“The desecration of Yom Kippur would be a deadly sin; so would the desecration of the Sabbath; so would disobedience to parental authority. But the most deadly of all, in my opinion, would be a forbidden marriage.”
“That is, marriage with a Christian?”
“Yes—with a Gentile, a Goy—with any one not of our own race.”
“That, you think, is the one sin which would be most unpardonable in the sight of the Lord? For which He would inflict the severest punishment?”
“Yes, I think so. And it's rather odd that we should speak of this just now, for at the moment when you came in I was reading a sermon on the very subject—a sermon written by your own greatgrandfather, the Reverend Abraham Bacharach, of New Orleans, the first of your family who came to America. I was reading a sermon that he preached at the excommunication of a young man of his congregation, who had married a Frenchwoman, a Catholic. Here it is.”
The rabbi pointed to the manuscript that lay upon his table.
“Indeed?” questioned Elias. “What does he say?”
“Oh, he agrees with me, that it is absolutely the most deadly of sins. He denounces it with a good deal of energy. There's one paragraph here somewhere that struck me as especially fine. Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes, I shouldn't mind,” Elias assented.
The rabbi picked up the manuscript and began to run over the pages, searching for the place.