An Observant Wife

by Naomi Ragen

  “So then maybe it’s not so terrible we had to run away together.” He chuckled, and she joined him.

  “Maybe it’s a chesed.”

  They were both deep in thought as they passed the turnoff to Baltimore.

  “Didn’t you want to stop and see your family?”

  He shook his head. “I want to give Shaindele a chance to settle in first.”

  “You called your brother after she got there?”

  He nodded.

  “So how is she?”

  “He says she seems tired after the long train ride but relieved to be out of Boro Park.”

  “Are they arranging for her therapy?”

  “They are checking out counselors, women counselors, who have real academic degrees and have been working with teenagers in the community. They have a number of recommendations.”

  “HaShem should bless us that they find the right one.”

  “Amen.”

  “So where do you want to spend the night?”

  He shrugged.

  She took out her phone. “We’ll probably be near Virginia or South Carolina when it gets dark. I’ll try to find someplace in that area that has a kosher restaurant.”

  “There would be such a place? Down South?”

  She smiled. “Yaakov, there are religious Jews all over America. Little communities with synagogues and kollelim and kosher food stores and religious schools.”

  “I never knew that! I mean, Kiryas Yoel—”

  She laughed. “I know. You thought they pulled up the drawbridge in Lakewood and the Vaad Harabbonim sent policemen to stop religious Jews from going any further.”

  He smiled self-deprecatingly. He had, actually. “Yes, I’d like to see a place like that,” he said, his eyes shining with excitement. “A religious community far away from Boro Park, Flatbush, Crown Heights, and Williamsburg; far away from Bobelger Hasidim.”

  “A place full of kind, nonjudgmental religious Jews who truly love the Torah, and each other,” Leah whispered, her voice cracking as the pain from her wounds suddenly throbbed.

  Noticing the flash of agony that momentarily clouded her features, he clutched the steering wheel with a sudden ferocity. “If I could just get my hands on the person who did this to you … You know, sometimes I actually fantasize about being a six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound goy who grew up in the South Bronx and knows how to pound his enemies into a pulp!”

  She laughed, but he cut her short.

  “No, it’s not funny! I’m not joking. All those years I spent, invested, in learning how to be holy and good! How is that going to help me—us—now? An eye for an eye. I know the Oral law explains that means paying damages, but sometimes I think HaShem meant it exactly the way it’s written and that He understands evil much better than we do. That person on the bicycle? I want to break both his arms and legs, to see him trussed up like an Egyptian mummy in some hospital bed! It’s the only thing that’s going to make me feel better … feel like a man.” He heaved a sigh of despair. “My beloved,” he said softly, taking her hand. “Please forgive me for not taking better care of you.”

  “Yaakov, the best thing you can do for me is to stay the man I fell in love with. A good man. A kind man. A loving man whose whole life has been dedicated to making the world a better place. The world is full of two-hundred-and-fifty-pound gorillas pounding people into pulps; it doesn’t need another one. There has to be some good people in the world. Otherwise, why would HaShem keep it spinning? Why would He bother to put the sun in the sky every morning? It’s a way of being grateful, isn’t it? Showing Him that what He’s created He did for people who deserve it? Don’t ever change, Yaakov, please. Let HaShem deal with the bicycle man.”

  But her words didn’t reach him. “Sometimes I think I’ve wasted my time,” he said bitterly. “I can’t do anything. Earn a living, even protect my wife and children!”

  “Please, don’t tell yourself that! What happened to us just proves the opposite, that people are desperate for truly wise men and educators, teachers who can take our Torah out of the hands of the hypocrites who distort and twist its message, presenting themselves as the most devout, the most knowledgeable, when they don’t know anything at all.”

  “They are arrogant, ignorant,” he fumed, the violence rising inside him again.

  “‘Who is a hero? The person who conquers his Evil Inclination,’” she admonished softly, quoting the well-worn adage from Ethics of the Fathers. She reached out to him, touching his arm, which was as hard and tense as the gleaming cold metal of a weapon.

