by Naomi Ragen
The idea of losing her eyesight terrified her more than anything. As Rashi wrote concerning Isaac, of whom it is written “his eyes were dim”: Blind and housebound either caused the evil inclination to be removed, or those two qualities along with the removal of the evil inclination created the status of a dead person.
If she could not read the holy books and the sweet words of chazal; if she could no longer make out the words in the prayer books—not the everyday prayers that she knew by heart but the special piyyutim in the holiday liturgy with their complicated poetry and anagrams, verses no one could learn by heart; if she could no longer help her children and grandchildren, give alms to the poor, cheer up her friends in the old-age home; if she were instead to become a burden, dependent on others for care, she would absolutely prefer to be dead and buried with dirt thrown over her.
She had not come to that. She still had one good eye that allowed her to read her holy books—the Torah portion and the haftorah, Duties of the Heart, and Mesilat Yesharim, except that now it took longer. But several months ago, to her shock and horror, her good eye had been diagnosed with a similar condition. She knew if her good eye ceased to function, she would be left stumbling and bookless in a blurry world that no eyeglass prescription could fix.
She tried to think why HaShem, blessed be His Name, had brought this terrible trouble down upon her. For she had no doubt, God was just and His punishments were meted out measure for measure. What sins had she committed with her eyes?
Never in her life had she gone to a movie theater. Nor had she ever owned a television set. And she was not in the habit of reading anything that was not published by Feldheim, Artscroll, or Targum, all 100 percent glatt kosher publishing houses that would never have dreamed of putting into print anything that did not have strict rabbinical approval, usually from more than one rabbi, if not a dozen, who wrote laudatory letters of recommendation that filled up page after page before the first chapter even began! But there must be something she was missing, some act involving a sin that involved her eyes. Otherwise, she could find no explanation for why she was now discussing the dreaded operation that required her to have her eyeball sliced open and shaved, and her natural lens replaced with plastic.
When her turn came, she sat behind the machines as they looked into her retina, watching the bleeping and flashing bright lights as they photographed the inside of her poor eyes. Please God, she prayed. Please!
Her cell phone—one of several Yaakov had determinedly acquired and distributed among the family soon after Chasya got out of the hospital, insisting it was vital they be able to contact one another at all times—rang and rang, but she did not answer.
* * *
Yaakov hung up the phone, frustrated. He was like a man with a parched throat desperate for a drink of water. It must be arranged, quickly, before Leah changed her mind! Or, he reluctantly admitted to himself, he changed his. For this was, he knew, a hazardous undertaking fraught with risks. His entire world would be up in arms against the idea.
He was disappointed that Fruma Esther had not answered his call, even though, of all people, she was sure to be the strongest opponent of his relationship with Leah. Had she not already made that clear? Yet in the past, she had also been his firmest ally and most outspoken advocate of remarrying. In his heart, he hoped her love for her grandchildren and her sincere desire to be of help to her daughter’s family would outweigh any ugly prejudice.
He considered calling the shadchan who had arranged his prior shidduch dates directly, but put down the phone. All he needed was a lecture on why not accepting the divorcée from Monsey or the windfall insurance heiress from Brooklyn with her designer couches was a sin bordering on the criminal! Still, was not matchmaking a business after all? Wasn’t the woman trying to earn a living? What could be easier than selling a product that was presold to its only customer?
Encouraged, he dialed.
“Shalom aleichem, who is this?”
“Rebbitzen Kimmeldorfer, this is Yaakov Lehman.”
He heard a deep intake of breath, then silence.
“Shalom?” he repeated.
“And shalom to you, Rav Lehman.”
There was no mistaking the tone. It was hostile. He cleared his throat.
“How are you?”
“How should I be?”
“I’m calling to ask you a question.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m interested in a shidduch.”
“This is news to me, Rav Lehman.”
“Well, yes, I know it must have been difficult for you, and I ask mechilah.”
