Sermon Interrupted — Vengeance Not Jewish
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Rabbi Glassman begins his sermon about the Haggadah's warning against violence and vengeance, setting a moral and thematic foundation.
Toby's beeper disrupts the sermon, signaling an urgent call pulling him back into the crisis of execution.
Toby checks his beeper and exits the synagogue, physically and symbolically pulled from a space of reflection into the realities of his political and moral dilemma.
The Rabbi’s line, 'Vengeance is not Jewish,' resonates as Toby leaves, amplifying the severity of his dilemma and the moral stakes of the execution.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Surface composure masking immediate tension; quietly conflicted and pulled—respectful attention interrupted by a rising professional urgency.
Sitting rapt in the congregation, Toby's attention is abruptly taken by his beeper. He checks it, rises, and moves purposefully out of the row toward the exit while the rabbi continues speaking, physically removing himself from the moral instruction to answer duty.
- • Receive and assess the urgent message summoned by the beeper.
- • Re-enter the obligations of his White House role while preserving the private moral weight of the rabbi's words.
- • Religious or moral counsel matters and can legitimately shape political reasoning.
- • His duty to respond to urgent presidential business supersedes remaining in a public religious service at that moment.
Calm and resolute; speaking from conviction with the quiet urgency of a religious teacher laying moral pressure on listeners.
Delivering a Passover sermon that condenses a parable into blunt ethical teaching; the rabbi frames retribution as self-perpetuating and issues the declarative moral injunction that 'Vengeance is not Jewish,' continuing without pause even as a congregant is pulled away.
- • Impress the congregation with the moral truth that retaliation perpetuates harm.
- • Apply religious teaching to contemporary moral dilemmas, nudging public actors toward non-retributive choices.
- • Religious ritual and parable are effective means to shape conscience and communal ethics.
- • Moral clarity can and should influence public decisions, particularly around violence and punishment.
Mild surprise and curiosity; momentarily alert and reflective as the sermon and the interruption collide.
A nearby congregant registers the sudden buzz and looks toward Toby, a small social signal that the private interruption has become public; their glance amplifies communal awareness of the moral tension in the room.
- • Attend respectfully to the rabbi's sermon.
- • Monitor how fellow congregants, especially prominent members, respond to the interruption.
- • The synagogue is a space for focused moral attention.
- • Public displays or interruptions during service carry social meaning and can reveal tensions between private faith and public life.
Functionally neutral within the narrative; evokes moral horror to sharpen the sermon’s point.
Mentioned by the rabbi as the cat that ate the child in the parable; serves as the initial violent node that triggers the chain of retribution being described to the congregation.
- • Condense moral consequences into a single striking image within the parable.
- • Help the rabbi make the ethical argument against vengeance more visceral.
- • A powerful image can move listeners toward reflection and restraint.
- • Moral teaching often needs an emotive exemplar to stick.
Not an active emotional agent; invoked to generate empathy and a moral recoil from vengeance.
Referenced only as the final victim in the rabbinic parable; functions as the human face of the escalation, concentrating the ethical cost of retribution for the congregation's conscience.
- • Embody the tragic human consequence of cycles of violence.
- • Anchor the rabbi's argument with a concrete moral cost that challenges listeners' instincts for retribution.
- • Human life is the primary locus of moral concern in debates about violence.
- • Invoking a specific victim makes abstract ethical principles tangible.
Referenced by the rabbi as the dog that bit the cat in the cascading parable; functions as an intermediate moral …
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
A palm-sized beeper vibrates during the rabbi's sermon, audibly breaking the sanctuary's hush. Toby checks the device and uses it as the pretext to leave; the beeper functions as the immediate material cause that drags public duty into a private religious moment.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The synagogue functions as both a contemplative crucible and a public place of worship where the rabbi delivers a moral sermon. Its sanctified hush and cultural rituals heighten the sting of the interruption and make the moral claim about vengeance immediate and communal.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Bartlet's final act of kneeling for confession symbolically echoes Rabbi Glassman's earlier sermon on moral accountability."
"Bartlet's final act of kneeling for confession symbolically echoes Rabbi Glassman's earlier sermon on moral accountability."
"Rabbi Glassman's sermon on vengeance not being Jewish directly influences Toby's later argument to Bartlet about the moral impossibility of capital punishment."
"Rabbi Glassman's sermon on vengeance not being Jewish directly influences Toby's later argument to Bartlet about the moral impossibility of capital punishment."
Key Dialogue
"RABBI: With Passover on the horizon, millions of Jews will gather round Seder tables, will sing our songs and ask our questions."
"RABBI: About the stick that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the kid."
"RABBI: We'll sing not only to entertain our children but to be reminded by the Haggadah, the simple truth. That violence begets violence. Vengeance is not Jewish. We'll pour ten drops..."