed only for good. It’s no challenge to be good if good is the sole component of one’s makeup.”