“Difficult for me? For me! Am I looking for a husband for myself? Am I waiting by the phone to hear? Am I a poor, husbandless divorcée or widow with an excellent reputation and with financial means to have anyone I want and still—”
“I apologize. But surely I told them right away that I wasn’t interested. At least that is what I told my mother-in-law. She must have called you.”
“Must have? I don’t think so. What I heard from your dear mother-in-law was that you liked them both, but you were having a hard time making up your mind after that youngster rejected you. What was her name again?”
“Rachel,” he whispered, swallowing hard. What was he going to say, that he had told his mother-in-law months ago that he had absolutely no interest at all in either one of those women, and there was zero chance of his changing his mind? Obviously, this information had not filtered down to Suri Kimmeldorfer.
“Then I ask mechilah again,” he offered mildly. “You are completely justified—as are the saintly women you set me up with—to feel pained and insulted. I take full responsibility.”
There was a beat while the woman recalibrated. “So, you have a better answer for me now?”
“I’m afraid not. But I have another proposition.”
“I’m listening.”
“I have met a woman through my family and have broached the subject of a shidduch, but she wants to do it through a respectable shadchan. And so, of course, I thought only of you.”
“I see.” There was a pause. He could just envision the little wheels turning in her head. “What’s her name?”
“Leah Howard.”
“Howard? What kind of name is Howard?”
“A Jewish name.”
“Is her family from Brooklyn?”
He realized that he had no idea where Leah Howard’s family was from. He had never asked her, and he didn’t care. “From Manhattan,” he guessed. He might as well have said Goa, India, for all the familiarity Suri Kimmeldorfer had with Jews from that far-off borough, which was forty-five minutes removed by car ride and an hour and a quarter by subway if you got lucky with the F train. Women from Manhattan were like women from Far Rockaway: geographically undesirable.
“You say you know this woman?”
“Yes,” he admitted, and closed his lips.
“I’ll have to look into it.”
This he hadn’t expected. “What do you mean ‘look into it’? I have told you, this is what I want.”
“I have a reputation to maintain, Rav Lehman.” She sniffed.
Yaakov felt the beads of sweat in his armpits and across his forehead sprout like dandelions under the relentless rays of a harsh sun. He was totally confused. Why would she consider it praiseworthy to keep pressuring him to accept incompatible women with whom he had nothing in common yet consider helping to facilitate his marriage to the woman he loved a frontal attack on her respectability and thus livelihood? But he had never been involved in the delicate machinations of the male-female relationship before marriage that were best left to experts. Even his first wife had come to him after his mother had made all the arrangements. It was all a great mystery. Still, the urgency he felt would not allow him to back down.
“I ask your mechilah once again, Rebbitzen. I am sure you are doing God’s holy work. But I tell you this: I feel sure this is God’s will. Can you not help to fulfill this mitzvah? I
f not, I will take no more of your time.”
The alarming finality in the tone of his voice did not go unnoticed. She had been in this business a long time and knew unerringly when she was about to lose a customer, perhaps forever. And what a customer! The Lehmans were aristocracy. One word from Fruma Esther, and her business would lose at least half its clientele.
“Well, if this is what Rebbitzen Fruma Esther believes would be best,” she conciliated.
“There is no need to involve my mother-in-law.”
Now the woman’s ears pricked up like a hunting dog who hears the tread of paws in the deep hedgerows of the countryside, invisible but clearly present. “In fact, now that we’re talking, Reb Lehman, I’ll tell you very frankly, I’m surprised to hear your voice on the other end of the phone instead of hers. Why didn’t she call me about Leah Howard?”
What could he say?
“My dear mother-in-law is a tzadakis and has done so much to help me. But as you know, she has many children and grandchildren. It is hard for her to be involved in everyone’s life all at once. I am trying to ease her burden.”
