Fairstein, Linda - Silent Mercy

“Just that the killer staged the body behind the altar. Took all the woman’s clothing with him.”

“Did he take any money? Any religious items of value?”

“Not a thing.”

“How did he get into the church?”

“The pastor always left the doors open. Still a small-town lifestyle. Sheriff says all the other religious leaders in town have been jumpy ever since.”

“What goes on in Wayland?” I asked.

“Coal. Population holding at about three hundred, so the good ol’ boys are pretty sure it’s not one of their own. He’s going to pull together all their files and fax a set up to me. No leads, no forensics of value. No money for all the bells and whistles our labs have.”

“So now?”

“Manny Chirico’s on a tear. He’s trying to find connections to this kind of kill anywhere he can. Thinks we got a transient maniac on our hands.”

There was nothing unusual about that idea. Sooner or later, most madmen with felonious intent found their way to one of the big cities. New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, D.C., Miami, Houston, Oakland — even the small-town perps wanted to make it to a bigger stage.

Mercer and I bounced ideas off each other all the way uptown, but nothing worthwhile came of the conversation.

“You have an address for the seminary?” I asked as we passed the main Columbia University campus on 116th Street.

“Northeast corner of 122nd and Broadway.”

We parked on a side street and approached the entrance of the redbrick building that sat catty-corner on Broadway, exactly at the point where the subway emerged from belowground and the tracks ran through the center concourse.

There was tight security at the entrance, and the guard who had Mercer’s name on his list called for someone to escort us to the administrative offices.

There were glass doors leading to an interior courtyard. The setting was tranquil and elegant — beautiful plantings and a small fountain, arranged in a quadrangle.

“Welcome to JTS. I’m Rabbi Levy. Zev Levy.” The handsome, bespectacled man who greeted us didn’t look any older than I am. He was dressed in a sports jacket and dark slacks, and was wearing a yarmulke.

Mercer and I introduced ourselves.

“Why don’t we go over to my office? I can see you’re admiring the view, so we should take the scenic route. Our first donor was insistent that we look ‘American’ rather than Eastern European. That’s why we copied a typical New England campus. Come, I’d rather be somewhere private. I know you have questions about Naomi Gersh.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said. “I didn’t realize this beautiful oasis was tucked away here.”

“We’re one of the city’s best-kept secrets. Do you know anything about us?”

Several students made their way through the quad, most doing a double take at Mercer and me, probably because we didn’t fit the traditional profile of rabbinical students. “Very little,” I said, while Mercer echoed me by answering, “Nothing.”

“We like to think we’re the central institution — the flagship, if you will — of the Conservative movement in American Judaism. We’re here to produce modern American rabbis. Do you understand the difference between Orthodox and Conservative theology?”

“I think I do, Rabbi,” I said. “I grew up in a Reform household. My mother converted to Judaism after marrying my father. His ancestors had been Orthodox when in Russia, but not once they immigrated to this country.”

“Please call me Zev,” he said. We walked through the quiet gardens, the day slightly milder and sunnier than yesterday. “The Orthodox are the most traditional Jews, of course. They believe in the strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics that are canonized in the Torah. They believe that the Torah and its laws are divine in origin, transmitted by God to Moses. That those laws are eternal and unalterable.”

He stopped to greet a student who passed us on the walkway.

“The rumblings of Reform Judaism started in Germany, in the nineteenth century. There were still the beliefs in monotheism and morality, but Reform leaders thought most of the rituals were connected to the ancient past, no longer for Jews of the modern era to follow. In this country, the Reform movement took hold in Charleston.”

“South Carolina?” Mercer asked.

Zev Levy smiled. “Not your first idea for a hotbed of Jewish intellectual thought.”

“I never considered it.”

“It was the largest Jewish community in America in the 1820s. Charleston was one of the four biggest ports in the country and took in many Spanish and Portuguese Jews who left England to come here. The members of a synagogue there first petitioned for reforms.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“They wanted English-language sermons. They wanted Hebrew prayers to be repeated in English. German immigrants joined them later in the century, setting up magnificent houses of worship like Temple Emanu-El here on Fifth Avenue.” Levy held back the door to let us through. “The boiling point came to a head over kosher dietary laws.”

“With all the other principles at stake, that’s hard for me to imagine.”

“It represented so many of the cultural changes in the new world. There was a banquet organized for the first graduating class from Hebrew Union College in 1883. The more radical element planned a provocative menu that included shrimp. Trefa, if you know what I mean. It just highlighted the conflict over whether kosher law — and therefore rabbinical law — would be binding in Reform Judaism.”

We reached his office and Levy’s secretary rose to usher us into his room. While she took orders for coffee, he went on.

“Our Conservative movement arose as a reaction to the more liberal positions taken by Reform Jews. It has nothing to do with political conservatism, you understand. The name signifies that we believe Jews should attempt to conserve Jewish tradition, rather than jettison it as the Reformers did.”

