An Observant Wife

by Naomi Ragen

  But this was not the familiar face they had known. He looked ravaged, she thought, finding it hard to catch her breath. Like a completely different person! Without the shine of joy that usually moistened his face like an expensive cream, his face sagged in all directions. The deep lines of aging that smoothed out when his cheeks were raised in a smile, making them hardly noticeable, now dug deep canals into his forehead and around his eyes. His complexion was frighteningly white, and his head seemed too heavy for his frail neck to hold it erect so that his hat seemed to fall forward, as if even its slight weight, added to all his new burdens, could no longer be borne.

  Worst of all, when he began to speak, he was almost unintelligible. Someone hurried to adjust the microphone, placing it nearer his lips. To her relief, she could now understand him. “We know that when the soul departs the body, it lingers. We know that you are here with us, Malka, that you can hear all that is being said about you. I ask you, my dear wife, to forgive me for every trespass against you; every unkind or angry word; for every time you were silent and I did not reach out to ask you what was troubling you; for every time my work kept me away from home so that all the burdens of caring for the family and household fell on you. My dear wife, you gave me everything I have. You supported my learning. All my Torah is yours. You taught me so much: how to be a mensch, how to love. You taught me to care when I asked someone, ‘How are you?,’ to listen to the answer. You taught me that the people who don’t ask, who don’t speak, who are sitting alone on the sidelines, they are the people we need to sit down next to, not the ones who crowd around us. And all day, every day, you worried about your people: the widows you brought charity to, the orphans you arranged to get into yeshiva, the young girls of marriageable age from poor families that needed new clothes, the tired parents caring for sick children. You do not need an angel to accompany you on your way to heaven. Your good deeds will crowd around you as you ascend, each one a winged angel. Ah, my dear wife, my life. What will I do without you?” He wept helplessly until his sons and a few of his students hurried to help him down from the podium.

  Fruma Esther felt tears come to her eyes. She had not expected this. She had expected, along with everyone else, a learned discourse based on Talmudic sources and obscure midrashim, not the raw outpourings of a wounded heart; not something so real, so intimate and sincere, naked to the world, unshrouded behind philosophical and biblical imagery and allegory.

  Ah, my dear wife … what will I do without you?

  She felt her heart expand and go out to him in his grief. Perhaps this was the true sign of greatness, she thought. The ability and modesty that allows one to be human and without pretense. Only a rav of his caliber, known for his scholarship and magnificent oratory, someone held in such respect, could publicly risk such a thing.

  * * *

  The funeral was followed by shiva, seven days in which all those at the funeral and many more besides would show up at the house to pay their respects and offer words of comfort.

  Rav Alter found all the bustle wearisome. But he had no choice but to submit, sitting on a low stool and receiving the well-worn phrases in which religious Jews express their sorrow: “May God comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem,” they murmured, shaking his frail old hand or putting an arm around his bent shoulders.

  Women came, too, bringing meals and snacks for the mourners and their visitors, keeping the living room table groaning under numerous plates of cakes and cookies, drinks, and sweets. Fruma Esther was among them.

  She went out of her way to make p’tcha, the strange calf’s foot jelly that none of the young, frum brides knew how to make anymore and which she knew Rav Alter loved. She also whipped up a huge batch of chocolate rugelach—prepared according to Rebbitzen Alter’s own famous recipe—which she covered with a festive blue napkin.

  Of course, there was a mechitza in the house that separated the men from the women, and thus she was not allowed to serve her dishes directly to the rav. But she asked one of his daughters.

  “He loves this,” she informed the married woman in her forties wearing a towering headdress of vertiginous height that according to the laws of gravity threatened to send her toppling backward. It was the new style. Fruma Esther shook her head, examining the turban’s many elaborate folds and tucks and wondering how the whole thing could be induced to stay in place without nailing it to the skull.

  “God bless you, Rebbitzen,” the rabbi’s daughter thanked her.