“Very praiseworthy, Reb Lehman,” said Rebbitzen Kimmeldorfer, who wasn’t thrown off the scent for a millisecond. “But since she and I have been in touch about your shidduch for such a long time, believe me, I think she would want to be involved. Chas ve’shalom, I wouldn’t want her to feel insulted or left out.”
“Chas ve’shalom,” he repeated helplessly.
“So why don’t I try to call her and talk to her?”
He gave up. “That would be very kind of you, Rebbitzen.”
“HaShem Yisborach should bless you and your family, Reb Lehman. You should know no more sorrow.”
“Yes, well, thank you and shalom.”
“Shalom.”
Even if the slight, nearly nonexistent, possibility existed that Suri Kimmeldorfer would call Leah to arrange a shidduch after she spoke to Fruma Esther, still he couldn’t wait. Besides, it was much more likely that such a conversation would result in an outraged Fruma Esther on the doorstep of his yeshiva, where she would drag him in to see Reb Alter, who might—or might not—join in the battle against his heart’s desire.
Even in the best case, where everyone behaved like angels from heaven on their day off from guarding the Holy Throne of Glory, when all was said and done, he didn’t want Leah to spend another twenty-four hours in doubt, worst-case scenarios leaping through her mind with a hundred demeaning suggestions. He didn’t want her to think for a moment he was having second thoughts.
He needed someone to help him, someone he trusted implicitly, to whom he could open his heart and bare his incredible need and his terrible dilemma; someone who was sincerely righteous and who would not judge, but unhesitatingly and selflessly do immediately what he needed done. He needed a true friend who was also a tzaddik.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
26
He had known Yaakov Lehman as a young bridegroom, filled with excitement and longing. He had known him as a young widower, almost broken by sorrow. But never had Meir Halpern heard the desperation bordering on despair in the voice of his chavrusa that he heard now.
“Of course I will help you, Yaakov! It is wonderful that you have finally found your beshert. But I don’t understand what you want me to do.”
Slowly, patiently, in the almost singsong tone he used to expound and extrapolate the intricacies of difficult Talmudical passages, Yaakov explained to his chavrusa what he wanted him to do.
“You want me to be your shadchan?” Meir said, summing up the strange request with shocking simplicity.
“Yes,” Yaakov answered. “I want you to be my shadchan. I want you to call Leah Howard and tell her what a wonderful man I am and plead with her to go out with me. And then I want you to tell everyone the shidduch was your idea.”
Meir didn’t know what to say. A serious, dedicated Talmud scholar from a large and distinguished family, as long as he could remember, his path in life had always been marked out for him, a path he walked easily and comfortably.
“But, Yaakov, what do I know about matchmaking?”
“My friend, the match is already made. As it is written: Forty days before conception a heavenly voice rings out: this man for this woman.”
There was a mutual silence as both men thought of the woman whose tragic loss had made it necessary for a second heavenly voice to ring out.
“I am happy for you, Yaakov, and of course I will help you. I just don’t understand why you need me. You are both adults. You know each other. Why can’t you simply—”
“Thank you, Meir. She, Leah, has asked me to do this in the most respectable way, through a shadchan, so that no tongues will wag. She is worried about loshon hara.”
“But why should anyone speak loshon hara? You are both God-fearing Jews, both pious and observant, both unmarried and unrelated. She doesn’t have your mother’s name. You are not from the priestly class, and she is not a divorcée. I cannot see any biblical or halachic impediment…” His voice trailed off in utter confusion.
“It’s not a question of halacha, Meir. You know how people are. The gossip. She wants to be certain that from the beginning no one will have what to say because we did everything in the most pious and acceptable way according to our traditions and customs.”
“Most admirable,” his friend said approvingly. “Have you tried a regular shadchan? They would be happy of the income.”
“I have tried, but the woman wants to ‘investigate’ first.”
“What? Why?”
“Because Leah is a baalas teshuva.”
