An Observant Wife

by Naomi Ragen

  “Such a chorbyn!”

  “It was an easy way out for Halpern. But don’t worry on him; he’s a nishtikeit! He should only meet a fire! He hasn’t been principal very long. And that son of his, that Duvie, we’ve all heard the stories. So Halpern’s been on shaky ground awhile. You know, my Aryeh sits on the board of Bais Yaakov.”

  “I didn’t know that!”

  Rebbitzen Basha Blaustein shrugged. “Like he doesn’t have enough to do! So I can ask him to give a call to Halpern, that he shouldn’t dare throw Shaindele out.”

  “That would be a big mitzvah. But what are we going to do about the Bobelger? Leah threatened their rebbe! Once the attack dogs are sent out, only the rebbe can call them back.”

  “If you want to beat a dog, you find a stick!”

  “Emes, Basha. But how?”

  “What we need to figure out is why the Bobelger want to protect this Grub. I can’t believe no one else has ever complained. So why do they keep sending their young girls to him? They are so frum, so careful. Five minutes their girls talk to a boy, they’re already dragging them under the chuppah.”

  “Did you ever think, Basha, that the Rebbe himself just doesn’t know?”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. The Bobelger Rebbe is almost ninety years old. No one sees him, talks to him, except his nephew and a few of the big machers with the money who support him and Bobelger institutions. Even when the Rebbe sends out new rulings, people never see him, only the nephew and the machers. Maybe one of them has some connection with Grub.”

  “I think I once heard one of the machers’ sons is married to one of Grub’s daughters. Or maybe it’s the nephew’s daughter, or his sister? Anyway, he’s a relative.”

  “Oy, you could be right, Basha!”

  “So who knows what’s really going on there, who’s really in charge? And even if people could get through to the old rebbe, get around the nephew and the machers, who’s going to tell the Bobelger Rebbe the truth? They’d be terrified to be called yentas, talebearers, liars, accused of loshon hara and rechilus. They’d have to risk being thrown out of the Hasidus.”

  “What we need is a very choshuva rav that everyone respects, that even the nephew and the machers wouldn’t dare to turn away. Only such a person could go to the Bobelger Rebbe himself and tell him the truth about Grub. That would be the end of this. A word from the Rebbe, and Grub would be out, and my family’s good name would be saved.”

  “But who is important enough and well-respected enough to walk in to see the Bobelger Rebbe from today to tomorrow?” Basha scoffed. “And who would want to get in the middle of such a tzimmes?”

  “Who?” Fruma Esther’s mind was blank. But then, like a gift from heaven, a brilliant flash of clarity lit up her brain, sending her the obvious solution and the answer to her prayers.

  31

  MORE THAN A FRIEND

  The first call came in as soon as she’d arrived home after dropping off the kids.

  It was a veteran client—one of her first, in fact—a very demanding butcher who always wanted everything done yesterday and never paid his bills until she threatened him with a din Torah.

  “For me, you’re not working anymore,” he said without any prefacing niceties, something she was used to from him. “I’ll find someone better, cheaper,” he told her nastily.

  “That’s fine, Mr. Schecter. Just pay me for the part of the job I already sent you.”

  “What part?”

  “The updated mailing list of your clients?”

  “I’m not using it.”

  “Well, that’s up to you. But I did the work, and I want to be paid.”

  “You should get off your high horse, lady.”

  “I don’t know how to ride. Pay me, or I’ll sue you.”

  She hung up, annoyed. I should be happy to get rid of him, she told herself, but still, it rankled. How many times had he begged and wheedled her to do one more job and then one more after that even though he hadn’t paid his bills? And how many times against her better judgment had she given in? Well, this was it, then, and good riddance.