  But Fruma Esther wasn’t satisfied. “Tell your father it’s from me, Fruma Esther Sonnenbaum. I was dear friends with your mother, and these are made according to the same recipes.”

  She sat among the other women relatives, neighbors, and friends in the roped-off and curtained section of the dining room, her eyes peeled for the moment her food was delivered. To her annoyance, the daughter took her time. But then, finally, she saw a white plate with a colorful blue napkin make its way from the kitchen to the little table before the rav. She watched as the rav’s daughter peeled off the napkin.

  Did the rav’s face light up? Or was that her imagination? No, he was definitely picking up a rugelach, she saw, watching anxiously as he placed it in his mouth and took a bite. She saw him close his eyes for a moment, then open them. To her joy, he took two more quick bites, polishing it off rapidly. She waited only long enough to watch as he picked up another one. As for the p’tcha, they were no doubt saving it for dinner. She understood. You needed privacy to attack the quivering, Jell-O-like delicacy that was p’tcha.

  It was a wonderful good deed to bring a little comfort to the bereaved, particularly during the first seven days of mourning, when death and loss were still painfully razor sharp, she told herself with quiet satisfaction as she got up to take her leave.

  She remembered those days, those terrible days and worse nights, when her dear Yitzchak Chaim had left this world, making her a lonely widow who often cursed the misery of still being alive. It helped that at that time, all her daughters still lived nearby. With time, of course, they and their husbands had moved away, all except her Zissele. And when Zissele’s children were born, one after the other, she was kept busy cooking and babysitting, educating and scolding. All that helped. To be busy, to have your kup drayed—day in day out—helped. But then tragedy had again overwhelmed her life.

  Zissele, my little Zissele.

  She would never recover from that, she understood. That perpetual sorrow was lodged in her heart forever, softening it to the sorrows of others, making it compliant and responsive. She never went to a shiva house now without becoming part of the mourning, whereas before, she had kept it all at arm’s length, happy to put in her time, chalk up her mitzvah, then escape back to her own life.

  As she moved toward the rav to say the ritualized words of comfort and farewell, her heart ached with loss, not only because the deceased had been a friend but because death tested even the strongest of faiths. The darkness that came with death cast a deep shadow over the life-affirming rituals of even the most devout. From the moment you opened your eyes in the morning to the moment you fell asleep, your heart was ripped asunder anew. Was not the first prayer of the day, Modeh Ani, thanking God for restoring your soul, a reminder that the precious soul of your beloved would never again be restored to their body except during the Resurrection of the Dead? While she sincerely believed that would happen, as did every pious Jew (according to Maimonides, it was one of the fundamental articles of faith), she also knew that, like the coming of the Messiah, it could take a while.

  Throughout the day, every time one whispered a blessing over food or drink, over thunder and lightning, one was reminded of one’s connection to the dear Lord of the Universe, and that it was He who had taken the living to “sleep with their fathers.” You accepted this, of course you did! What choice did you have, after all? But each acceptance of the proper order of things in the universe was also a reminder and a reinforcement of your human powerlessness and utter vulnerabili
ty, your inability to stem the ravaging tides of time and chance that swept in suddenly to drag those you loved out to the endless sea from which none have as yet returned.

  The only real comfort, she considered, watching the rav’s ravaged face, was to surround yourself with life: your children and grandchildren, your friends and neighbors. But that, too, she pondered, was never enough. The Talmudical saying that “a man only dies to his wife” was equally true of the death of a wife to her husband. The loss of a longtime partner was the cruelest loss of all.

  She would do what she could, she thought, to make it easier for him to bear. At least, she could bring him the foods he loved. Now that Leah was cooking for her grandchildren, she had time on her hands. She thought of all the delicacies she hadn’t prepared in so long: stuffed cabbage, falsche fish, gribbenes, latkes, tzimmes, knaidlach … But maybe not. Gribbenes had been banished by the know-it-all young doctors along with schmaltz, she mourned, even though plenty of Yidden had been brought up on such things and died peacefully in their nineties. She herself hadn’t touched such foods in decades. Never mind, she would prepare traditional foods the new way, with olive oil, she told herself, her nose wrinkling in distaste at the very thought.