I wondered where Naomi Gersh would fit into all of this.

“So who wrote the Torah?” Mercer asked, smiling at the good-natured rabbi.

“Most Conservatives believe it was written by humans, but divinely inspired. Here at the seminary, I’d say our feet are firmly planted in two places — tradition and modernity. We maintain the tradition of prayer, but we’ve been known to reinterpret it.”

The secretary closed the door.

“So on to Naomi Gersh. That’s what you want to talk about.”

“Thanks, Zev. Yes, yes it is,” I said. “Was she enrolled here?”

“No, she wasn’t. Although we are rather small,” Levy said, “we offer a diverse number of programs. We have three professional schools for students with college degrees. One is for rabbinical training, another is for cantors, and the third is a more generally Jewish education. We offer an undergraduate degree as well. Naomi hadn’t made up her mind to apply to that, to devote herself to a course of study. But she sought us out to explore the idea of coming to school here. She liked our mission, I think.”

“And what is that?” Mercer asked.

“A learned and passionate study of Judaism. I’d say our vision joins faith with inquiry. We strive to service Jewish communities and strengthen traditions.”

“What about Israel?” I asked. “Did Naomi talk about her time there?”

Levy bowed his head. “Most definitely. Our movement has intense involvement with the society and state of Israel. That’s probably why Naomi came here to begin with.”

“How long ago was that?” I tried to keep eye contact with Levy while Mercer took notes.

“Maybe four months ago. Sometime in December, I believe. The first course she signed up for started in January, in the new semester. That’s how I got to know her. I taught the class. Jewish Philosophical Thought.”

“Tell us about Naomi, please. Anything you can remember, no matter how insignificant it may seem to you.”

Zev Levy stroked his chin with his hand. “My first impression of her was about how much a loner she seemed to be. The graduate students here are an exceptional group. Brilliant, many of them, and scholars all. Some are more vigorously and intellectually engaged with the others, while some are more intense and reflective. Naomi wasn’t in either league. While she remained remote, it wasn’t because of an inward spirituality.”

“What, then? Did you attribute it to anything?”

“There was a sadness she carried with her,” the rabbi said. “A sadness she wore like a weight around her neck.”

“Was she close to any of the other students?”

Levy shook his head. “Not that I’m aware. They’ve set me up to talk with you because I probably spent more time with Naomi — and that’s not a lot — than anyone else.”

“Did she confide in you, Zev?” I didn’t want him to invoke the clergy-penitent privilege. I wasn’t looking for Naomi’s admissions of wrongdoing, if there were any, and I didn’t believe they would survive her death. I wanted to know if she trusted him with any personal information that would be of use to us.

“You mean as a rabbi?” He knew exactly where I was going. There was no privilege if she had merely leaned on him as a friend. “Not that way. Sometimes she would come to me with questions about things I’d said in class. Then she’d linger to get to what was really on her mind.”

“What kind of things?”

“She was still haunted, of course, by what had happened to her mother. That tested all the depths of her religion and beliefs, into politics, back to threatening her faith completely, over to obsessing about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. You know about her protests?”

“Maybe not as much as you do,” Mercer said.

“No, don’t assume I got any substance out of her on that. Naomi was just proud of her activism. Much of it was sincere, although I think some of it was a way of calling attention to herself.”

“What’s the role of women here at JTS, Zev?” I asked. “How are they accepted in the Conservative movement?”

“That’s a good question, Alex. You might not get the same answer from any two people. It’s not like you Reformers, who have been much more welcoming to women and to gays. It’s one of the topics that drew fire from Naomi.”

I was beginning to flesh out a better picture of her. She had been thrust into the outcast role early on by her life circumstances. But she also seemed to have grown comfortable in that skin.

“Have you ordained women as rabbis?”

“We have. But only for the last twenty-five years. I don’t think Naomi had the intellectual rigor to go there, but she was fascinated by the feminist role in religion. Women as clergy have emerged from a grassroots push, after a very long debate. Now about thirty percent of our rabbinical students are female.”

“Does that still cause division in the ranks?” I asked.

“Not here, I don’t think. But you will find many Jews — just as you will in every Christian denomination — who don’t believe that women belong in this role. Didn’t you face that in your work?”

“Not openly, Zev. Not my generation of litigators.” But I knew that the women who had come before me in the law, as in many careers, had faced insurmountable obstacles simply getting through the door of the courtroom. Even legendary prosecutors like Frank Hogan thought that trial work was too tawdry for lady lawyers. “Did Naomi come up against any of that here?”

“Not that I know. I hope you’ll look in at our synagogue on your way out. You’ll see the balconies that existed so that women were seated separately from the men in the old days. They couldn’t have dreamed at that time of leading services.”