by Naomi Ragen
“God be blessed. And what’s the good news about your choson?”
Fruma Esther shrugged. “The women are willing. But he’s not.”
“Be patient, Fruma. A man doesn’t get over a Zissele like yours overnight.”
She nodded resignedly.
“So how is the family managing?”
“Baruch HaShem. Shaindele helps. I help when I can.”
Basha pressed. “But all the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, and the afternoons when Shaindele is in school and the children are home?”
“That girl, the baalas teshuva you sent, that Leah, is there all the time.”
Basha smiled uncertainly. From her expression, it didn’t look as if Fruma Esther was there to shower her with thanks. “A lovely girl. Such chesed!” she tried.
Fruma Esther sat up straighter. “It’s a problem.”
“What could be a problem? Someone does such a chesed, that’s a problem?”
“The children are very attached to her. And now Yaakov wants to invite her for Shabbos.”
Basha leaned back. She drummed her fingers on the table. “Do you know if they have an understanding?”
Fruma Esther, for whom such a thing was light-years worse than what she had been contemplating and trying to prevent, suddenly felt her heart miss a beat. Of course! The Shabbos invitation was just the beginning! How had she not seen this coming? “Chas v’chalilah!”
“Fruma Esther, I’m surprised at you! Aren’t you always the one who told me to have bitachon? When my Heshy couldn’t find a shidduch, weren’t you the one to say I should be open and let HaShem work his miracles? You think we wanted a cross-eyed kallah? But this was God’s will.”
Blood rushed to Fruma Esther’s face. “Cross-eyed but frum! From a frum family! This Leah, who are her people?”
“She lived with us for a few months. She is a lovely, sincerely frum girl.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“You shouldn’t hold it against her. It’s to her credit she found the right derech with no help from her family.”
“What do you know about them?”
Basha hesitated. “I am not comfortable talking about Leah. You need to ask her, or Yaakov needs to ask her. All I can tell you is she is a very warmhearted, fine girl filled with love and yiras shomayim.”
“That is today. But yesterday? She ate terefah and slept with men, and ate on Yom Kippur, and dressed like a prutza, just like the rest of her family, whoever they are. And who will swear that she won’t get tired of all the laws and restrictions and backslide, return to her old ways? Would you let your son marry her?”
Basha was silent, her face troubled. “We are all baale teshuva, Fruma Esther. Every one of us backslides. Can anyone swear to you that someone born into an important, frum family with lots of yichus won’t go off the derech? Do I have to mention names? There is not a frum family in Boro Park that has not suffered. And they did everything they thought was right from the moment the child was born. Do you know how many young people in Boro Park died from drug overdoses this year alone?”
“What are you telling me?”
“Sixty-one. I know because Reb Aryeh is involved in setting up a counseling center. Leah Howard ran away from all that. She came here because she decided on her own that this is a better derech. The life she wants.”
“You are involved in kiruv, Bashe. Your house is always filled with girls like Leah. You’re used to it. But our family is not. Our children are more sheltered. We don’t want to open the door to such things, to let the gashmius and the tumah into our lives.”
“It seems to me that the only thing that Leah Howard has brought into your lives is love and chesed,” Bashe said mildly, standing up. “Did you forget how sick your Chasya was? How Leah dropped everything and ran down to the hospital to be with her? Is she better now?”
Fruma Esther fidgeted. “Baruch HaShem,” she admitted, squirming.
Basha sat down. She extended her hand to her old friend, cupping her gnarled fingers. “It’s not the life you planned.”
Fruma Esther shook her head.
“But it’s the life HaShem has given you.”
“I was going to ask you to talk to Leah.”
Basha took back her hand. “About what?”
“Tell her it’s not good. Not for her, not for Yaakov, not for the children. Tell her not to come for Shabbos, even if he invites her. And certainly not for anything more than that.”
“Why are you so against her, Fruma Esther? You are a kind woman, a fair person, a great rebbitzen. This goes against our Torah. As it is written: Where a penitent stands, even angels cannot stand. Our patriarch, Avraham, came from a family of idol worshippers. And Yaakov married the daughters of Laban, an evil man, a schemer and an idol worshipper. Did our forefather Yaakov hold that against our matriarchs Leah and Rachel? You can’t help what your family is, but you can overcome it. Leah and Rachel were our matriarchs, the origin of the Jewish people. And all of us are descendants of slaves. How can any of us look down our noses at any Jew, any convert?”
“It’s because of Shaindele,” Fruma Esther blurted out. “Her shidduch chances.”
“Shaindele is old enough for a shidduch? Already?”
“She’s sixteen soon.”
“Oy, I still think of her as a little girl tagging after Zissele with her doll carriage.” Tears sprang to her eyes.
Fruma Esther’s eyes also misted. “She fainted in school yesterday. She is terrified the family name will be ruined and her shidduch choices along with it. Her mother isn’t here to protect her, and her father is so burdened. I have to do right by her.”
