by Naomi Ragen
“If you were a woman,” the matchmaker told him, “by now I would be refusing to help you. I have an instinct for who is serious and who isn’t. I don’t have time to waste.”
“My dear lady, I ask mechila if you think I’ve wasted your time. Maybe I haven’t been clear enough. So let me be clear now: I want a heimish person. I don’t care about looks. I don’t care about money or yichus. I want a good person with a good heart who loves children and is not filled with gashmiyus. A person who will be my partner in ruchniyus, who will help me raise my orphaned children with good middot. Someone who will help me with parnosa until I finish my course and begin working full-time as a CPA. A woman whose neshama is not bitter or broken or old. A woman who loves life and is ready to open her heart to me.”
“Your mother-in-law, may she live and be well, dafka gave me a very different impression.” She sniffed. “Nu, so I’ll try again.”
She tried and tried and tried. And when Suri Kimmeldorfer finally gave up, an army of other eager shadchanim willingly moved in to take her place. They also tried and tried: widows with and without children. Women of all shapes and sizes, some with piously scrubbed faces who forced him to eat their homemade cakes while discussing to which yeshiva they would send the children they would have together. Women who wore red lipstick and mascara who walked a little too close beside him on the way to restaurants and hotel lobbies. Divorcées with hard-luck stories who inexplicably couldn’t wait to plunge right back in again. Women who had hidden agendas, expecting to be supported, to have their own children lavished with fatherly care while viewing Yaakov’s children as a burden, an unwelcome part of the deal. Worst of all, not a single one tugged at his heart. They were strangers, and he was only too happy to keep it that way.
That was, until he met Rachel.
10
“I have someone very special in mind for you,” the shadchan told Yaakov. Which shadchan it was exactly, he didn’t remember. By now they had all blurred into one person with a nagging voice who interrupted his studies and his peace of mind at regular intervals.
He wanted to say, “That’s what you always say.” But he already had a reputation for being difficult, he knew. If he hadn’t been a Torah scholar from an esteemed family, a member in good standing of a community in which marriageable men in their forties were as rare as unicorns, all the matchmakers would have long ago given up. So instead, he took a deep breath and said mildly, “Can you tell me something about her?”
“She’s not a widow or a divorcée. She’s young, twenty-nine, a rabbi’s daughter, who has never been married.”
A single girl. A virgin. It was too good to be true. “What does she want with me?”
“She doesn’t, believe me. But I convinced her to give it a try. What does it hurt, I told her. You think thirty-two-year-old single yeshiva boys from good families are out there just waiting around for you to turn thirty? So you need to compromise, to be a little flexible.”
“She agreed?”
“I showed her your picture, Yaakov. She agreed.”
“Well, if she’s seen my picture, I want to see hers.”
“Not a problem. I have a picture and a résumé. I’m sending it to you by email right now.”
It appeared like magic in his in-box moments later. He enlarged it, studying it in detail. Her hair was dark, like Zissele’s, straight and very long. She wore it simply with just a headband, not braided or in a ponytail like a teenager or in a bun like an old lady. She had big, blue eyes that stared at the camera wide-eyed, innocent, and tender, serious young lips that didn’t smile. She looked young and intelligent. She looked young and pretty. She looked young. He looked in the mirror. And I look old. He plucked at the random silver in his dark gold beard.
Her voice on the phone was also young, he thought, filled with friendliness as they made arrangements to meet. All week, he felt a growing sense of excitement as Saturday night approached. As much as he tried not to get his hopes up, he couldn’t help it.
Even Shaindele noticed. As much as she resented the idea of another woman taking her mother’s place, she felt a solidarity with her father’s hopes and did not want him to endure any more disappointments. “Maybe you should wear the blue tie,” she suggested. “The one Mameh bought you for Rosh Hashana.”
“You think so, Shaindele?” he answered, ready to take any advice offered.
She nodded, quickly going through the closet and finding it. “I’ll put it on the bed. And this week, Tateh, I have exams on Tuesday afternoon, so we need a babysitter for the children.”
“We want Leah,” Chasya blurted out.
“La … ya,” the baby repeated with a smile.
Shaindele frowned.
“Who is this?” Yaakov asked, busy putting on his tie.
“No one. Just a convert living with the Blausteins. She’s come over a few times to help out.”
“A convert?”
“Or one of those baalos teshuva from Rabbi Weintraub’s program. She’s not shayich.”
“How much does she charge an hour?”
Shaindele hesitated. “She doesn’t charge.”
“She babysits for nothing?” He stopped fiddling with his tie and looked up, surprised. How long had this been going on in his home without him knowing a single thing about it?
“She says it’s a chesed. To help out.”
He had vaguely noticed of late that the house had been in better order, his closet and the children’s filled with clean clothes. “How often does she come?”
Too often, Shaindele thought irritably, but she said, “Whenever I can’t be home and Bubbee can’t make it.”
“That is very nice of her! We should buy her a present,” Yaakov told his daughter, who was silent.
“I don’t want her to come anymore,” Shaindele burst out.
“But why?”
