An Observant Wife

by Naomi Ragen

  They were shocked, he saw, and yet clearly relieved as well. Someone in the same boat wasn’t likely to spread rumors that could come back to bite them. That their daughter had been in distress was clearly secondary.

  “Has she said anything to you?” Rav Alter asked.

  “No, not a word.”

  “And has Rav Grub helped her?”

  He could see the parents exchanging confused looks. “She is a quiet girl who doesn’t share much. Maybe it would be better for k’vod harav to ask her himself?” The father signaled to the mother, who got up and went into the bedroom. When she returned, a girl no more than a child was with her. She seemed like a small, skittish night creature longing to scurry beneath the nearest bush. She looked very young and very scared.

  “Say shalom to K’vod Harav Alter, Menucha Sarah,” the father demanded.

  “Shalom,” the girl whispered, not looking up.

  “He wants to ask you some things about Rav Grub.”

  For the first time, she raised her head. She looked terrified, Rav Alter registered.

  “Please, Menucha Sarah, don’t be afraid! You haven’t—chas v’shalom—done anything wrong. This won’t take long, and it would be a big help to me.”

  Reluctantly, she sat down.

  “Can you tell me if Rav Grub’s office has windows?”

  She seemed relieved. “No,” she exhaled, shaking her head.

  “And how many doors are there into his office?”

  “Two,” she said softly.

  “And when you are in the office, does he leave one of them open?”

  She shook her head, suddenly fidgeting with her fingers.

  “Tell me, does he lock both doors?”

  “Yes,” she answered, gaining a bit of confidence.

  “And what about his walls? What does he have hanging on the walls of his office?”

  “Pictures.”

  “Please, describe them to me.”

  “He doesn’t always have the same ones. Sometimes it’s a picture of the Bobelger Rebbe, but other times…” She hesitated.

  “Go on, it’s all right.”

  “Women in bathing suits at the beach.”

  The parents’ eyebrows shot up.

  “And what do you do at these sessions in Rav Grub’s office?”

  She looked beseechingly at her father and mother, then stared at the floor.

  “He asks me questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “All kinds. I don’t remember,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes.

  “It can’t be that you don’t remember anything,” her father declared, annoyed. “Try harder! You’ve been going there for months!”

  “Please, I can’t!” she begged.

  Rav Alter cleared his throat. “Can you tell me, Menucha Sarah, do Rav Grub’s questions sometimes make you uncomfortable?”

  She looked at him steadily, nodding slowly.

  “And can you tell me, child, has Rav Grub ever touched you?”

  She nodded, tears suddenly streaming down her cheeks.

  Her parents half rose out of their seats. They looked astounded.

  She ran into her mother’s arms, hiding her face.

  “Can you tell me, Menucha Sarah, do you like going to talk to Rav Grub?”

  She shook her head vigorously, her whole body trembling.

  “How would you feel, Menucha Sarah, about going to talk to someone else? A woman counselor?”

  “Please, k’vod harav,” she implored.

  He nodded, smiling, rising to his feet. “Thank you so much, Menucha Sarah. You have been very helpful. HaShem should bless you and your dear family.”

  Her parents walked him to the door.

  “What does this mean? What are you saying…?” the girl’s father began.

  “It means she shouldn’t go back to Grub; he isn’t the right counselor for her. She should go to a woman. I’ll have my gabbai call you with the name of someone else.”

  The father, who looked devastated, seemed to be about to ask more, but then thought better of it, pressing his lips together. Finally, he whispered, “Thank you so much, k’vod harav!”

  He took the man’s trembling hand in both his own, patting it warmly, then nodded to the wife. “Don’t worry. It will be fine. One day, we will all dance at her wedding.”

  “Mirtzashem! Amen.”

  Rav Alter walked slowly down the quiet streets, his body trembling with quiet anguish and controlled fury. So many years! So many young girls! And if not for the courage of little Shaindele Lehman, no one would have ever known! It was monstrous.

