Sunday Morning Coffee — February 1, 2026 — The Silent Assassin In The Back of the Room
By Roy Berger in San Juan, Puerto Rico
They sat there and just let me hang. It was a slow death. I had a noose around my neck and a firing squad of 12 sitting in front of me armed and ready. Please make it quick. It was taking too long. One, in the back of the room, turned out to be a silent assassin. He, in particular, could have put me out of my misery much sooner. Instead, he just watched my self-inflicted pain.
I was wobbly. Clearly in trouble. Out of my league. Struggling like my eight stand-up comedy gigs in 2006, getting heckled and still hearing one drunk (he probably wasn’t but I’ll feel better believing he was) yelling, “When do the real comedians come on?”Or like my two-year reign of terror as a Las Vegas synagogue president, clearly unprepared and well beyond what little skill level I had. Or as a college freshman entering the U intramural boxing tournament in 1970, fighting (and I use that term very loosely) a football linebacker who thankfully knocked me out 57 seconds into the contest. You see, this past Friday night the silent assassin could have done the same, thrown in the towel for me, but he didn’t. Instead he let me get skewered.
We are cruising this week and our ship, the Silversea Silver Ray, was docked in San Juan for the day on Friday. Four or five months ago, when our excursion options arrived, we opted for a tour of the Puerto Rican rainforest. It sounded like a good idea then. Not so much on Friday. But we went, a 1 pm departure, plenty of time to get back for the six o’clock Shabbat evening service onboard. Had no idea this outing would take over five hours and be about as exciting as watching a Jimmy Carter comedy special on Netflix. It rained as I guess it should in a rainforest. We got wet as I guess we should in a rainforest. The highlight of the trip for me was driving past the town of Carolina, Puerto Rico, home of my baseball idol Roberto Clemente. At that point if we turned around and came back it would have been a heck of a day. We didn’t. Instead, we got back to the ship with about 30 minutes and no time-outs remaining until the Shabbat service started. We had to hustle.
On Friday evenings, at sundown, Jews around the world welcome the Sabbath. By no means are Andi and I temple-goers every Friday night. During my synagogue reign it was maybe three times a month, now down to perhaps one. It’s not acceptable but that’s what it is. However, indulging in food and especially drink for the previous four days of sailing, I had planned to attend on Friday hoping maybe for some forgiveness, but more importantly hoping for more indulgence capacity with a week left in our journey.
We did the same thing a couple of years ago on a journey across the Atlantic from London to New York. About 20 showed up that Friday night; the cruise industry calls the service ‘unhosted’, which means a passenger will lead the service. We all got lucky on that London trip as a Jewish Studies major from Tulane was onboard and did a fantastic job.
Not so much this past Friday night. The Silver Ray is a small ship, about 700 passengers and I told Andi my over/under would be 5.5 Shabbat attendees. I imagined no way would it go over. The ship had set up a room for us in the library with about 25 seats, yarmulkes, prayer books, challah and three bottles of kosher wines for the weekly blessing. Fortunately there were no spare ribs. The only thing missing was someone to lead the service.
We arrived just on the six o’clock button and true to form, I lost my over/under. Actually, there were 12 attendees sitting on their hands waiting to start. Clearly nothing imminent was about to happen. We had a dinner rez 45 minutes later with our travel mates Carla and Bob Reich. I wanted to get the show on the road as my mom used to say, so I stood up and asked who wanted to lead? Either they pretended not to hear me or more likely the assembled group couldn’t. They acted like Bernie on his weekend getaway. Nothing. Not a peep. Not even a bodily movement. In fact, most were older than Bernie. I said, “My only credential is being the past president of a temple in Las Vegas, with past president being the key words. I am no rabbi, not by any means; the closest I’ve ever come was staying one night in a Holiday Inn Express.” No volunteers, not one. Then a lady in the second row, at 64 the youngest and most attractive in the room, said,” Well, why don’t you do it?” I haven’t spoken to my wife since.
Oy, was I in trouble. There were two different sets of prayer books available and also a small, stapled pack of papers that looked to me like a Cliff Notes version of the prayer book. That was good enough. First I said a little silent prayer to my past rabbis —Dr. Kenneth Emert, Jonathan Miller and Ilana Baden, my rabbi now, to please give me strength and let me channel what education you’ve given me and not embarrass myself. It didn’t work.
