SUNDAY MORNING IN SOLITUDE WITH MY NY TIMES

My hometown in Greenville, South Carolina, still has a few redeeming qualities. Premier among them is a tiny Jewish-style delicatessen, Greenfield’s. I say “Jewish style,” because it serves outstanding bagels imported from New York, but slices ham on the same slicer as the kosher corned beef.

Yet, I enjoy an occasional lox-and-bagel at Greenfield’s on Sunday morning. My only problem: Half of the Jewish community does precisely the same. Had I been a plumber, this would not pose a problem. But I am, after all, Herr Rabbiner, the know-it-all of everything Jewish.

As I try to spend a moment reading my beloved New York Times, I am relentlessly interrupted by the local Yehudim. Uninvited, they pull up a chair and ask penetrating questions that I would have happily answered them on Shabbos – had they only been in schule:

“Rabbi, I’ve always (this in itself is a sign of danger) wanted to know,” one gushy congregant asks, “whether I should put up a tombstone for my baby . . . Fifi my poodle?”

“I’ve only got a moment, Rabbi, but a gentile friend wants me tell him why Jews don’t believe in Jesus instead of going to hell.”

“Is it true that some people think Jews have horns because some fanatics still wear those little black boxes on their heads?”

“Rabbi, if I wear my toupee to schule, do I still have to wear a yarmulke?”

“If they really cared, why can’t the Rabbis change all of the holidays to weekends?”

Alas, no one has yet to ask me “How many rungs were in Jacob’s ladder?” or “How many commandments are in the Ten Commandments?”

Then one Sunday morning I was approached by a youngish woman who whispered in my ear, “Rabbi, Jack and I are getting divorced.”

“How sad,” I tell her.

“Sad?” she smiles seductively. “Not me. Now I have a chance to have an affair with you!”

Without responding yes or no, I finally closed my New York Times and drove down the street to MacDonald’s to have a biscuit and a Coke . . . ah, a mechayeh, uninterrupted.