  Her touch traveled through him, breaking down the barriers inside him, wrapping itself around his inner wounds like a healing salve. He sobbed, pounding the dashboard.

  “Don’t,” she implored, frightened. She had never seen him like this, this gentle man, this scholar; the man she looked up to and wanted to emulate. He, too, was wounded, she realized. He was losing his faith. Not in God but in his friends and neighbors, the world he had grown up in and cherished, and which had cherished him back even as it had despised her and tried to keep them apart; the world whose foolish mores had condemned his young wife to death and pushed his innocent, troubled teenage daughter off the rails, turning her into an outcast. It was a world she had for some time ceased to believe in and trust. Ironically, they were now more than ever on the same wavelength. And that was a blessing, an answer to her prayers, no matter how it had come about.

  * * *

  They took a few rest stops to use the bathrooms. And when they got hungry, they stopped and laid out a picnic on a roadside table, buying the children rabbinically approved brands of ice cream in the nearby convenience store.

  The light was fading fast as they reached the exit ramps for Folkestone, Virginia.

  By the time they pulled into the parking lot of a motel, everyone was exhausted. It was inexpensive, but clean, and they were given the keys to a large suite with a kitchen and two bedrooms, one of which had a crib.

  “Let’s just feed the kids and bathe them and put them to bed. I’m falling off my feet,” Leah admitted.

  “But I thought you picked this place because it had a kosher restaurant?” He was disappointed.

  “It does, but I’m more tired than hungry, and we still have some sandwiches in the cooler. We’ll try it tomorrow for breakfast?”

  “All right. If you want,” he answered, realizing he, too, was exhausted.

  By the time everyone had eaten and bathed, they sank into the clean, cool sheets and comfortable mattresses, sleep coming as soon as their heads touched their pillows.

  The next time Leah opened her eyes, the sun was streaming through the edges of the blackout curtains. She turned over luxuriantly, closing her eyes and listening to the riot of birds singing outside their windows.

  “Yaakov,” she whispered, reaching out for him, but he was already gone, probably to find a synagogue where he could say his morning prayers with a minyan. She sat up, moving slowly out of bed, careful to protect her bandages. First she checked on the children, who were still sleeping soundly. We’re in no big rush, she thought grimly, not looking forward to having those conversations with her mother or baking under the relentless Florida sun.

  She went into the bathroom, performing her morning ablutions. She longed for a shower but couldn’t risk wetting her bandages. Instead, she used a washcloth to do the best she could. When she was done, she tucked her voluminous hair inside a headscarf and put on her clothes. Then she picked up her prayer book. She looked around for a place to say her morning prayers. There was a small terrace, so she stepped outside. Oh, how lovely, she thought, leaning over the balcony as she breathed in the clean, sweet smell of cut grass and the heady perfume of a flower she could not name. They were in a residential neighborhood of neat houses on wide lawns. Everywhere she looked, the lush tops of old trees danced in the gentle spring breezes. To the right, she glimpsed a harbor with small sailing craft and the sun glinting off the sea. She said her morni
ng prayers with a calm she had not experienced in some time.

  Afterward, she leaned back in the lounge chair, putting up her feet and closing her eyes. She felt happy and peaceful, united with God and her fellow man. She luxuriated in the feeling, refusing to think about the past or the future. This now, this moment, it was a gift. She would not throw it away.

  The door slid open and the children came bounding out, exploring this new place, going from zero to 150 miles an hour in a second. She bent down to Mordechai Shalom and kissed him. In response, he gently nuzzled against her. How she loved him! “Come,” she urged him, carefully holding out her arms. “A new diaper, then potty?”

  He shook his head. He hated potty training and was resisting it with all the cunning and stubborn will of his terrible twos. She laughed. “You are going to have to learn someday, young man, or no pretty girl will agree to a shidduch date with you!” She tousled his bright, golden curls, then tickled his little round stomach as he giggled uncontrollably. It was so infectious she found herself laughing, too, until tears ran down her cheeks.