I figured the best way to get this done and get to dinner quickly was to just go around the room and let the 11 others do responsive reading paragraph by paragraph. What I didn’t plan on was the print on the paper being so dark and smudged it was just about unreadable, the result of a very bad copy machine. Oh well.
Less than 11 minutes later that’s all I had. All that was left was the Mi Sheberach, a prayer for the ill; the Mourner’s Kaddish, a remembrance of deceased loved ones, and a prayer for the state of Israel. Just prior a gentleman in the back row raised his hand and asked when the service is over, can we all introduce ourselves and where we were from. That was a time-killing-godsend. Literally. Doing a sermon about that week’s Torah portion and its meaning wasn’t part of my plan. I had no idea what it was. Nor about peace in the Middle East. That will never happen. Instead, playing to my bailiwick I could have chosen to preach about why the Yankees have done nothing in free-agency or how Bill Belichick could be excluded from the football Hall of Fame. I had my Jewish connections set for both—the Yankees president is Randy Levine; the Patriots owner is Robert Kraft. Instead, I opted to forego for the great idea from the gentleman in the back to introduce ourselves. A wonderful suggestion.
So, we went around the room. A gentleman in the front row was from Toronto, on board for a Canadian film festival with 80 others and their guest lecturer was Judd Hirsch, a Jew, who at 90 still wouldn’t have been the oldest in the room. Mr. Hirsch opted not to attend. Judd Hirsch was always a very smart man.
We continued row by row and finally got to the last couple. She said, “I’m Sherri Alper and my husband, a retired rabbi and I live in Vermont.” Stunned silence. Shook, I said very deliberately, “Ma’am, can you repeat that one more time and say it a bit slower?” She did. He, sitting next to her with a smile, was what she said he was. A retired rabbi. To me he was nothing but a silent assassin.
I said, “Excuse me Rabbi but how can you just sit there and let me tread water in the ocean without offering a life raft?” He laughed and responded, “You did a great job” just like you would tell a third grader who forgot every line in the school play that he was the star of the show.
Well, Rabbi Bob Alper is indeed a retired, happy rabbi. A shipboard youngster at 80, he was a practicing rabbi for 14 years, 12 at a congregation in Philadelphia. With a doctorate in theology from Princeton, he was smart enough to have kept his mouth shut when we were looking for a volunteer to lead our prayer service.
But then it gets better. Mr. Alper, since leaving the ministry, is now a stand-up comedian. He’s only been doing this for the past 38 years. His background as an ordained rabbi literally sets the comedic stage. He’s been on Netflix, CNN, Good Morning America, The Today Show, a regular on Sirius XM, The Comedy Store, comedy festivals around the world and appeared alongside names like Lewis Black, Freddie Roman and Susie Essman. Other than that, he really has no resume at all.
I stood and just stared at him. Shook my head. “Rabbi, you are kidding me, right?” Nope. How can you do that to a fellow Jew, a member of the tribe, and not get me out of this mess? With the final steps of the makeshift service remaining— the official welcoming of Shabbat— the kiddush, the blessing of the wine; the motzi, the blessing of the challah and closing song still ahead it was time for me to cede my very awkward and extremely uncomfortable first and last pulpit.
Rabbi Alper, with a strong resemblance to a present-day Steve Martin, didn’t want to do it but frankly he had no choice. That was about the only thing I was firm about during what was now my excruciating 20 minutes. As Rabbi approached, he told me he just performed in Las Vegas. He was serious. I asked, “Oh where, at Caesars, MGM Grand, Planet Hollywood or Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club?” He said, “No, at a senior citizen center in Henderson.” He wasn’t kidding. I guess almost four decades later a gig is still a gig.
Rabbi led us in the final blessings. Compared to his predecessor he was Sandy Koufax and I a two-bit scrub on the JV. However, before the closing song, he wanted to know if he could do a little monologue for us. He did. The group laughed. I was ecstatic with joy that my tenure in the rabbinate had ended. So was everyone else in the room. Rabbi Alper made sure to give us his website— bobalper.com for the next slow day at sea.
The silent assassin in the back of the room was unmasked.
My rabbinic reviews came back. A social media influencer in Washington DC on X called it a “disaster.” And then went on to say “nobody has ever seen a disaster this big. This guy Berger was a complete fraud, a phony. He’s a loser. It was a fake Shabbat service. Very fake.”
That gets no argument from me.
I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger
Bob Alper is a cousin of mine. Whenever he came to Birmingham, the Rittenbaum family would get together to meet him. Small world
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