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need money. And if you don’t have money – and what synagogue does? – the next best thing is to have members who do.”
    “I’ve heard something to that effect. But surely it must be the son, Ben, who has the money.”
    Schwarz’s face brightened and he looked straight out at the congregation. Then he leaned toward the rabbi and said, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But actually the father is everything, and the son, at least while the father is alive, is just a messenger boy.”
    “And the father is willing to give and the son is not?”
    “You don’t get the picture, Rabbi.” He gestured with his hands spread as if to frame the picture. “The money, they’re both prepared to give. When you accumulate the kind of money they have, you’re prepared to give some of it away. It’s expected of you. It goes with your status like Continentals and a uniformed chauffeur. Now the old man has been a pious Jew all his life. As you know, he comes to the minyan almost every day when the weather permits. So a man like that, his idea of giving away money is to give it to a temple.
    “But Ben? Ben is a businessman through and through. When a businessman decides that the time has come to give charity, he views it as a business proposition. He is buying kovod, honor. And naturally he wants to get the most for his kovod dollar. If he uses the money to build a chapel – say the Goralsky Memorial Chapel – who will see it? Who will know about it except the folks here in Barnard’s Crossing? But,” he lowered his voice, “suppose he were to donate a laboratory to Brandeis or even to Harvard? The Goralsky Chemical Research Laboratory? Eh? Scientists and scholars from all over the world would get to hear of it.”
    The congregation had quieted as people began to settle down, their eyes now on the altar in anticipation. The rabbi glanced at the clock and said he thought they had better begin.
    The two men rose and beckoned the cantor and the vice-president on the other side of the Ark with a nod. The cantor pulled the cord that parted the white velvet curtains in front of the Ark. As he slid back the wooden doors of the Ark to expose the precious Scrolls of the Law, the congregation rose.
    The president, reading from a slip of paper, called the names of half a dozen of the more important members of the congregation to come forward, and they ascended the steps to the altar and the cantor handed each of them a Scroll. When all the Scrolls were received, the men clustered around the reading desk facing the congregation and the rabbi recited first in Hebrew and then in English the ancient formula that traditionally introduces the Yom Kippur service: “By the authority of the Court on high, and by the authority of the Court below, by permission of God and by permission of this holy congregation, we hold it lawful to pray with the transgressors.”
    Then the cantor began the mournful yet uplifting chant of the Kol Nidre. Three times he would chant the prayer, and by the time he had finished the sun would have gone down and the Day of Atonement, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, would have begun.
     
    “How did the public-address system work out?” asked Miriam as they walked home from the service. “Did it put much of a strain on your voice?”
    “Not a bit. I just spoke a little slower.” He chuckled. “But our president was quite upset. Every time he got up to announce the names of those who had honors, they had difficulty hearing him. The Ritual Committee sends out notices indicating the approximate time a man will be called, but we were running a little late and there was some confusion. A Mr. Goldman, who sits well back, didn’t hear his name, so Mr. Schwarz took the next name on the list and that upset the whole schedule. Did you get that bit at the end? When Marvin Brown was called?”
    “Yes, what happened?”
    “Well, I guess he didn’t hear his name, but instead of calling up a substitute as he had been doing all evening,