  As soon as he got home, he called Fruma Esther.

  “Nu?”

  “Shaindele is telling the truth. Leah is right. It’s a shandah. But”—and here he caught his breath, leaning against the wall—“I can’t publicly condemn Grub.”

  Her heart sank. “Why not?”

  “The girl and her parents will never admit anything publicly. Even to get her to describe the pictures on Grub’s wall was like splitting the Red Sea. And even if I could get her and her family to talk to the police, which is as likely as the Messiah appearing on my doorstep in the next ten minutes, they would suffer what Yaakov and Leah are suffering. But I can and will do something else.”

  “Something is better than nothing,” she sighed, heartbroken, but resigned.

  “I can make sure no girl from our community ever goes to him again.”

  “That, too, will be a blessing. But he’ll just go on with the Bobelger girls.”

  “I think what I plan to do will help those girls, too.”

  “And what about Yaakov and Leah?”

  He felt helpless. “Fruma Esther, you know how it is here in Boro Park. There is not much I can do. But I will try.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know. Thank you, Shimon Levi, really. And forgive me for making your life even harder.”

  “No. Thank you for helping me to see my responsibility to right a great wrong.” And more gently: “And thank you, Fruma Esther, for making this unbearable year of mourning a little easier for me.”

  She blushed in a way she had not for decades. “I’m glad. And please don’t be too hard on yourself. I know you are doing the best you can, Shimon Levi. May the Aibishter bless you.”

  He hung up with a heavy heart. The best he could. But today, to his great shame, he recognized how little power he really had. If only his word were law, as were the words of his father and grandfather before him in the little eastern European villages where they held positions of chief rabbi; when their fearless voices thundering from their pulpits were enough to silence all dissent and settle all conflicts. Now his voice was just one of many trying to make itself heard above the cacophony of those competing for the community’s hearts, minds, respect, and money.

  The next morning, he called in his gabbai.

  “We need to find a psychologist, a frum woman, who lives in Brooklyn and specializes in children. Can you call Rav Kunditz at Yeshiva University? They have a training program for psychologists there, I understand. Many of them are frum women. Ask him for his recommendation for the top person who got the best grades and who has the most experience. And when you get it, please contact the parents of Menucha Sarah and give it to them. And now you need to help me draft a proclamation.”

  The gabbai was startled. This hadn’t happened for years.

  “I want it to say the following: ‘In the name of the Vaad Harabbonim, and for reasons of modesty and holiness, from now on, all girls in our holy communities needing psychological counseling should be sent only to women psychologists approved by the Vaad.’ I will sign it, and you will ask the other rabbonim on the Vaad to sign it. I’ll write up a note for you to give them.”

  “And then what will we do?”

  “We will run off hundreds of posters with this proclamation, to be plastered all over Boro Park, Flatbush, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, endorsed with the signatures of the entire Vaad Harabb
onim. Or as many as we can get.”

  “The Bobelger will never sign.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  Sure enough, the Bobelger Rebbe was the only one who refused to sign.

  Rav Alter called the nephew.

  “This is Rav Alter. I’m calling on behalf of the Vaad Harabbonim. Can you please explain the Bobelger Rebbe’s objection to joining our psak? After all, doesn’t your Hasidus pride itself on being the strictest when it comes to tznius? And is it not more tzniusdik for a young girl to talk of intimate things with another woman rather than a man? Look what happened with Weberman! I’m sure if you explain this to your uncle, he will be only too happy to join us.”

  “Don’t think I don’t know what this is all about!” he replied nastily, all pretense gone. “You are very close friends with Yaakov Lehman even though his wife, the baalas teshuva, is an immodest woman who has been seen—”

  “Please no loshon hara!”

  “—dancing around with no head covering and worse? That she is a moissar and a motzi shem rah who threatened the Bobelger Rebbe himself! And now she is spreading loshon hara and rechilus about a good man, a family man, with a wife and many children to support—and who just happens to be my brother-in-law. She is even threatening to go to the police, to ruin his reputation and destroy his parnosa!”