Nothing else needed to be said. Despite everything Rebbitzen Basha believed, the laws of the shidduch were inexorable. If Yaakov Lehman dropped out of kollel and married a baalas teshuva from an unknown family, there was no question it would seriously impact the kind of shidduch his daughter Shaindele could expect. It would be held against her. This would also be true of her older brothers, who would be looking for shidduchim soon, but less so; men were always more valuable than women. The two grandmothers looked at each other. Who were they to fight the world?
“I don’t know how, but I’ll talk to her,” Rebbitzen Basha said, feeling suddenly tired and very old.
“Baruch HaShem,” Fruma Esther murmured, clasping her hands.
“HaShem Yishmor,” Rebbitzen Basha replied, shaking her head, devastated.
Dear Leah,
We wish to invite you to join us for a Shabbos meal on this Friday night so that we may serve you for a change! Please say yes. Chasya is already jumping up and down with happiness at the thought.
Every blessing,
Yaakov
Leah held the invitation in her hand and read it again. How could he have known that it was just for this she’d been longing? Religious life was lived as a series of doorways all leading toward the grand salon that was Shabbos.
All during the week, people shopped, cooked, and cleaned with the ultimate goal of Shabbos always in mind; a day when the food would be the finest, the wine the sweetest, the conversation the most interesting. To be involved with a religious family during the week and denied the opportunity to enter with them into the joy of Shabbos was a true deprivation. While various people in the neighborhood had been kind enough to invite her, she was always the guest and a stranger, except when dining with Rebbitizin Basha. As a single person, it wasn’t socially acceptable for her to make her own Shabbos dinners and invite guests. It would be lovely to share Shabbos with the family she felt so close to already.
She remembered her very first Shabbos experience.
Two weeks after moving in with Dvorah, her new roommate knocked on her door. “How would you like to come to Friday night dinner with me and some friends? They’re lovely folks, and we always have a whale of a time.”
It had been very difficult being stuck in a house and a neighborhood where from Friday night until Saturday sundown—more o
r less twenty-five hours—you couldn’t drive, use public transportation, write, use electronics of any kind—including cell phones, computers, televisions, or radios—and even had to avoid opening a refrigerator if the automatic light hadn’t been turned off! While she’d managed to sneak out to the subway early Saturday mornings, spending the day far from all these restrictions, she felt unsafe doing that on Friday nights. Stuck in the house with nothing to do but read, it was extremely boring.
So, despite her bitterness about being forced to participate in yet another religious ritual, she answered, “Why not?”
Dvorah smiled. “A few things. You’ll feel more comfortable if you wear a dress or a skirt and blouse, something with sleeves that isn’t too mini or too body-con.”
“There’s a dress code?”
She shrugged. “It’s a religious experience, and modesty makes it more spiritual for everyone. You want a man to look into your eyes, not at your cleavage, when he’s talking about God.”
She laughed. “Right. Gotcha.”
She sat in the living room watching Dvorah light candles. First Dvorah made a circular motion with her hands over the tiny, flickering flames, then pressing her eyelids closed with her fingertips, she just stood there swaying silently for what seemed like forever. When she finally recited the blessing with her lilting Irish-accented Hebrew, an inexplicable twinge of sadness filled Lola’s heart as she remembered the tall, silver candlesticks wrapped up in tissue paper languishing in her mother’s bedroom closet.
“Gut Shabbos,” Dvorah said, turning to her with a bright smile.
“Why were you standing there swaying like that for such a long time?”
“We believe that on Friday night, a special conduit opens up in heaven for women. During the time a woman lights candles, her prayers go straight up to heaven. So I go down the list: I pray that my father’s diabetes shouldn’t get any worse, and my mother’s sciatica shouldn’t act up. I pray that my brothers, Tim and Jimmy, shouldn’t get into any accidents when they drink too much, and that my niece doesn’t get bullied at school for being chubby. I pray that my boyfriend succeeds at his business, and that this week, I’ll succeed in inching a little closer to God. And I pray for you.”
She was startled. “Me?”
Dvorah nodded. “That you find some peace and happiness.”
She turned away, both touched and annoyed, wiping her suddenly damp eyes with the back of her hand.
It was a twenty-minute walk through streets crowded with Chassidim, old men and little boys and every age in between, their glossy black satin coats shimmering, their shirts a dazzling white, their beards large and bushy or short and clipped. “Gut Shabbos, gut Shabbos,” they greeted each other, nodding, smiling.
“Does everyone in this neighborhood know each other?” she asked Dvorah.
“No, silly. That’s just what you say when you see another Jew on Friday night.”
“But they don’t say it to us.”
“That’s because they aren’t supposed to be looking at women.”
“It makes me feel invisible.”
Dvorah shrugged. “And how do you feel as a woman when you walk down certain streets in Manhattan by yourself and strange men call out ‘greetings’ to you?”
Two points for Dvorah.
Their hosts lived in a brownstone on the third floor. “We can wait for the Shabbos elevator, or we can walk up.”
“Shabbos elevator?”
“It runs on a timer, automatically stopping on every floor, so you’re allowed to use it.”
“It’s okay. I’ll climb up with you.”
A tall woman wearing an elaborate headdress and a long, elegant housecoat greeted them. She hugged Dvorah and then extended a smooth, white hand to Lola. It was adorned with gold jewelry and expensive rings.
