by Naomi Ragen
“Wife?” Shoshana gasped.
Leah pointed to her face. “Exactly what my face looked like, exactly what I said. ‘What, you have a wife?’ Well, not legally, he explained. She was a woman he had been living with. She wouldn’t hear of converting. ‘She loved Christ too much’—he shook his head—‘and she was afraid it would be too confusing for the children.’”
Shoshana tried hard to keep a straight face. “The children?”
“There were apparently six of them. ‘Where are they now?’ I asked him. He looked at me as if it were a ridiculous question. In Nigeria, of course. They were all good Christians. ‘You’ve got a wife and six children you left in Nigeria?’
“‘Well, maybe technically,’ he admitted. Then he explained to me how a convert is born anew. ‘You have no mother, no father, no wife, no children. I’m ready to start anew. I’m a new man!’ Then he looked at me suggestively and patted the space on the couch next to him a few more times. Then suddenly, he stood up and his hands were all over me. I don’t exactly know what happened after that. All I can remember is seeing red, literally. Also snippets of myself screaming that I was going to assassinate Faigie Klein; I was going to drown her in the mikvah, put strychnine in her cholent. And then I stood by the door and told him to get out.”
By this time, all Shoshana’s friends were crowded around listening. Ahhs, oohs, and oys filled the room.
Shoshana covered her eyes with her hands and shook her head.
“And he said, ‘Excuse me?’ and I screamed, ‘Leave!’ So he picked up his black hat and settled it on his head. But before he walked out, he turned to me. ‘Maybe you have a younger sister?’”
“Put those skates back on!” Shoshana demanded. “Put them on. All of us. We are taking you home.”
All along the route, pious people stood in shock by their windows discussing the halachic permissibility of five pious women—some even wearing wigs—linking arms and Rollerblading down the streets of Flatbush all the way to Boro Park.
14
“I am sorry. I never want to talk to a shadchan again. They are all “dreykops, dishonest shysters. And the shidduchim! I never in my life met such people!”
There was a moment of silence as Fruma Esther Sonnenbaum tried to recover from her shock. Never in her life could she have imagined such venomous words coming out of the mouth of her pious and circumspect son-in-law. With strenuous effort, she finally gathered herself together, swallowing hard and clearing her throat. “My dear Yaakov,” she began slowly, choosing her words with care lest he turn his fury in her direction. “This is not like you. I won’t say you’re wrong, but you know you must keep going. For the children’s sake,” she pleaded. “How else will you find your bashert?”
“Forgive me, Bubbee Fruma, but if you knew even a tiny portion of what I’ve been through…” He shook his head vehemently. “I just … can’t. I must have some peace. I will pray to the Almighty to help me. After all, it is He who blesses man with a helpmate.”
“As it is written: Do not put your faith in miracles,” she countered with rising indignation, her courage returning at his mild response. “Effort must be made, my son!”
He shook his head decisively. “Tell them to leave me alone! Tell them Yaakov Lehman is finished with their scheming, their false advertising.” He was furious again. “Finished being their little experiment! I’ve put it in God’s hands.” He had tried six more times after the disaster with Rachel. Enough. It was better for him to remain single the rest of his days than to endure another hour of such torment!
She pulled her handbag close to her chest, rising stiffly to her feet. “It’s not my business to tell them any such thing! I wash my hands of it. God have mercy on you,” she said over her shoulder as she firmly closed the door to the apartment behind her.
He felt remorse at having offended her. As for the matchmakers—those criminals!—who for months had played havoc with his life, introducing him to aging, demanding, silly divorcées and sour widows eager to trap him into matrimony for their own selfish ends, he owed them no apology for stating the facts.
For a little while, he got his wish. The phones ceased to ring, and the grasping, scheming hordes of women disappeared. Slowly, he felt himself recovering, a smile finding its way to his lips slightly more often. But six weeks after his last disastrous shidduch date, and a month after his conversation with his mother-in-law, he began to feel a bit dispirited, as if the sameness of his days were a groove in the mud that deepened with every step he took, making it impossible for him to move forward.
Sometimes, when he went to sleep alone in his narrow bed, he thought of Rachel, her face, her sweet smile, her young voice. He missed the tingle and glow of possibilities that their meeting had brought back into his staid existence. He felt like an ox in harness, pulling the heavy plow of his obligations behind him as his conscience cracked the whip. He was grateful for the gradual numbing of the sharp pain of loss brought about by the passing of time, but he wanted more than that. He wanted to feel alive again! To feel hopeful about his personal future as a human being living out the rest of his days on God’s earth.
The only things that brought him true happiness were his children. They were everything to him now. And so when Shaindele came to him with her sad face, he was more than eager to help her.
“What is it, my child?” he asked her, stroking her dark, soft hair from her forehead. She stood stiffly, smoothing down her skirt. She was almost sixteen, yet not much more than a child, and already she behaved like a matron twice her age. This pained him, but what could he do about it? As the oldest child living at home, and a girl, so many of the household responsibilities had naturally fallen into her lap. He was grateful she had taken them up without complaint. But with the shouldering of tasks that would not have been hers had her mother lived, her sunny personality also transformed. She was constantly making faces or rolling her eyes in disapproval at one thing or another, finding fault with her friends and neighbors for their insufficient piety, the hemlines that in her view fell too short, the sleeves that left a shocking gap between elbow and wrist. Sometimes, with her litany of dissatisfactions and complaints, she sounded more like an old yenta than a teenage girl.