  Not fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again. This time, though, it was a new customer for whom she’d completed a small but really excellent little online sales campaign. The pitch had been clever, the graphics stunning. She’d been quite proud of it. He’d thanked her profusely, paid her promptly, and enthusiastically asked for a quote for a great deal more. She smiled to herself. That was quick! She’d only sent the proposal out yesterday. It was very competitively priced, but still a great deal of money she could really use right now. But her smile soon faded. No, he said apologetically but firmly, he had decided, after all, to go with someone else. They exchanged the usual polite regrets. She hung up, surprised and disappointed. Two clients leaving her in the space of a half hour? What were the chances?

  She decided to do some laundry and clean up before opening the computer and beginning her morning’s work. The noisy, energetic dance of the loaded washing machine masked the long series of constant dings heralding incoming messages. By the time she’d finished, made herself a morning cup of coffee, and checked her messages, she was shocked to find dozens of her clients had contacted her—almost all of them cutting ties.

  This can’t be happening, she thought, dumbfounded. She called her favorite, a kosher coffee shop for whom she had set up internet advertising, a website, a customer list. It was run by a young, religious couple from Israel who were both chefs. They had invested everything in their homey little business and had become quite successful—creating a popular local hangout where mothers came to meet over croissants after dropping off the children at school and where portly religious businessmen trying to lose weight often ordered a healthy salad for lunch.

  “Hi, Tirza, it’s Leah. I just got your message. I’m so surprised. Can you just tell me what I’ve done wrong? I thought you were happy with my work.”

  “Leah!” The voice on the other side of the phone was low and embarrassed. “You haven’t done anything wrong. You’ve done a great job for us.”

  Leah couldn’t believe her ears. “So then … why? Why are you firing me?”

  There was a long silence. “Some men came by yesterday afternoon. They said they were Bobelger Hasidim and that you had insulted their rebbe. They warned us to cut our ties with your business, or else they would see that our kosher certification was canceled.”

  “They can do that?”

  “The Bobelger run Boro Park. They are on every religious council; they have ties with the mayor and the district attorney. And no one in our district gets elected judge or councilman without their backing. Of course they can do that!”

  She couldn’t believe it. It was like scratching beautiful wallpaper to find the wall beneath was crawling with termites. Such injustice, corruption, and ugliness underlying all that she had believed was so holy and righteous and just! She felt as if she had dived into a pristine pool of crystal-clear water in the mountains, only to find it was fed by sewers. Something bright and lovely died inside her.

  “Listen, Leah. I don’t know what you did to upset them, but you have to undo it and fast. They’ve gone to every business in Boro Park. I’m so sorry, but we have everything invested in our coffee shop. We just can’t afford to go against them. And neither can you.”

  Leah’s heart sank. She said she understood. No, of course there were no hard feelings. She thanked them for their business, wished them well, hung up, then cried her eyes out. By late afternoon, almost every single one of her customers had either called to fire her or had done it online.

  Everything she had built up, all her work, gone, just like that.

  She stared at the closed computer and silent phone, feeling as if she were making a shiva call where someone very young and dear had unexpectedly and shockingly passed away. Those were the worst; there was nothing you could say, no comfort you could offer.

  She got up and paced through the dingy little apa
rtment where she had fallen in love with the children, and then their young father, starting a life with so much promise, so much richness. She touched the laminated jigsaw puzzles hanging on the discolored walls put together over long Shabbos afternoons by the children and their mother, pictures of pretty forests and rivers, children playing by the shore. She paused at the shelf of family photos: Shaindele’s sweet round face, her hair tied in bows; baby Mordechai Shalom with his long, golden curls in his mother’s young arms; Chasya in her Queen Esther Purim costume. And there, too, was the wedding photo of herself in the lustrous white dress she’d borrowed from a gmach that fit her so well, her red curls elegantly gathered and dressed with pearls, standing next to her tall, handsome husband, both of them beaming with happiness. Only recently had it even been framed!

  And now, she realized, their lives as they knew them were over. So soon!