Her young siblings had grown close to her and were now asking for her all the time. It was “Leah did this” and “Leah said that.” Constantly. “Because who knows what she’s teaching them, if she’s bringing in food without the proper hechsher? I said, she’s not shayich”
“I think a person who does such a chesed and doesn’t ask to be paid is very shayich,” Yaakov scolded her gently. “We should all have her zchus in mitzvoth. As it is written: Where a true penitent stands, even the greatest tzaddikim cannot.”
“Because of the smell,” she murmured. It was an old joke that everyone had heard.
Yaakov’s face grew serious. “I don’t ever want to hear you say something like that again, Shaindele. It’s wrong, and it’s disgusting.”
“Tateh, I didn’t make it up!”
“Tell me, Shaindele, was our father Isaac greater than Moshe?”
“Of course not, Tateh. Moshe was the greatest prophet of all, and closer to God than any human being.”
“And yet Moshe grew up in the idolatrous house of Pharaoh and only learned to love God and keep His commandments when he was old, while Isaac grew up in the holy house of Abraham. Never, ever shame a baal teshuva or a convert. This is a direct commandment from the Torah: You shall not abuse a stranger and you shall not oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. This is a very serious prohibition, Shaindele.”
She hung her head, ashamed, unaccustomed to such harsh rebukes from her father. “I’m sorry, Tateh.”
He relented, caressing her young, flushed cheek. And as he did so, he couldn’t help but think of the young woman he was about to meet and the night to come. His voice softened. “Think of something nice we can do for this person to thank her, all right, Shaindele?”
“Yes, Tateh. Now go. And it should be in a good hour.”
A good hour. It’s what you said about weddings, he thought, smiling at his daughter, who smiled back.
He felt a little frightened as he approached the brownstone in Flatbush that night, something that he had not felt before in meetings of this nature. Before he had felt anticipation, nervousness perhaps, but not
fright. I am terrified, he thought. Of being turned down. Of being seen for who I am, a man who just turned forty, whose best years are behind him; a Torah scholar who has abandoned his studies to become a CPA; a failed husband who could not prevent the tragic death of his beloved young wife. Only a strong sense of discipline and the thought of the phone call from the furious shadchan stopped him from turning around and fleeing.
He rang the bell. A woman answered. His face fell. She was not young, and her dark hair was tied back with a kerchief. Wrinkles were beginning around her eyes. I should have known, Yaakov thought, swallowing his disappointment. Another shadchan story. They said two words, and three of them were lies.
“You must be Yaakov. I’m Rachel’s mother. Welcome. Please come inside. She’ll be down in a moment.”
Rachel’s mother! He stepped over the threshold, almost stumbling in relief.
“Please meet my husband,” she said graciously, introducing him.
The father, too, looks young, not much older than I am, he thought, even though he knew that was impossible. He was only eleven years older than Rachel. Still, he, too, had children who were not far from marriageable age. The father shook his hand and offered him a chair around the dining room table, where he himself had been sitting, an open Talmud before him.
Yaakov looked into the book. “You’re learning Baba Basra.” He nodded.
“Yes,” Rachel’s father said. “And it’s very shayich. I’m just now talking to my neighbor about building a fence between our properties.”
“With round stones or rough stones?” Yaakov smiled, referring to the dispute in the Talmud over how to equally divide the contribution of land between neighbors for the purpose of building such a fence.
“Well, as a matter of fact, it’s interesting you mention, as the Talmud says—”
Just then there were footsteps.
“Hello,” Rachel said.
She was even more beautiful than her photograph. And so young!
He felt tongue-tied next to this tall, slim, pretty girl.
“I was just discussing Baba Basra with your father,” he said.
Her brow creased in confusion.
“I guess we should go,” he said, looking away, feeling like an idiot.
“I’ll get my coat,” Rachel answered, disappearing.
A light rain was falling. The contrast between the warmth of the house and the damp cold of the still wintry streets was startling, but he hardly noticed. He was glad he had rented a car, even though she lived not far away. He wanted to create an intimate space in which to talk to her as soon as possible.
“I thought we could go into Manhattan. Is there someplace special you’d like to try?”
Rachel smiled. “It’s very nice of you to ask me. I’ve been on so many shidduch dates I’ve probably seen everything. But if you haven’t been, then the Marriot Marquis on Broadway has this revolving lounge. The view of the city keeps changing. It’s fun. But if you don’t want to travel so far, we could go to Court Street in Brooklyn to the Barnes & Noble. They have a nice place to get coffee.”
“No, let’s go to Broadway,” he said magnanimously, pulling out into traffic. “I wanted to thank you, Rachel,” he said, keeping his eyes straight ahead.
“For what?”
“For agreeing to go out with me. A widower with five children.”
She was silent for so long that he took his eyes off the road and gave her a worried glance.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “This isn’t easy for me.”
“What?”
“Being twenty-nine and unmarried.”
“Oh.”