“Tateh, something happened.”
He was immediately concerned. “Is it Chasya or Mordechai Shalom? Are they hurt?”
“No, no, nothing physical … but yes, I think they’ve been hurt, but you refuse to do anything about it.”
He took his hands from her hair and leaned back. “Disrespect to a parent is a worse sin than short sleeves, Shaindele.”
She bunched up her lips in that prim, old-lady way she had lately taken on and that he couldn’t stand. “Taking care your children don’t go off the derech is the same as keeping Shabbos.”
“Go off the derech?”
“Yes! Bringing someone into the home that’s teaching them goyish narishkeit. It’s that woman. That Leah.”
“Leah, the woman who’s been cleaning our floors, washing our clothes, and babysitting the little ones so you can go to school and I can go to kollel? The woman who has never asked to be paid or even for thanks? That Leah? You are complaining about her?”
Her self-confidence slightly deflated, she nevertheless plowed defiantly ahead. “Yesterday, Chasya drew birds on her hands with black magic marker. It was impossible to wash off! When I asked her why she did it, she said she wanted to look just like Leah.”
He looked at her blankly.
“She has tattoos, Tateh! Just like the goyim! And now Chasya also wants tattoos!”
Tattoos. He was shocked. The prohibition was written specifically in the Torah, the words of God Himself! He’d been aware Leah was newly observant, but tattoos! Only the most depraved secular people defiled their bodies with tattoos. Or so he’d always been led to believe. Shaindele had been coming to him for months with complaints about the volunteer, to which he’d responded with biblical verses demanding the stranger be treated with
love and respect. But now a small doubt crept into his heart, wondering if he’d allowed material considerations to cloud his judgment.
On the days she was there, he came home from night school to find the laundry neatly folded, the dishes done, the younger children washed and, most importantly, happy. When she wasn’t there, the place went back to its usual chaos, with Shaindele running ragged to do the chores as well as her homework. Yaakov appreciated that his young daughter was trying her hardest to manage, but the simple fact was she just couldn’t. Often she lost her temper, especially with Chasya, whom she bossed around mercilessly, punishing her left and right for every little thing. Too many times, he came home to find the child wailing in her bed.
But that was neither here nor there. A father’s responsibility was first and foremost to protect his children from destructive outside influences. Nothing was worse than the wrong education.
“I will look into it, Shaindele.”
“When?”
“Behave yourself! I will take care of it!” he shouted, guilt making him react more harshly than he would have under normal circumstances. As was written in Talmud: Do not be angry and you will not sin.
She is right, and you are wrong, he admitted to himself remorsefully. He should have met this person who was coming into his home, interacting with his children, months ago.
He meant to. He wanted to. But their schedules conflicted. She came when he had already left for morning prayers and left before he came home after his evening studies. It would have required taking time off from yeshiva or his night classes, neither of which he felt he could afford. And then, of course, he’d been busy with all the phone calls, all those horrible and disappointing shidduch dates. But now he had no choice and no excuse. He had been pushed into a corner and exposed as the derelict father he was.
Leah. What did he know about her, really? Only that she had come into the neighborhood through Rabbi Weintraub’s religious studies program for baalos teshuva and had been living with Reb Aryeh and Rebbitzen Basha, who had contacted Fruma Esther suggesting she might be willing to help out the family in her spare time as a chesed; only that she had done a marvelous job and that Chasya and Mordechai Shalom loved her, and Shaindele couldn’t stand her.
He didn’t even know what she looked like or even her last name! But Shaindele had been with her every day for months. He had no reason to doubt that what his daughter was telling him was true. Given that, he was left with no choice but to ask this kind, giving person to whom he owed so much to leave and not to come back.
A sickening ache filled his heart at the thought. But his hands were tied. As head of this household, responsible for safeguarding the innocent young souls entrusted by God into his safekeeping, he had no choice but to see that this danger to them was removed. He had left it too long, and now there would be hell to pay.
He called his mother-in-law. “Please call Rebbitzen Basha. Tell her how much we appreciate everything the volunteer Leah has done for us over the last few months but that now we can manage on our own. Tell her we’ve made other arrangements.”
There was a short silence. While Fruma Esther had nursed her own doubts about how close her grandchildren had become to that redheaded baalas teshuva who spent so many hours alone with them, there was no question she was a big help. The house had begun to function again; you could walk through the living room without breaking your head over toys and clothes; the dishes were clean and put away; closets and drawers were once again filled with clean, ironed clothes. Had they found another volunteer, perhaps, someone more suitable? Her son-in-law was certainly in no position to hire anyone. “You want we should tell her to stop coming?”
He felt his stomach somersault with misery. How would they manage now? “Yes, tell her not to come anymore.”