  Rav Yoel Grub was the nephew’s brother-in-law. This explained everything.

  Rav Alter took a deep, calming breath. “You know, it takes time for baale teshuva to understand how we do things here in Boro Park. I’m sure if I spoke to Leah Lehman, explained to her that the matter is now closed and that she and her family will no longer be harassed and all the harm done to them already”—and here Rav Alter raised his voice—“will be corrected and compensated”—he paused briefly, allowing his voice to return to its natural mildness—“then maybe I can agree to convince her and her stepdaughter to show a similar chesed and forget about filing complaints with the police. But just so you know, Shaindele Lehman is not the only one of your brother-in-law’s young women patients to make these kinds of complaints against him.”

  Tellingly, Rav Alter thought, the nephew didn’t immediately demand “What kind of complaints?” Instead, all he asked was, “Who?” His voice was as cold as ice.

  “I have given her and her parents my sacred word never to discuss it. But I have the name written down.”

  “They came to you?”

  Was there a sudden touch of fear in the nephew’s tone? A slight lessening of the arrogance? “No, I actually went to them.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Because someone saw the girl leaving your brother-in-law’s office in a terrible state and came to me for help. And because she is only thirteen years old.”

  There was complete silence. Rav Alter took advantage of it. “Listen, it’s a mazal you’re family. You can help him. Please advise your relative that it might be better for him to take only male patients from now on. As it is written: For lack of wood a fire goes out. And did you hear—Nechemya Weberman, nebbech, had his sentence reduced by half, and he’ll still be sitting there another fifty years! As for the psak of the Vaad Harabbonim, it is final and will be printed and put up all over Brooklyn in another two hours. Do the Bobelger really want to be the only group left out of a psak protecting the tznius of our women and girls?”

  An hour later, the Bobelger Rebbe’s signature on the proclamation arrived at Rav Alter’s desk. Along with it, was another envelope addressed to Yaakov Lehman. He opened it. It was filled with cash.

  After the posters had gone up all over the religious communities of Brooklyn and Manhattan, Rav Alter took the envelope out of his desk drawer and put it in his pocket. Brushing off the luxurious felt of his best Shabbos hat and donning the long black coat he wore to the synagogue on festive occasions, he walked through the streets of Boro Park. His progress was slow, as every two minutes (or so it seemed to him in his eagerness to reach his destination), another member of his large congregation stopped to bless him and shake his hand. One even waylaid him with great excitement to discuss the new psak going up around town, whose ink had barely dried, filled with curiosity and hoping to uncover the treasure of a juicy nugget of exclusive information from a famous rabbi to be shared as proof of one’s exalted status.

  Rav Alter was polite, but distant, looking down at the ground while these people whispered eagerly into his ear. In reply, he said absolutely nothing, until finally even the densest got the picture and backed off, raining down pious clichés like a brief summer shower that leaves everything annoyingly damp rather than nourishingly watered.

  He rang the buzzer. Fruma Esther took a while to answer. “Yes?”

  “It’s me. Shimon Levi. Can I come up?”

  She buzzed him in immediately and stood by an open door as he made his way from the elevator. “You’re here!”

  Only now did he realize how strange that was. He hardly ever went anywhere except to the synagogue, kollel, or his children’s homes. Everyone usually came to him. And although he had been meeting with Fruma Esther for months, he had never been to her home.

  “I can come in?” he asked, suddenly shy.

  “Avadeh.” Smiling demurely, she opened the door wide.

  It was a neat but modest home, he thought, much smaller than his own one-family house, but furnished similarly: the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the large dining room table that could open to host fourteen people on a Shabbos, the family photographs and oil paintings of the kotel.

  “A drink I can get you?”

  He nodded gratefully.

  “I’ll go get you tea. Sit, sit. Why are you standing? You look tired, Shimon Levi.”

