We Bring You… Minyan Mad Men

SCENE 1: Sherry Talks to David Rosenthal

Sherry: David, any progress finding a replacement for my husband, Gabbai Jim?

David: Not yet.

Sherry: Have you done any serious arm twisting?

David: I’ve been twisting peoples’ arms out of their sockets. They cry “Uncle” but no one’s agreed to be Gabbai. I explained to them, they would just be Gabbai in training at the beginning, but no takers.

Sherry: Well it’s really urgent. Jim is becoming unhinged. He’s started mumbling puns in his sleep! It’s scary!

It’s really done a number on me as well…

Sherry (sings to the tune of Hernando’s Hideaway):

It seemed like fun initially

To be the minyan’s First Lady

But lately it’s too much for me

A strain to be the Gabbitzin Oy Veh!

It was a job with some demands

With Jim in charge it soon expands

And soon we’re lost in Minyan Land!

Both him and me the Gabbitzin Oy Vey!

Alas How much I long to be out in the sun

But now I’m here with him ‘til services are done

Before I used to get such nachas from this role

But now It’s come to really take a toll!

Jim burns the candle at both ends

With every last email he sends

He never sleeps, please help me friends

Save me, ‘cause I’m the Gabbitzin! Oy Vey!

David: Things are going to get better quickly, though. I’m meeting today with an ad man who’s offering to mount an intensive campaign to find us a gabbai—or two, even. He’s from the same agency that did such a great job helping KI when they needed Torah readers. They’re the ones that came up with that catchy slogan: “Leyners wanted.”

Sherry: They got paid for that??? Well, I have to admit those admen are truly amazing—they can sell anything.

David: For sure! Why, this guy I’m meeting with today—he’s the one who sold that Canadian company’s website development services to Kathleen Sibelius. Why he could sell Pork Sausage to the Satmer Rebbe. Why, he could even sell a used Mitzvah Mobile to the Ayatollah—along with a three-year extended warrantee!

SCENE 2: David meets with Adman Don Draper and his luscious Assistant, Honeysuckle Horowitz.

David: I’m David Rosenthal, from the Worship and Study Minyan.

Don Draper: I’m Don Draper from the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. I think you know my assistant, Honeysuckle Horowitz. She tells me that she’s been attending your services recently.

Honeysuckle: Hi David, nice to see you again. I’m looking forward to the Megillah reading.

Don Draper: I’ve been kicking around some ideas for your gabbai campaign.

David: That’s good, since we have a pressing need.

Don Draper: What you need is a catchy slogan that’ll make everyone who hears it want to run out and be a gabbai. Something we can put on buses and billboards. So, how about…

(intones) The Gabbai—a minyan of one!

David: No, I don’t think that’s the idea that we want to disseminate….

Don Draper: No problem, I have another idea that I know will be just right for your minyan: Be the Gabbai—So good you’ll want a second term!

David: No, I really don’t think it will have the effect we’re looking for.

Don Draper: I’m surprised you think that, but if that’s the case, how about if we enlist a celebrity, someone who has real credibility with your membership, pitching in on your behalf.

David: We’re open to that. Who do you have in mind?

Don Draper: That young Olympic Gold Medal figure skater, Jason Brown, would be ideal—His message would be, Be a Gabbai and you can be just like me! I skate on thin ice, I go around in circles, and I make it look easy—and I’m thrilled to do it! Also, he chants a mean haftorah! The problem is that he’s already delivering that same message on behalf of President Obama!

Honeysuckle: What a shame. And he sings Yismakhu so quietly!

Don Draper: But I have someone else who would be almost as good—and who has great appeal to your generation.

David: And this is someone who is actually available?

Don Draper: Do you watch the Super Bowl?

David: I only watch the commercials.

Don Draper: Then you know that Bob Dylan is always willing to lend his poetry and music to our advertisements. In fact, Bob is so eager to participate in your campaign that he prepared a demo for us. Let me play it for you.

(He takes out a remote and clicks it. Out comes Bob Dylan)

Bob Dylan (to the tune of The Mighty Quinn):

Come if you’re devout.

Come if you’re in sin

We need a new Gabbai for this fine minyan!

I don’t mind if you’re stout

I don’t care if you’re thin

We need a new Gabbai for this fine minyan

Everyone has opinions

Everybody is a sage

But when the Gabbai stands up there

Everybody gets on the same page

We can’t do without

One voice above the din

We need a new Gabbai for this fine minyan!

(Don Draper clicks the remote again, and Bob Dylan departs)

David: That sounds great! But how much will it cost us?

