Even the discussion about whether Mr. Bowers should be sentenced to death — which under federal law can be imposed if his actions were “hate crimes” or obstructed the free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death — feels a bit abstract. After all, what does it mean to obstruct religious practice? For Jews, something quite specific. Because there are numerous religious practices that we cannot do without a quorum of 10 (the Orthodox would say 10 Jewish men, while Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative Jews would say 10 Jewish adults), the loss of those stalwart, often unsung members of the community radically alters our literal ability to observe.
In David Bezmozgis’s 2004 short story “Minyan,” Itzik, an elderly immigrant in a building of elderly immigrants, dies. Itzik was a regular at the building’s in-house synagogue; he consistently helped make the minyan. Zalman, the synagogue’s lay leader, has the sway to bump people up on the list for newly vacant apartments, and those angling for a place to live — a vacancy is a rare thing in subsidized housing — promise Zalman that if he gives them the apartment, they will come to services, help make the minyan, like the departed Itzik.
The catch is that Itzik had a roommate, Herschel, who also attends services faithfully. It has been whispered that the two men were more than roommates. But Herschel is not on the lease. So the question is whether to let Herschel stay in the apartment or to evict him and move in a purportedly more respectable Jew, one not gossiped about, not suspected of questionable behavior — but who may not be a minyan regular. At the end of the story, the narrator, the grandson of one of the building’s residents, asks Zalman if he will cave to those who want Herschel evicted.
“You want to know what will happen to Herschel?” Zalman replies. “This. They should know I don’t put a Jew who comes to synagogue in the street.”
Is Herschel gay? Who cares? He shows up. He puts his body on the line.
Robert Bowers did not just deprive those he murdered of their lives. He deprived them of the opportunity to practice their religion — what’s more, he obstructed the religious practice of those who depended on the victims’ presence. And because the murders were committed early on a Sabbath morning, soon after the synagogue building opened, the people caught in his gunfire were reliable attendees, the ones who showed up early, who kept the community running. Two of the Jews killed that morning, Richard Gottfried and Daniel Stein — members of New Light, a small congregation that rented space in Tree of Life — were cornered and shot in the basement kitchen while preparing food. They would have been returning to services shortly to make the minyan.