  Just then, Suri Kimmeldorfer, the matchmaker, walked up next to her, nodding hello.

  “May we meet only at simchas,” she said primly.

  The two had only recently reconciled, Fruma Esther holding her fully responsible for the debacle of Yaakov’s recent remarriage. It was her fault that instead of a proper, Boro Park bride, he had wound up with a baalas teshuva. And even though she had decided to make the best of it, it still rankled.

  Suri, for her part, had been doubly outraged over all her wasted time and effort in pushing frum, blameless divorcées from excellent families as well as rich, Flatbush widows in Yaakov’s direction to no avail. And if that wasn’t enough, she’d forfeited a hefty fee by refusing Yaakov’s request to play matchmaker with Leah, something she had only done out of loyalty to Fruma Esther! Injury added to insult! But if you were a matchmaker in Boro Park, you didn’t have the luxury of holding on to grudges—no matter how justified—against respectable and influential members of the community who not only could sabotage your work with others but withhold their own kin from entering your bride-and-groom pools.

  “Such a tragedy!” Suri shook her short, wig-covered head, sending the stiff plastic-looking bangs swinging. “The rav will be lost without his wife.” Her eyes glittered.

  Yes, another client for you, Suri, Fruma Esther thought, but said nothing, simply letting out a long sigh.

  “How are you feeling, Rebbitzen?” Suri asked anxiously.

  “Me? The same as everyone else in this room, Suri.” Except you.

  “And how is the young couple?” Suri probed, finally getting to the real reason she had zeroed in on Fruma Esther the moment she entered the room. Who knew? Divorces were not unheard of anymore these days. Especially when scholars like Yaakov Lehman got entangled in frivolous matches with wild, redheaded baalos teshuva. She had already heard rumors … She would be more than happy to give it another shot.

  Fruma Esther, however, had her own agenda.

  “They are very happy together, Suri. But I think the community could be a little more welcoming to Leah. She doesn’t have many friends, and sometimes her neighbors are not keeping the mitzvah of loving the stranger, bringing sin upon the whole community.”

  “HaShem Yishmor!” Suri murmured, clicking her tongue nervously as she wondered where this was going.

  “Really pious people among us need to help her,” Fruma Esther told her pointedly.

  That got Suri’s attention. “Of course! But how?”

  “You know, Suri, you have great influence in our community. You are one of our leaders,” Fruma Esther told the astonished matchmaker.

  “Well … I…”

  “No, no. Don’t be modest, Suri. You and I both know what people will do to make sure their children get a good shidduch. You investigate every match, talk to the bride’s kindergarten teachers, the groom’s rabbis, the storekeepers who deal with the parents to make sure they pay their monthly bills…”

  Suri squirmed. “People depend on me to find out the truth before getting mixed up with some family that is trying to hide all its problems. Better you know what’s happening before the chasuna than after!” she cried.

  “Of course, this is not, chas v’shalom, a criticism. You have to look into every match. Which is why you have a chance to let people know that their reputations could suffer if they are known not to be God-fearing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am talking about how they welcome a baalas teshuva to the community, and especially if they take it so far they are willing to hurt poor orphans who lost their mother so recently.”

  “People are hurting your grandchildren? People in Boro Park? Our people? What does this mean, Fruma Esther?”

  “Some people won’t let their children come to Yaakov’s house to play with the children anymore.”

  All her red flags went up. “But they must have a reason.”

  “What reason could they have?” Fruma Esther demanded, pulling herself up to her full height and adjusting her head covering. “I want you to know I intend to get to the bottom of it, Suri Kimmeldorfer. I want you to know I’m going to knock on the doors of all the neighbors to find out who’s behind this wicked thing, and then I’m going to talk to every rabbi and every rebbitzen, every admor and every rosh yeshiva in the neighborhood and their wives and daughters.”