Don Draper: Since you are a non-profit organization, he’ll do it for a special price of just $170,000. For that price, he’ll also come out if you need a tenth person….

David: That’s ridiculous, that’s way beyond our means! I’ve heard a lot about your fine reputation, Mr. Draper, but I haven’t seen anything today that’s going to help us with our urgent situation. So thank you and…

Honeysuckle: Wait, David. Don isn’t finished, he has one more idea up his sleeve that he’s been saving for last, right Don?

Don Draper: Y-yeah! (it’s evident that he has no such thing.)

Honeysuckle: Is it okay if I sing it for him now, Don?

Don Draper: Sure, Honeysuckle, go ahead.

Honeysuckle takes a cardigan sweater out of a shopping bag that she has with her, carefully puts it on, and launches into the following song, to the tune of Mr. Rogers’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”.

It’s a beautiful day in Hillel Land

A wonderful day for the minyan

It would be a plus

If you lead us…

It’s a neighborly role in minyan Land

A wonderful role for the minyan

Don’t hesitate

Step up to the plate

We’ve always wanted to have a gabbai just like you

Someone who can tell the people what to do

So let’s make the most of this beautiful day

We need your help to study and pray

Won’t you come through, be our head Jew,

Won’t you be our gabbai!

Please say I do, we look to you

Please won’t you be our Gabbai!

David: I was too quick to give up on you. That is lovely indeed and just right for us. How much will you charge us?

Don Draper: $3600.

David: If I take a little out of the Kiddush fund and little bit out of Bikur Holim, and if we reuse the same hamentaschen year to year`, we can manage it. Get to work right on it! (exits)

SCENE 3.

(Don Draper and Honeysuckle are left by themselves)

Don Draper: Honey, you really saved my bacon!

Honeysuckle: Shhhh! Don’t use that word!

You know I’m happy to do anything I can to help…. Some day you should come to the services with me.

Don Draper: And sit for 2 ½ hours before they give you a drink?

What is that—is it some Jewish form of extreme practice in delayed gratification? Is that how all those people got to be doctors and lawyers?

Honeysuckle: You can come for the Megillah reading--open bar right at the beginning!

Don Draper: Anyway, there’s something I want to tell you. Betty and I are getting a divorce. You’re the person I really want to be with—I’m asking you to marry me!

Honeysuckle: Oh, Don!

Don Draper: But wait, there’s something I need to tell you. I’m not really the person you think I am. I’m not really Don Draper.

Honeysuckle: What do you mean?

Don Draper: I grew up in a family of immigrants from the Ukraine. When I was 12 years old, they sent me to Bar Mitzvah lessons at the neighborhood shul. One day, I came home from my lesson to find our apartment empty. My parents and kid brother were gone. They left me a note saying that they were tired of living in a capitalist society and were going back to the old country. Since I was going to be Bar Mitzvah soon, they figured I could take care of myself, so they left me here.

Honeysuckle: They left you alone, just like that?

Don Draper: That’s what happened. So I changed my name from Dmitri Dniepr to Don Draper and brought myself up.

Honeysuckle: I can’t imagine what it must have been like, growing up with no father figure in your life!

Don Draper: That’s not entirely true. I did have sort of a virtual father figure. Someone I learned about in Hebrew School who became sort of a mentor to me.

Honeysuckle: Who was that? Moses….Abraham…..David? (Draper shakes his head after each name.)

Don Draper: I’ll tell you. (Sings to the tune of Oklahoma)

Ahh—Achashveros

You’re the man I strive to emulate

You’ve shown me how

To live for now

And every day to dissipate!

Ah-Achashveros,

You inspire me to live life to excess

Life’s not like school

Let Haman rule

Give parties and squander your largess!

I know that our life ends in dust

Why not fill it with drinking and lust?

And so I say

Achashveros show the way!

Achashveros, and while the moon shines, Achashveros

Achashveros, make hay!

Ah-Achashveros

Knows consumption’s the essence of noblesse

Where the ruler flirts

And chases skirts

Though everything around him is a mess

Ah-Achashveros

Has those parties that last for half a year

We live it up

And drain our cup

And sup on caviar and beer!

Let Haman decide the Jews’ plight

As long as we carouse every night!

And so I pray

Achashveros let me play,

Achashveros,and while the moon shines, Achashveros

Achashveros, make hay!

Honeysuckle: Well, Achashveros must be doing something right because I like how you came out! But if we are going to be married, you need to know that I’m not the person you think I am either.

Don Draper: You mean you aren’t really Honeysuckle Horowitz?