“But this is against the Torah! Against the halacha!” Meir exclaimed. “As it is written: You shall not oppress the stranger.”
“As it is written, Meir, but not as it is practiced,” he said patiently. “If I wait to find a shadchan who won’t ‘investigate,’ who won’t be talked out of it by my mother-in-law—”
“Rebbitzen Sonnenbaum? She’s against this?” he asked, the first doubts creeping into his voice.
“I don’t know; I haven’t asked her,” Yaakov said hurriedly, his patience waning. “But I know this: she wants to marry me off to a rich widow from a prominent family or a well-to-do divorcée with yichus because that’s what she sincerely believes would be best for the family. But it wouldn’t. Not for me.”
“But if you spoke to her … explained … surely—”
“Meir—” He cut him short. “There is no time! I can’t keep Leah waiting. She’ll think she is somehow not good enough and that perhaps I have changed my mind. She has had so many ugly experiences with prejudice in our community. I just don’t want her to feel oppressed again. And so, Meir, I am asking you to call her now.”
“It’s forbidden to hurt or oppress newcomers! It’s an issur d’oreitah, a direct command from God Himself in His own words!” Meir said as if still in the study house discussing a theoretical, philosophical problem, his voice gaining certainty.
“Meir, please!” Yaakov cut him short.
“Look, Yaakov, I would do it gladly, but what do I know from matchmaking?”
Yaakov felt sad for Meir, sympathizing with his friend’s sincere distress. Were the situation reversed, he would have felt exactly the same. “Meir, do you remember the conversations with the shadchan you had before you married Bruriah?”
Meir tried. It was so long ago. “I think so. A little. Maybe.”
“So, this is all you have to do. Please, Meir. Help me.”
* * *
Meir Halpern came home early from the study house. Removing three toy trucks and a teddy bear from the weathered living room couch, he sat down heavily. Wiping his sweaty, nervous hands across his dark pants, he lifted the heavy black hat off his head and placed it beside him.
“Tateh!” his four-year-old son cried out, running to him, then laying his curly head down on his father’s knees. Meir caressed the child’s curls, then lifted him up and kissed him. “Bruriah!”
he called over his shoulder.
His young wife hurried in from the kitchen holding a baby in her arms. Their two-year-old daughter tugged at her skirt.
“You’re home.” She looked at him curiously. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just … I have an important phone call to make. Could you please take the children into the other room for five minutes?”
“Important?” she asked, arching her brows in surprise as she gently took the four-year-old’s hand and gathered him to her side.
“It’s a double—no, a triple mitzvah,” he said, nodding. He saw her smile, and his heart expanded, imagining for a terrible second what it must have been like for Yaakov to lose his Zissele. He waited, watching her shepherd his children into the kitchen. Putting his misgivings behind him, he picked up the phone.
“Shalom aleichem. Is this Leah Howard? My name is Meir Halpern. Who am I? I’m…”
Could he call himself a shadchan? Or would that be a lie? But since in this instance, he was acting in the capacity of one, perhaps it wasn’t a lie? But if he didn’t call himself a shadchan, perhaps it would not satisfy her need for respectability and community approval? So, an untruth in the service of a mitzvah was acceptable, especially if it avoided embarrassment for someone. To embarrass a person was like murdering them, as it is written.…
“Hello? Are you still there?” she said, confused by the long silence.
He cleared his throat. “I am a shadchan,” Meir Halpern finally declared. “I have heard many wonderful things about you, Leah. About your piety and your chesed. About your devotion to study and keeping mitzvoth. I want to propose a match to you. A fine, pious Talmud scholar who tragically lost his wife. He has five children, two still small. He has just turned forty-one. Would you be willing to meet him?”
He smiled, listening to her response. “Very good. So I will tell him to call you to make arrangements?” He listened, nodding, then gently set the receiver back into its cradle. He exhaled slowly. “Bruriah, you can let the children back in now. I’m done.”