  He nodded, taking off his large black hat and setting it neatly on the coffee table, then taking off his black overcoat and draping it neatly over an armchair. Cooler, he slipped gratefully into a dining room chair, suddenly exhausted.

  She bustled about, hardly knowing what she was doing, bumping into closets, nearly smashing her good teacups, which seemed to have a life of their own. He was here, in her home! Shimon Levi!

  She brought him tea and a tray of her latest baking.

  The eyes in his tired face lit up. “Mandelbrot! Taiglach!”

  “Still warm from the oven,” she boasted, pleased, taking a seat across from him.

  “I came to tell you that I think I was able to influence whoever was behind the attacks on your family to stop.”

  “You think, but you’re not sure?”

  He took the envelope out of his pocket and put it down on the table. “I didn’t count, but it should be enough to cover the car tires, the medical expenses…”

  She looked inside, overwhelmed. “You’re not going to tell me where you got this, right?”

  He shrugged.

  “And the rest?”

  “Time will tell. But in exchange, no more talk about calling the police.”

  “Avadeh. I’ll explain this to Leah. She doesn’t understand. And what about Shaindele?”

  “Was she thrown out of Bais Yaakov?”

  She shook her head. “After what happened to Leah, we took her straight out and sent her to her uncle’s in Baltimore. The head of Bais Yaakov there is a relative of her aunt’s family. They will let her graduate.”

  “I can arrange for her to come back, to finish with her class, if she wants.”

  “No, this is besser. A little distance, less wagging of tongues. It’s good like this. And what about Grub?”

  “I put up posters all over Brooklyn with a psak from the Vaad Harabbonim that says girls needing counseling should only go to women counselors.”

  She sat back, staring at him in admiration. “Shimon Levi, it’s brilliant!”

  He shrugged, pleased, taking a slice of mandelbrot.

  “It’s good?” she asked, not that she had any doubts. But she wanted to hear him say it.

  He simply closed his eyes in pleasure, nodding.

  “I’m so sorry I made so
much work for you, Shimon Levi.”

  “What are you worrying? Believe me, if it wasn’t this, it would have been something else,” he said wearily. “I’ll tell you the truth, I’m not sure how much longer I can go on like this.”

  “You know, I was thinking the same thing. The kinderlach, they should only live and be well, I love them. But so much tummel, such mishugas! And it never stops. Ever since my Zissele, God should watch over her soul, passed, I’ve been like a chicken without a head. I need a vacation. In fact, after this is all over, I’m thinking I’ll visit my daughter in B’nai Brak.”

  “Go to Israel? Aah. Yes. This is where my soul has longed to be for such a long time. I have a little apartment in Jerusalem, in Geulah. I bought it many years ago. Malka Ruth, may her soul rest in peace, and I dreamed of retiring there. I have a child and many grandchildren in Bayit V’Gan.”

  Now, he thought, pausing for a moment before launching into the speech he had long planned to the last word, which contained many learned Talmudical references, flowery quotes from the psalms and Ethics of the Fathers, a speech he had not yet had the opportunity or courage to deliver. But as he opened his mouth, the entire perfectly and laboriously composed discourse went straight out of his head. Instead, he found himself saying simply, “Fruma Esther, maybe we’ll get married and go together?”

  36

  THE CORRECTIONS

  They spent the day at the zoo, then took the children to the local botanical garden, which was so thrillingly beautiful, it made Leah feel like crying. Just this, she thought. Just this.

  The next morning, they loaded up the car, strapped the children in with their toys, and got in themselves. Her eyes were wistful as they drove by the pretty little homes with their large backyards and jungle gyms. The children, drowsy from their full breakfast, immediately fell asleep.

  “It’s good we spent the extra day. I feel much better now,” Leah said.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I’m glad I went back to the minyan again. I didn’t rush out this time, and people were so friendly, almost all of them said hello to me and asked me about myself. I also loved the prayers.”