THE RABBI AND THE DOCTOR
“You could pray,” she said. “Either on your own, or with us.”
“Oh, that?” said the doctor, shaking his head. “The p word? No.”
A doctor went to see a rabbi. “Tell me, rabbi, please,” he said, “about God.”
The rabbi pulled out some books. She talked about Jacob wrestling the angel. She talked about Heschel and the kernel of wonder as
a seedling that could grow into awe. She tugged at her braid and told a Hasidic story about how at the end of one’s life, it is said that you will need to apologize to God for the ways you have not lived.
“Not for the usual sins,” she said. “For the sin of living small.”
The doctor sat in his suit in his chair and fidgeted. Although he had initiated the conversation, he found the word God offensive, the same way he disliked it when people spoke about remodeling their
kitchens.
“I’m sorry,” he said, standing. “I cannot seem to understand what you are saying. Are you speaking English?”
“English?” said the rabbi, closing a book. Dust motes floated off the pages into the room and caught the light as they glided upward. She wrinkled her forehead as if she was double-checking in there. “Yes,” she said.
***
A few months later, the rabbi became sick. She had a disease of the blood, a disease that needed weekly transfusions that she scheduled on Wednesdays so she would be at her best for Shabbat.
The doctor who had come to see her was a doctor of blood. A transfusionist. He had chosen this profession because blood was at the center of all of it. It was either blood, or the heart, or the brain. Or the lungs. He picked blood because it was everywhere. He was never even
slightly interested in skin, or feet, joints, or even genitals. It was the most central core stuff of life and death that made him tolerate all those godawful courses in anatomy and biochemistry.
She thought of him as she sat with her husband, staring at their enfolded hands, wondering what to do.
“That man,” she said, looking up. “That man who came by a few months ago.”
***
When the rabbi was in her paper gown she looked smaller, of the earth, and the doctor did not mind the role reversal.
“I’m so sorry you have to go through this,” he said.
The rabbi lay down on the cold table. She offered her arm. The blood drained from her; the blood of another person filled her. The doctor stood beside her and placed the instruments
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