  Chasya, who had also been laughing, stopped. “Why are you crying, Mommy?”

  “I’m not. I’m laughing.” But then, suddenly, it wasn’t true. She wiped her eyes with her uninjured hand. “Come sit down on the potty for a little while, and then I’ll put you in a clean diaper,” she cajoled.

  But he wasn’t having any of it. He shook his head vigorously. “No potty. Diaper!” he demanded firmly like some dictatorial potentate.

  Chasya went over to him and whispered something in his ear. Without a word, he slipped out of his diaper and held his arms up docilely for Leah to help him onto the toilet. To her shock, for the first time, he waited patiently until something actually happened. It was a first. Even those times he’d reluctantly agreed to sit, he’d absconded long before anything could be accomplished.

  “Such a good boy! He went potty!” She praised him to the skies, with the enthusiasm reserved for heroic war acts and sports victories. “What did you say to him, Chasya?” she asked as she wiped him clean.

  “That Mommy has a lot of boo-boos and he shouldn’t make her cry.”

  She felt her eyes tear up again as she hugged the little girl. “You are a sweetie, and I love you to the moon and back.”

  “I’m a tzadakis,” the child intoned solemnly.

  Leah nodded at her, making a tremendous effort to keep a straight face. “Absolutely, without a doubt!”

  Then she took the baby in her arms, laying him flat and putting him on a fresh diaper.

  “Kiss boo-boos and make all better!” Mordechai Shalom said enthusiastically, hugging her dangerously close to her bandages and trying with all his might to kiss her hand. “Gently!” she told him, allowing him to place his soft little lips on her wrist.

  “Wow, that’s amazing. All better now!” she told him. “What a great little kisser!”

  He was absolutely thrilled, filled with pride in the potency of his boo-boo-healing powers.

  “Are you hungry?” They both nodded.

  She opened the refrigerator to rummage through the leftovers from their picnic bag. But just as she was about to kick herself for not preparing more food, the door opened.

  “Breakfast!” Yaakov declared, placing two paper bags on the counter.

  She unpacked. “This milk is cholov Yisroel! Where did you get it? And the little yogurts, they are the same ones we buy in Boro Park.”

  “And there are also fresh rolls and cheese, cereal and cookies! I asked people in the synagogue, and they showed me where the kosher stores are, and the Jewish bakery and diner. All of them with the best hechsher!” he exulted like an oil prospector whose land has finally produced a gusher.

  “I want to hear all about it!”

  “You were so right, Leah! There is a large Orthodox Jewish community here! I couldn’t believe it. I walked to the shul, and on the way, I saw so many homes with mezuzahs! I couldn’t believe how full the weekday minyan was. And many of the men dress like I do,” he said with enthusiasm. “And there are two kosher restaurants, one milchig and one fleishig, both with an excellent hechsher.”

  “Two? Wow.”

  “After I went to the kosher supermarket and bakery and was walking back here, I saw two boys riding bikes ahead of me on the sidewalks. As I got closer, I saw they were both wearing yarmulkes, and one even had payos! I started talking to them. They both go to a local yeshiva. The older one, who’s in eighth grade, told me he’s learning Meseches Succah in Bava Metziah; Davarim; Shmuel Bais … And then the other boy told me they also learn math, English composition—that was the word he used, imagine, a little boy knows that word already!—and history, and a few other things I don’t remember.” He shook his head in amazement.

  “Sounds like an excellent school.”

  But Yaakov just continued to shake his head, murmuring again and again, “Imagine, in Virginia!”

  “I was thinking we could take the day off instead of driving straight through. Do some sightseeing in the area, then head to Florida tomorrow?”

  “And I could go to shul for the evening minyan, and then we could eat out lunch and dinner?”

  She nodded. “And maybe we could check out the school, meet some of the parents…”

  Their eyes met in perfect understanding.

