My first associate and I had a good relationship. We were able to push each other’s buttons in a fun manner, sort of like a sister and brother, which I know about only from my kids as I was an only child.

When she told me she and her family would be moving to Florida where her husband, also a rabbi, accepted a large pulpit, I knew then I had to come up with a coup de grace, one final good jab…and I hit the nail on the head, the coup on the Jew, as it were.

She had told me in a casual conversation a year or two earlier that while a rabbinic student she and Dr. Eugene Borowitz, of blessed memory, had been like fire and water. “Hmmm,” thought I, “would it be fair to take advantage of that somehow?” and right then and there I didn’t care. I knew exactly what to do!***

I had a mole in the seminary. I asked her to send me one sheet of the professor’s stationery as a well as an HUC-JIR envelope. She agreed.

I wrote the following:

Dear Sarah,

Considering our relationship over the five years I’ve known you, I’m more than surprised that you asked me to speak at your final worship service at Congregation Beth Emeth. If you do want me to deliver the sermon, I will. Please let me know at your earliest convenience so that I can rearrange my schedule.

Sincerely,

Eugene Borowitz, Ph.D

I was able to forge his signature with ease after practicing a lot. Remember, I had one piece of stationery to work with. I addressed the envelope, now with the letter inside. I knew a Wilmington postmark would give it away, so I stamped it, put it in yet another envelope and mailed that to my parents in New York. They mailed the letter.

After a few days Sarah came into my office with a face white as snow. She asked, “Do you know anything about this?” Able to keep a straight face, I answered in the negative. After a day, maybe two (ok, maybe three) I realized I had better ‘fess up. If looks could kill!

But Sarah was most impressed with my creative sneakiness…as was I.

(***I must point out that this happened just a month or two after I found out that she had decorated my bimah chair each and every Friday night I was on sabbatical. I say “my bimah chair” because my only rule with assistants was that no one was to sit in the chair of the senior rabbi. So, if she couldn’t sit in it, she wouldn’t, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t decorate it. Let me make it clear…I didn’t think it was “my” seat, but I was adamant that the chair next to the Ark was for the senior rabbi regardless who s/he was, and when I retired and was invited on the bimah, I always sat in the next chair)