  She tried to think of how she had unwittingly destroyed all that was so precious to her. What had been her sin? Where had she taken a wrong turn? She tried to remember every act she had committed, every conversation she had had, combing through them the way a mother combs a child’s hair looking for lice and the little white eggs that cling to the cleanly shampooed hair waiting to hatch and multiply, to infect and destroy. That was it! She had obviously missed one or two—little sins. Perhaps she had held resentment in her heart for something she overheard a neighbor saying about her and, instead of confronting them, had held it inside? Perhaps she had been unkind to her husband without realizing it, or forgotten to give charity? Little eggs, clinging, that had now hatched and were multiplying, crawling over her life. Or perhaps it was much worse: not small sins but inexcusable transgressions like the sin of ingratitude, of always wanting, pleading, for more, more, more instead of counting all God’s many blessings?

  She sat down at the dining room table and took out Maimonides’s Sefer HaMitzvos, which she had been in the process of learning before her wedding. According to Jewish law, there were 613 commandments that a Jew was obligated to observe. Some were positive like love your neighbor, love God; and some were negative like don’t steal, don’t gossip, don’t commit adultery. One by one, she sifted through them, judging herself as harshly as she could.

  And then suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt a sudden revelation. She closed the book and kissed it. No, it wasn’t a just God punishing her for her transgressions but a corrupt community of hypocrites trying to destroy her for all she was doing right! It was because she had taken this community at their word, loved God, and kept His commandments; because she had refused to betray all the ideals that they had instilled in her and that she loved. For that, they would never forgive her.

  I am doing the right thing, she understood. No matter what happens, I must hold on to that. All that I’ve learned here, all that I’ve been taught from the holy books of the Torah has led me to this moment, to these decisions that will now destroy my life here, making me an outcast.

  The words of the psalm came back to her:

  My enemies abounded with life and they that hate me wrongfully were multiplied.

  They that repay evil for good oppose me because I pursue that which is good.

  She would not, could not, do differently. Something in her had changed permanently, she realized. She was not that morally compromised girl who had been able to keep working for a corrupt company producing bogus products that destroyed lives to keep her paycheck. She had truly done teshuva. She was a different person now, she thought. A better one.

  She closed her eyes and felt God streaming inside her, illuminating the darkness, lightening her heavy heart. She laughed out loud. Against all reason, she suddenly felt happy. He was real! And He was still there. He had not left her. The same God that lit the streetlamps, sent a jogger and his son to rescue her eight-year-old self from the monster who had threatened to taint her young life with the lifelong horror of violation and pain, transforming the experience instead into a touchstone of faith and gratitude, would always be there for her. And what she was doing now, she told herself, would please Him and make Him proud. It was as simple as that.

  She stretched, walking to the window. Spring had come to Boro Park. The sparse trees that lined the gray sidewalks were becoming lush and green again, and the dull, cold light of winter had been replaced by a warming golden glow that slid through the narrow gaps between the crowded brick houses like honey.

  She took out the old vacuum cleaner, dustcloths, and glass cleaner, going into a frenzy of tidying up, trying to keep her body and mind too busy to think about the moment Yaakov would come in through the front door. Should she call him now and tell him what had happened? Or let him have a few more hours of peace? How would she be able to break this news to him at all? Would he be angry—at her, at Shaindele? Or simply, and more likely knowing him, just heartbroken at the awful behavior of the people he lived among?

  Exhausted, she finally turned off the vacuum cleaner, staggering to the couch and almost falling into its soft cushions. What, she thought with rising panic, clasping her hands together tightly, are we going to do? How are we going to pay our bills?

  Well, there was always Yaakov’s salary. They could manage on that while she built up a new client list, gentile businesses outside the neighborhood who couldn’t care less about Hasidim. But that would take time. And then, of course, there was always the possibility of finding a job in Manhattan, far away from this insular little community. After all, how far did the influence of these shitty little Hasidic thugs go? But it would mean such inconvenient hours and hiring babysitters for the children …

  Her head spun.