* * *
For months, Leah had plowed through her days trying not to think about the future. She had more work than she could handle, and every day more clients called wanting her to help them set up mailing lists and create flyers or websites. But whatever her workload, she left part of her time open for the Lehman children, and the rest for classes or rabbinical lectures she needed to strengthen her faith. It was shocking how quickly she forgot sometimes not only all the complicated rules of her new life but also her motivation.
She had entered into religious life for one reason: to fill her empty heart. Once, beautiful sunsets and stunning scenery were all she’d needed as she sat next to the love of her life. But without him, it almost hurt to take in the splendors of nature. Worse, it was meaningless. It gave her no answers to the questions tormenting her, tearing at the core of her being: Why was she on this earth in the first place? Why did good people die for no reason? What was the meaning and purpose of all man’s misery, all his joy, his attempts at goodness and kindness?
A belief in Judaism had given her some good answers.
“What is your God asking of you, really?” Rabbi Weintraub would say. “Not to hurt anyone, or cheat them? To be honest? To be charitable? To love God? He gives you the sun, and all He asks is that you light a little candle. Is that too much to ask?”
She didn’t think so.
Many people took the option of believing in nothing, doing nothing of value, choosing instead to self-annihilate in a million different ways through drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, money lust, status-seeking, fame, or obscene material excess, anything to blunt the inescapable reality of emptiness, of waking up every morning to a new day that had to be gotten through one way or another, until you died. And to obtain these things, some people were ready to lie, cheat, steal, murder, and rob other human beings of their happiness and sometimes their lives. And after they’d done all that, would they be happy then? Could they look themselves in the mirror afterward and think Wow, what a great life!
She thought about Andrew, her boyfriend for five years, who had brought her into PureBirth, about Juliana Hager, CEO and founder of the company, and wondered what had happened to them. Even if they weren’t in jail, were they happy? Could they ever be, considering the lives they’d ruined, the misery they’d caused? And all for what? That big Manhattan apartment with designer furniture? The fancy car? The clothes? She, at least, hadn’t been sure of the truth. She, at least, was sorry.
But most people weren’t like Andrew and Juliana. Most people were good, intelligent, responsible human beings struggling to live decent, useful lives. Why was it so many of them found that almost impossible? Was it because there were just no rules anymore, people making them up as they went along? From her own bitter experience, she saw that most good people were simply lost, bobbing around like castaways in a moral wasteland flooded with debris and ugliness, waiting to be rescued and placed on solid ground.
Her own solid ground, the way she had chosen for herself, was often difficult. Keeping the laws of the Torah was called a yoke. Sometimes, it hung heavily around her tender neck.
She missed the freedom and spontaneity of wearing whatever she wanted—long sleeves were so hot in the summer, and mid-calf skirt lengths were absolutely dowdy! She missed hopping over to a McDonald’s for a cheeseburger. She missed having a whole weekend to herself where there were no rules, no don’t-do-this-don’t-do-that. She missed dancing in public and going to rock concerts. And if and when she ever got married—God willing!—she knew she was going to absolutely hate covering her hair.
But there were also so many things she loved.
Despite the rigidity, she loved Shabbos, turning off her phone and disconnecting from the internet, being motivated to take time to contemplate a higher meaning in life. She loved having a sense that God was a real presence in her life, hovering nearby when she prayed, smiled at a child, wrote out a check for charity, or saw a sunset. All that pent-up love for the father she’d never had, she now channeled to God. And was He not the most wonderful Father of all?
As for a woman’s place, despite her mother’s dire predictions, as far as she could see, it wasn’t all that different from
the world she’d known: if you showed initiative and talent, people respected that, and if you were a sheep, they accepted that, too, and treated you accordingly. It was always hard for a woman to spread her wings.
But what she loved most of all was the time she spent at the home of Yaakov Lehman. That, above everything, strengthened her resolve, reminding her of why she had changed her life so radically. Those children! How she loved them! They were so funny and affectionate and kind. And so smart! Why, little Chasya could already recite all the blessings over food and say grace after meals by heart! Once, when a deafening clash of thunder and lightning filled the sky, instead of running away in fright, she had recited some prayers. Leah caught one of them: Blessed O Lord, King of the Universe, whose power and glory fill the earth. But a few days later, when there was more thunder, to her surprise Chasya ignored it.
“Chasya, what’s wrong with you! You forgot to say the bracha on thunder,” Leah teased her.
She answered very seriously, “But I didn’t see any lightning. There has to be lightning.”
“Why?”
“How do you know it’s thunder and not another noise? It could be a bracha levatala.”
Leah was flabbergasted. She picked her up and swung her around the room. “You are the smartest five-year-old on the planet! I hope when I’m ninety, I’ll know as much as you, Chasya.”
The child squealed in delight.
As for Mordechai Shalom, she thought about him all the time: his beautiful head of silky blond hair, his chubby thighs and soft, adorable little fingers. He was constantly singing real or imagined tunes that sounded like the songs around the Shabbos table. He was very easygoing and loved to laugh. And then there were those precious moments when he wrapped his little arms around her neck and nestled against her breast. Often, the feeling stayed with her so that even at night when she was alone in her bed, she could feel his warmth, hear the beat of his heart.