“You have no idea how horrible it can be for a woman. Every time I go to a simcha, I feel this hail of sharp little stones thrown in my direction, every cliché in the book. If I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me, ‘God willing by you,’ ‘You just have to make it work,’ ‘Send another picture,’ ‘Maybe you really don’t want to get married,’ ‘Don’t be so smart; you’ll scare him off,’ ‘No one can steal your bashert,’ ‘Your time will come,’ ‘He’ll come when you least expect it,’ ‘You have to put yourself out there…’” She grew hoarse and finally silent.
He glanced at her in the dark. Were those tears glistening on her cheeks?
“We—I mean, we men—don’t realize.”
“No. I think it must be easier for men.”
No, he thought but didn’t say. It isn’t. But why start a misery competition? Instead, he asked with all the genuine kindness and sympathy he felt toward her, “What’s a lovely girl like you doing in a situation like this?”
She shrugged. “I’ve asked myself that question so many times. Like everybody else, I spent a year in Israel in seminary and started dating when I got back. I was nineteen. Before they would even agree to take me on and introduce me to the best prospects, the shadchanim demanded my parents promise $30,000 up front and seven years’ support so the boys could continue learning. How could they afford it? I’m not an only child, and my father is a maggid shiur, not a businessman. For most of his life, my father was also learning full-time. Where was all this money supposed to come from? So we tried through friends and neighbors and relatives. But the boys I wanted, the learner-earner types, the ones that were pious but also had a head on their shoulders; someone ambitious to secure a future for his family so he didn’t wind up like my father who can’t meet the demands of the shadchanim, those kinds of boys are few and far between.
“If I’d only wanted a learner, I could have found. If I’d only wanted an earner, I could have found. I wanted both. So the years passed. I was working, teaching. And each year, my offers were fewer and fewer, and the number of younger girls coming of age more and more. The best boys went to the eighteen-year-old girls with rich fathers. The boys that were left behind also had something keeping them from finding their bashert, some problem with the reputation of their family or bad reports from the yeshiva about the boy himself. Physical handicaps. Mental problems. The older I got, the worse the selection.”
“And so now you are here with me, a forty-year-old widower with five children.”
She nodded. “‘Think out of the box,’ they are telling me now.”
A stone fell on his heart when he thought of this date from Rachel’s point of view. He was sad for her, that she had come to this.
“I understand,” he said softly. “And really, I was surprised that a girl like you agreed to meet me. But excited, too. When I saw your picture, Rachel, I felt happy. And I haven’t felt that way in a very long time.”
“What about me made you feel that way?”
“I’ve also been on the shidduch treadmill. Maybe not as long as you, but I’m sure we could trade horror stories.”
She laughed, twisting in her seat to face him.
“I only ever wanted to be with one woman, my wife, Zissele, may she be remembered with blessing.”
“Do I remind you of her?”
“No, not really. She was tiny and plump with short hair. But when I saw your picture, it reminded me of how I felt when I first met her. That same excitement and joy.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
They parked in a paid lot and walked the short distance to the hotel. The wet streets glistened in the halo of streetlamps. He longed to usher her safely through the crowds by holding her hand, or giving her his arm, all things strictly forbidden, as was any physical contact between men and women who were not intimate family members. Most religious men would not even agree to a polite handshake with a woman at a business meeting.
They followed the hostess to their table in the bustling lounge. For a few moments, they were silent, taking in the bright lights of the New York skyline as the whole room slowly swiveled on its axis. It was wondrous. When their modest order of nonalcoholic drinks was put in front of them, they sipped slowly, shyly.
“Tell me about yourself, Rachel. What are your hopes, your dreams? What do you want out
of life?”
Eagerly, she answered him.
There was nothing special about her answers, Yaakov thought, nothing he could not have thought of himself as the goals of a religious girl from their community. A Jewish home filled with hospitality. Children raised to be good, God-fearing Jews. Perhaps a chance to go back to school to learn graphic arts. But as he watched her speak, her young face so animated and vital, he felt entranced.
“And what do you want, Yaakov?”
“All those things. But most importantly, a partner to share my life, to help me on my journey. Someone to love and help my children on theirs.”
She listened, her face serious and intent.
“When did your wife die?”
“Thirteen months ago.” Five days, six hours, seventy minutes.
“What happened?”
As usual, he froze at the question. “I really don’t like to talk about it. It was shocking and sudden. The doctors did all they could to save her, but it was no use.” He hoped she wouldn’t probe. This kind of investigation had put an early end to more than one shidduch date.
Thankfully, she changed the subject.
“How old are your children?”
He answered her eagerly, talking briefly about each one, trying to help her picture how special and wonderful they were. “The baby is already climbing out of his crib.”
She smiled. “And how are you managing day to day?”
“My mother-in-law and oldest daughter are a tremendous help. And we benefit from the chesed of our friends and neighbors. It was very hard at first; I felt lost. But now I am more hopeful.” He looked into her eyes. She blushed and looked down.
For a moment, he had the mad thought of reaching across the table and taking her soft, gentle hand in his. He put his hands firmly into his pockets.
“How would you feel about more children?” she asked him.
“It would be a blessing!” he answered without hesitation. “I would want you to have everything you want in life, Rachel. Everything that is in my power to give you.”