  Before she knew it, it was time to pick up the kids. She hurried down to the car. This time, it was not eggs on the windshield. This time, just as she’d feared, it was the tires, all four of them, slashed. She gave out a little cry, holding her hand to her mouth. But there was no time! She would have to walk to pick them up.

  She hurried, trying not to allow hatred to fill her heart as she looked at the strangers passing her by, the people who either ignored her or looked her brazenly up and down finding fault, or so at that moment did it seem to her. She felt besieged and friendless among hostile strangers. Why, she thought, did I ever come here? And how could I ever have thought it was better than what I’d left behind? Secular life might have been empty and careless, but it hadn’t been deliberately cruel. She counted her friends: Fruma Esther, the Blausteins, who had mentored her, Rabbi Weintraub, Dr. Shoshana Glaser, who she’d met in a hotel ladies’ room, both of them escaping from horrible shidduch dates, Shoshana’s Rollerblading group. How had she ever imagined she could make a life here? That these people would ever see into the heart of a stranger among them and accept her as an equal?

  Chasya was already standing with her teacher inside the gate waiting. She smiled and waved. Chasya’s little face lit up, and she waved back.

  And then it hit her. She felt her body propelled violently forward, her arms instinctively outstretched, bruising along with her knees as she slammed against the hard pavement, her forehead and nose bumping and scraping against the rubble and slivers of glass. For a moment, she didn’t even try to move, afraid of becoming aware of some tragic, irreversible damage. She simply closed her eyes, assessing her pain. But then she heard the voices. She looked up. Dozens of strangers surrounded her, peering at her, shocked and concerned. A young mother, horrified, moved toward her wanting to help. But a chorus of voices stopped her.

  “Don’t move her, don’t move her!”

  “I’m calling Hatzalah!” a man with a cell phone declared.

  “He rode right into her!” the young woman insisted, clutching her baby closer. “It was no accident. It was clear like the day. He did it dafka. Slammed right into her!”

  Leah’s head throbbed, trying to make sense of all this information, to put it together, but it was impossible. She was too tired. All she wanted was to sleep.

  Then she heard Chasya’s terrified voice. “Mommy!”
>
  She opened her eyes, trying to lift herself up off the ground, to turn over, but it was impossible. Everything hurt. Kind hands patted her down, urging her to lie still, informing her that medical help was on the way. Someone else handed her back her purse, and still another offered her baby wipes to clean her hands and face.

  She lifted her head slightly, looking toward Chasya. The child was terrified, crying. Leah motioned toward her teacher to bring her, and her teacher picked her up, carrying her to Leah and setting her down.

  Chasya looked down, hysterical. Leah reached up to touch her face. “Don’t cry. You know sometimes when you are playing and you fall down you get a few boo-boos? That’s what happened to Mommy. That’s all. I’m going to be fine.”

  “But the bad man on the bicycle … He’s a rosha.”

  “I’m sure it was an accident. Maybe he forgot how to ride? Next time, he’s going to break his own head.”

  She saw the child suddenly stop crying. “Maybe his head will crack open like a big egg,” Chasya said with a cautious smile.

  Leah reached for her hand, kissing it. “Your teacher is going to call Bubbee to pick you and Mordechai Shalom up,” she told the child, nodding at her teacher, who nodded back.

  “Please don’t worry, Rebbitzen Lehman. We’ll take care of it. Can I do something else for you?”

  But an ambulance was already pulling up to the curb, the EMTs jumping out and hurrying toward her.

  “You go with your teacher now, Chasya. Mommy will be fine. The doctors will put a Band-Aid on my boo-boos.”

  The child wept, but she didn’t struggle, taking her teacher’s hand and walking back into the building, all the while throwing kisses over her shoulder.

  A young bearded man—a Hasid? she wondered—wearing a bright orange EMT vest crouched down beside her. Instinctively, she recoiled.

  “Listen, we’re from Hatzalah, the local Boro Park volunteer ambulance group. Someone called us. Can you tell me your name and what happened?”