  35

  THE PROPOSAL

  Although Rav Alter tried everything to arrange for a personal meeting with the Bobelger Rebbe himself, explaining to the nephew that they were old friends, once again his request was politely and respectfully denied.

  “I hear he has Alzheimer’s,” Rav Alter’s gabbai, Zevulun, whispered. “The nephew doesn’t want anyone to know. So he makes up pronouncements and halachic rulings himself, then tells everyone it’s from the rebbe.”

  Rav Alter shook his head. “If what you are telling me isn’t true, Zevulun, it’s rechilus. And if it is true, it’s a chilul HaShem and a shandah,” Rav Alter answered, discouraged. He had hoped that, face-to-face with his old friend, they could put an end to the violence. But with the nephew in charge, there was no chance of coming to an understanding. He would have no choice but to act independently.

  “Call the girl and her parents. Arrange for them to meet me in my office.”

  “They’ll want to know why. What should I say?”

  “Tell them the truth. It’s about Grub.”

  “Is that wise?”

  Rav Alter looked into the familiar face of his very efficient and practical gabbai. “Why not?”

  “If the child is seeing a counselor, they’ll want to keep it quiet.”

  Rav Alter smacked his palm against his forehead. “Of course they will! So maybe tell them I’ll come to see them, in their home, in the evening. Discreetly.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be honored, k’vod harav.”

  They were not Hasidim but actually members of the Ashkenazic, Lithuanian community, the gabbai informed him. They were surprised but honored to invite the head of their community into their home.

  “They are simple people—he has a shoe store, and she is a housewife. They have three children. Their eldest daughter, Menucha Sarah, is four years younger than Shaindele.”

  “That makes her how old?”

  “Thirteen, k’vod harav.”

  “A baby!” He sniffed. “What do you hear is the reason for the counselor?”

  “Her father has a heart condition. Times have been very hard for them financially. Her mother went to work to supplement their income. The children are a little lost.”

  “What did you tell them about why we are meeting?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He sighed. That evening, he walked to a large apartment house in the poorer section of Boro Park and rang the bell.

  A thin, pale, sickly man with a large black velvet yarmulke opened the door. He seemed overawed. “Such an honor for us, k’vod harav!” he gushed, ushering him into the modest apartment.

  The place, poorly furn
ished, had clearly been scrubbed until it shone, the windows sparkling, the old bookcase polished to a dull shine. Light refreshments in the best Sabbath dishes were laid out upon the dining room table.

  Rav Alter sat down in the easy chair they offered him, facing the parents, who took a seat opposite on the worn sofa.

  “I understand you are going through a difficult time. You know there are funds available, free loans. I’d be happy to arrange that. Also grants,” he added delicately.

  The parents exchanged embarrassed looks.

  “Many thanks, k’vod harav. But praise be to God, we are managing.”

  “I am happy to hear that, but that is not the reason I came to see you,” he hastened to add.

  They nodded, relieved, their eyes questioning.

  Rav Alter took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy. “As you know, many young people in our community are having difficulties. This is a confusing time in the world, with so much pritzus, so many temptations. The internet … We need to protect our children.”

  They nodded approvingly. If anything, they looked even more perplexed, Rav Alter noted, floundering, then having no choice, pushing ahead as best he could. “So as one of the heads of this community, I am talking to the parents of teenagers who are seeing rabbinically approved counselors, to see if it is helping them, and if we should send other children. I understand your daughter is going to see Rav Yoel Grub?”

  “Who is spreading such things about us?” the father asked, absolutely furious.

  It was not only the therapist, Rav Alter realized, but the idea that they might need charity. Oy vey! I need to learn to be a more accomplished liar! “Please, please. This is completely private; you can rely on me never to tell anyone.”

  “But, k’vod harav, how did you find out?” the mother persisted.

  “Just by chance, someone whose own child was also going to Grub saw your daughter coming out of his office. She was crying. He heard Grub call out her name. This person was so concerned that he shared this with me in the strictest confidence and wanted to find out if your daughter is all right.”