Honeysuckle: No, that’s just to throw people off my trail. I’m actually Mabel Moskowitz.

Don Draper: You’re Mabel Moskowitz? The world famous bank robber and femme fatale, the woman that they say is a cross between Public Enemy #1 and Chanel #5—that’s you? The celebrated felon who marched into the Lubavitcher Bank, pointed an AK-47 at them, and shouted “Gimmee Loot, Hasidim”? The crime that they called the Loot of the Frum Caper!

Honeysuckle: That was a trip!

Don Draper: And you broke into Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley in the dead of night and made off with $750.000--in pledges?

Honeysuckle: That’s one of my favorite memories. And those pledges came in handy when I sold them to Meyer Lansky. He got 110 cents on the dollar for them.

Don Draper: Aren’t you afraid someone will recognize you and blow the whistle?

Honeysuckle: Not really. Who would ever suspect that your demure Gal Friday, Honeysuckle Horowitz, is a wanted felon? And certainly no one in the Worship and Study Minyan! No one in the minyan watches America’s Most Wanted!

David (aside): I'm not so certain they watch Mad Men either.

Draper: I heard that!

Honeysuckle: Now, if they started showing my mug on Downton Abby, then I’d be in serious trouble! No, they’ll never catch up with me. Besides, I like living dangerously. Anyway, now you and I have something to celebrate at the Megillah reading!

SCENE 4: At the Megillah Reading

Don Draper staggers in, glass in hand, clearly inebriated, and encounters Honeysuckle.

Don Draper: (sings in slurred voice) : Or Khalash al tziyon tair. Or khalash al tziyon tair…

Honeysuckle: Don, you didn’t waste any time!

Don Draper: Hi there, sweetie. Help me out here—Mordecai, is he the good guy or the bad guy. I can’t remember… And what’s with that frigging numb nuts Achasveros???

Honeysuckle: How cute! But if you keep it up like this, you’re going to start acting in a way that’s bad for business. I’m going to put you on a taxi and send you home. (She escorts him out of sight.)

SCENE 5: At the Megillah Reading.

(Honeysuckle and David are seated. Rabbi Jim is in front of the congregation)

Rabbi Jim: Before we continue with the megillah reading. I’d like to introduce a guest. This is Mikhail—he’s part of a visiting group from the Ukraine. He’s here looking for his long lost brother Dmitri, whom he was separated from decades ago, and who is believed to be in the Boston Area.

Mikhail: Sholom Aleichem!

Rabbi Jim: And now-- (Rabbi Jim chants a few words from the megillah. The Agent steps in and taps him strongly on the shoulder and beckons him over to the side.)

Rabbi Jim (to congregation)—Excuse me for a moment. (Quietly talks to Agent). Who are you?

Agent: I’m Agent Pat Shegen from the FBI (shows wallet with ID). We have a tip that a wanted felon, Mabel Moskowitz, is among your congregants tonight. I’m here to apprehend her.

Rabbi Jim: We don’t have anyone by that name here!

Agent: She would be here under an assumed name. But you can help me flush her out.

Rabbi Jim: How can I do that?

(Agent whispers to Rabbi Jim. Rabbi Jim returns and addresses the congregation.)

Rabbi Jim: Sorry for the interruption. And now—Please rise if you are Mabel.

(Mabel stands up.)

Agent: FBI! Mabel Moskowitz, you are under arrest!

(He strides over to her and grabs her by the arm and twists it.)

Your life of crime is finally over!

Mabel: It’s about time you idiots found me! The prayer book must have had you in mind when it says, “The ignorant man does not know nor does the fool understand.”

Agent: This way.

Mabel: And Mikhail-- your long lost brother is Don Draper, the ad man!

Agent: That’s not supposed be revealed until Season 4. You’ll rot in prison for this!

Mabel: (to the congregation). I will serve as your Gabbai. Just get me out of prison!

(David gets up.) Don’t worry, we’ll get our dream team working on it--Noah Feldman, Don Siegel, Susan Brand, Gail Horowitz, Alan Dershowitz. You’ll be out in no time!

(Addresses Congregation) You all heard the news, both good and bad. We must do all we can to get Mabel out of prison—in keeping with the mitzvah of Matir Asurim, freeing captives. As soon as Mabel is free, she will be our new gabbai.

In the mean time, just until Mabel comes out of prison, I need one of you to step forward to join me as co-gabbai—you’ll get plenty of training and it’s only for a short while.

If Mabel can do it you can do it. And now let’s drink a L’Chaim to our new gabbais!

THE END