The woman noticed her staring. “One advantage of being married to a religious man. Every holiday, he is obligated to buy me a piece of jewelry. It adds up.”
“What a lovely idea!”
“Believe me, we have it coming to us!” She laughed, ushering them both in.
It was a large apartment with an enormous dining room table set for at least twenty.
“I see you are all set up. I came early especially to help you, Rebbitzen,” Dvorah chided.
“The advantage of having ten children, four of them teenage girls, is not having to do anything for Shabbos. Why don’t you and your friend sit down in the living room and relax?”
Two young, smiling girls peeked out of the kitchen. They were such pretty girls, with thick, long, shining braids and faces scrubbed pink. They wore mid-calf skirts and wrist-length blouses. A few moments later, a third girl came in carrying a baby.
“This is our youngest addition, Zevulun Aaron,” their hostess said.
He was like one of those cherubs floating on the ceilings of Venetian palaces, she thought, amazed. The girl who carried him tickled him and he laughed.
“Should I lay him down, Mameh?”
“Better not. I don’t want he should fall asleep before kiddush.” She turned to them, apologizing. “It will be a while yet until the men come home from shul. The service is long, and then they schmooze. I would offer you something, but we don’t eat before kiddush.”
“That’s fine! Please, it’s so good of you to invite me!” Lola said sincerely.
“How long have you been a convert?” the rebbitzen asked.
Dvorah leaned forward on the couch. “Actually, Lola is Jewish by birth. She’s my roommate.”
“Ah. I see. So this isn’t your first Shabbos?”
She hesitated. “Actually, my boyfriend and I were very interested in Judaism. We went to classes and even a few Shabbos dinners organized by Jewish campus organizations.”
“Which college?” she asked.
“Santa Clara.”
“We say S Clara and Simcha Monica.” She smiled. Before she could digest the strangeness of that, their hostess quickly continued. “And are you both—you and your boyfriend—still interested in Orthodoxy?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “Not really.”
“May I ask why?”
She looked down, feeling a twinge of resentment. This was starting to feel like an inquisition. In revenge, she decided on total honesty. “I’m just not sure I believe in God at all anymore.”
There was a hushed silence. “But you did, once?”
“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. When I was a little kid. I hope you’re not offended.”
“Not at all, personally. I just feel sad. To have no connection with your Creator. How lonely.” The rebbitzen shook her head. “I hope you won’t mind my asking, but what happened?”
“My boyfriend—my fiancé—died in a completely stupid hiking accident a few months before our wedding. That was last year.”
She heard a small, shocked intake of breath from Dvorah, who was hearing this for the first time.
“How very, very terrible for you!” the rebbitzen said. There were actual tears in her eyes. “You know, my parents are both survivors. My mother saw her mother and her baby sister led off to the gas chambers by Mengele. My grandmother was the most religious woman. The wife of an important rabbi. She kept every law, so strictly. And yet, that was her fate.”
“So, your mother … did she … believe?”
“She said everything she went through just brought her closer to God and that everything God does is a chesed.”
Lola leaned back, her body going limp. “I don’t understand how she could still believe that after everything she’d seen.”
“My mother always said that God cannot prevent people from exercising their free will, even if that allows them to create gas chambers and concentration camps.…”
Or to slip down off mountains, Lola thought.
“She told me that believing in God doesn’t mean you will never have anything bad happen to you. It just means He will be there by your side to help you get up and keep going when you live through terrible t
imes. He was there with my mother. She was only eleven, and yet Mengele thought she was older and let her live. God saw to it that a woman from my mother’s hometown, a woman who had lost her own daughter, was there in the same barracks. This woman took care of my mother like she was her own. This woman—her name was Magda—told my mother that God would be with them and that my mother would be part of the future and through her, this woman would also have a future.”
“Did the woman also survive?”
The rebbitzen shook her head. “But my mother did; she had seven children, forty-three grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren. And still counting! Not a day goes by that my mother doesn’t bless the woman who took care of her in the camps and bless God for all His kindness and miracles in giving her this family.”
It took her breath away. How was that possible? How was it possible to still believe after bearing witness to such tragedies; to feel gratitude instead of hatred, love instead of bitterness? She looked around at this house with its walls full of imposing family photographs of smiling people. She looked at the table set so beautifully for a festive family meal, at all the empty seats that would soon be filled. She listened to the baby giggling in the bedroom and the sounds of running water in the kitchen interspersed with girlish laughter. Death, destruction … it was history. It was the past. Out of its cold ashes, new life had sprung, these lovely, smiling faces of people filled with gratitude for what remained—gratitude for life.
Footsteps were heard in the doorway, and soon a group of men and boys trooped in.
“Guten Shabbos, Rebbitzen Magda,” a smiling, bearded man said.
She looked at the rebbitzen, startled.
The woman looked back at her, smiling. “There are fifteen Magdas in our family. There will be more. The future.”
The boys took their places around the table, and then the girls. A baby seat was rolled in, and an alert and smiling baby placed carefully inside. The rabbi went around the table, laying his hands gently on the heads of his sons and daughters, whispering a Hebrew prayer.