“Yes. Just forget it!”

Sammy was holding back tears. Rina brushed the hair out of his eyes and repinned his kipah.

“It’s just not fair,” he said in a cracked voice.

“No, it isn’t,” she agreed. “Listen, maybe we can work something out with another organization who’d-”

Decker walked in, hair wet and slicked back, carrying a big box.

“Why the long faces?” he asked.

Rina waved her hand in the air, and he didn’t press it.

“Don’t beg, Ginger.” Decker placed the carton on an empty chair, then poured out a bowl of dry dog food.

“Can I give Ginger some chicken?” Jacob asked.

“The grease isn’t good for her, Jake.”

“What’ve you got in the box?” asked Sammy.

“These are some Jewish books and articles that my ex-wife’s grandfather brought over from Europe. When he died, no one in the family wanted them, so I took ’em. I’ve been meaning to take them to the yeshiva.”

Decker ripped open the sealed top and held up a leather-bound book with pages edged in gilt.

“Does this mean anything to you?” he asked.

“Wait a minute,” Rina said. “My hands are dirty.”

She and the boys washed their hands, and Decker took the carton of books into the living room.

Jake picked up the book that Decker had been holding. “That’s a machzor,” he said.

“A what?”

Sammy took it and opened it carefully. “It’s a prayer book for the New Year. This side is Hebrew, but I don’t know what language this is.”

He handed the book to Rina.

“It’s German,” she said. “Was her grandfather from Germany?”

“I don’t know,” said Decker.

“Look at all these beautiful sepharim,” Rina said, pulling out another volume. It was bound in dark green leather, the cover lettering stenciled in gold. She looked at the date of publication-1798.

“A lot of sepharim were destroyed during World War Two. These may be very valuable, Peter.”

“Look at this, Eema,” said Sammy, holding up an elaborately filigreed, foot-long scroll case.

“Yeah, what is that?” Decker asked. “See, you pull this tab over here, and the text comes out of this slit. It’s illustrated with all this beautiful artwork-”

“This is unbelievable!” Rina said, pulling on the tab gingerly.

“Megillas Esther,” Sammy said.

“Fantastic.” Rina was awestruck. “Look how clear the lettering is.”

“Can you read it?” Decker asked her.

“It’s easy,” Jake said, rattling off the first line.

“You know what it means?” the detective asked.

“Yeah, it’s talking about this king, Ahashverus, and his kingdom,” Sammy said. “Hodu v’od Kush? What are those countries again?”

“India and Ethiopia,” said Rina.

“Amazing,” Decker said.

“The kids are bilingual,” Rina explained. “Yitzchak only spoke Hebrew to them.”

“What do you do with this?” Decker asked.

“You read it on Purim, of course,” Jake said.

“Of course,” Decker repeated.

“It’s my favorite holiday,” Jake explained. “You get to dress up in a costume, and the shul has a big Purim party after they read the megilla. All the older boys get drunk and throw up. It’s so gross, but it’s real funny. The next day you get to stuff your face with cookies and candies that your friends bring you.”

“You’re allowed to get drunk?” Decker asked.

“You’re supposed to get drunk,” Sammy said.

“You’re not supposed to get drunk,” Rina said. “Tipsy maybe.”

“You’re supposed to drink until you can’t tell the difference between cheering Mordechai and booing Haman, pooh, pooh, pooh. That’s drunk, Eema.”

“I can’t picture the yeshiva letting loose like that,” said Decker.

“It’s real exciting,” Sammy said animatedly. “The older kids juggle bottles or balance them on top of their heads-”

“Drunk?” Decker asked.

“There’s a lot of broken glass,” explained Jake. He started to giggle. “Last year one of the rabbis dressed up as Haman, pooh, pooh, pooh, and we all got to throw rotten tomatoes at him.”

“Haman’s a bad guy, huh?” Decker asked.

“Yeah,” Sammy said. “He was one of Hitler’s ancestors.”

“Really?” Decker asked Rina.

“Some say. If they weren’t brethren by blood, they were spiritually. They’re all Amalek.”

Decker’s eyes darkened. “What’s that?”

“Originally, a tribe at the time of Israel’s liberation from Egypt. They were purposefully mean and spiteful to the Jews as they left. Now the term is used for any person or group bent on the total destruction of the Jews. I consider Yassir Arafat-y’mach shmo-Amalek, for example.”

Decker said nothing.

“Anything wrong, Peter?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, then peered into the box and brought out another book.

“This is Bava Metzia,” Sammy said taking the text from Decker. “I’m going to learn it this next year.”

“Somebody in your wife’s family was a scholar,” Rina said. “This is Talmud; it’s what is studied in the yeshiva.”

“I’ve got a whole set of these books upstairs in another trunk, and they all have this strange layout of the text. You’ve got a big block of Hebrew here. Then all these columns of Hebrew surrounding the block. What is this?”

“The big block, which is written in Aramaic, is the legal question that’s being discussed. This particular book starts out with the laws of lost and found.”

“This isn’t a Bible?”

“No. It’s a treatise on Jewish criminal and civil law.”

“So what are these columns all about?”

“Rashi, tosafot-” She stopped herself. “Commentaries-different interpretations of the legal question.”

“Do you follow these laws?”

“Oh yes!” she exclaimed. “That’s what being a Torah Jew is all about.”

“How’d this all come about?”

“The primary laws were given to Moses by Hashem on Mount Sinai-some were written, some were passed along orally. Later on, the oral laws were written down and interpreted by the Amoraim-a group of prominent rabbis. The final laws were decided by rabbinic vote between the third and sixth centuries.”

Decker was silent. She knew what he was thinking.

“There are allowances for today’s problems. Like electricity. The question of whether we could use electricity on the Sabbath didn’t pop up in the Talmud.”

“And who decided whether you could or couldn’t?”

“The scholars of the day.”

“Can you?” he asked.

“No. It’s considered kindling a fire, which is prohibited on the Sabbath. That isn’t to say we sit in the dark Friday night. We leave the lights on before the sun goes down, or some of us put the lights on a time clock. We just can’t flick the switch on or off.”

“I can see where this gets very complicated,” Decker said.

“That’s why there are yeshivot. It takes a lifetime to learn all of it.”

“I’m bored,” Jake said. “Can I watch TV?”

“Why don’t you go outside and play with Ginger?” Peter suggested. “She looks bored, too.”

Jacob looked at Rina.

“Fine with me.”

Jacob ran outside with the dog.

Decker looked at Sammy, who was immersed in a book. “You want to go outside with your brother?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“He likes to read,” Rina said. “Sammy, why don’t you sit in the big chair? It’s more comfortable, and there’s better light.”

The boy didn’t answer.

“He doesn’t hear me when he’s concentrating,” she explained. “Shmueli, honey.” She gently tugged on his shirt sleeve. The boy stood up, and she led him over to a chair on the far side of the living room, then walked back to Decker, who was in the dining area clearing the table.

“Sammy’s a real little rabbi,” he said, dumping the plates in the garbage.

“Like his father,” she said, pitching in.

“Or his mother. You seem to know what you’re talking about.”

“No, he’s like his father-extremely intense. Jakey is much more like me. Believe it or not, I’m really an easygoing person.”