  Suri Kimmeldorfer listened in amazement. This was a real tzimmes Fruma Esther was cooking up. It could ruin reputations, pitch neighbor against neighbor. The more turmoil there was in the neighborhood, the more her bride-and-groom pool shrank: this one not talking to that one, this rebbe not approving of that rav’s talmidim or the daughters of certain families … A frisson of terror like an electric shock coursed along her varicose veins. “But Fruma Esther, isn’t it better to bring peace and love to our community than stir up conflict?”

  “Ah, so it is, so it is. I see that you understand me perfectly, Suri.”

  “You think so?” The confused matchmaker stared at her.

  “Yes, we must bring peace to the community. You can help by telling all the families you are working with that all the rabbis in the community are now very involved in kiruv, in bringing newcomers into the fold, and that no one will marry into a family that treats newcomers shamefully.”

  “I haven’t heard of that.”

  “Well, believe me, the rabbis are all going to be making speeches about it this coming Shabbos. Trust me. Just imagine how impressed your clients will be when they hear it first from you!”

  This was true. Her reputation for being a welcome guest among the most important rabbinical families in the community would soar! “I’ll mention it to them,” she promised. But what she could really say was that Fruma Esther was on the warpath against those who were turning their backs on her former son-in-law and his family and that they should be cautious not to be one of them if they knew what was good for them. And for her.

  12

  DUVIE

  She stood waiting for him in the shadows of the elevated platform of the subway train out of Boro Park. Above, the F train rumbled ominously as it came and went, the time intervals uneven and unpredictable. After weeks of meeting Duvie in various deserted parks, it was the first time that Shaindele had agreed to actually go into Manhattan with him. This was a thrilling decision that pitted her caution against her growing desires and expanding curiosity.

  She thought back to the first time she had ever left Boro Park on her own. It had been more or less a disaster, a secret escape to Baltimore via Grand Central Station, in turn both terrifying and impressive as she tried out the consequences of adult decision-making without parental or rabbinical supervision. It had ended in an ignominious return home by Greyhound bus; her aunt and uncle, whom she had fully expected to
supply both sheltering arms and a sympathetic ear did neither, instead traitorously informing her father and handing her a bus ticket and a brown paper bag containing a challah sandwich and high-calorie snacks. But the trip had still proven a milestone, giving her the first taste of what it would be like to meet men who were neither relatives nor friends of the family. Mostly, these random encounters had been unsatisfactory, leaving her disheartened, even a bit disgusted. The irony was not completely lost on her that in running away to find a husband, she’d ended up deciding never to get married at all.

  Duvie Halpern had changed all that.

  At first, it was just banter and random smiles, as impersonal as the wedges of cardboard on which he served up his soggy pizza triangles. After a number of disappointing forays to Moishy’s when he wasn’t there at all, Shaindele made a chart of what she observed was his work schedule. Sometimes he only worked evenings, starting at seven or eight, thus forcing her to find places to linger after school until he arrived. This was better, really, because if he came in really late, she could go home and then go out again, unaccompanied by Shulamis or some of the other girls. Even early on, she realized she didn’t want anyone looking over her shoulder where Duvie was involved. She never bothered explaining to herself why. And the plan had worked. Without the prying eyes of her Bais Yaakov friends, she was able to relax. Her tongue untwisted, and her lips lost their thin, tight stretch. She was able to smile at him.

  “Do you want extra cheese, mushrooms, tuna?” he asked solicitously. Of course, that is what he asked everyone who ordered a pizza, but she could tell just by looking at him, he found her special. Unlike the others, it wasn’t really a question, just an excuse to linger and spend time with her, she told herself. And after he brought the pizza, he would wait a little while and then come back. “How was it?” he would ask her. “Good?”

  She had always just nodded woodenly, until one day she finally got up her courage and said, “A little overdone, to tell you the truth. Look at all this black on the bottom.”