by Naomi Ragen
“Why didn’t Tateh help her more? Why was he never home?”
“We insisted—your mameh most of all—that your tateh go back to the yeshiva, so that in the zchus of his learning, God would heal your mameh.”
“Then why didn’t you take her to a doctor?”
“Oy, did we take her to doctors! This one gave her the green pill, another one gave her the pink pill, but gornisht helfn. The sickness, it only got worse, until she couldn’t stand it. It made her do meshuga things, to think meshuga thoughts. We took her to a psychiatrist, a top man. But he wanted we should put her into a mental hospital. Your mother, she begged me not to do it. She was so afraid for the shame, afraid for the family’s good name. For your shidduchim, Shaindele. And I gave in to her. You understand what happened here? I was also afraid, more afraid of shame than of death. Your tateh, he fought with me. He said we should do like the doctor said. But I wouldn’t allow it. Your mameh begged me. ‘Let me try one more time. I can do it.’ And I believed her, because she was my daughter, and because I wanted to believe her. It was easier. But in the end, your poor mameh just couldn’t stand the suffering anymore. She gave up.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Shaindele, that morning when you were home with her, your mameh swallowed a whole bottle of aspirin. By the time she got to the hospital, it was too late. They tried to save her, but there was nothing anybody could do.”
The girl’s face froze in horror. “I knew she was in the bathroom too long! I should have broken down the door when she didn’t come out! But I … I was busy with Chasya. She was crying and wouldn’t stop. She is always so difficult. If it hadn’t been for her—”
Fruma Esther grabbed the girl firmly by the shoulders, shaking her. “Listen to me, Shaindele! It wasn’t your fault! It wasn’t your little sister’s. Even if you broke down the door, what would it matter? If not that time, it would have been another time. She wanted the pain to end. If anyone is to blame, it’s me.”
“But how could she do that to me, to us? How could she leave us? How could she leave me to take her place! It wasn’t fair! I wasn’t ready. How should I know how to take care of children and a house! I needed her … I need her, and she isn’t here, and she will never be here.” She sobbed.
Fruma Esther pressed her to her bosom. She was such a child, a little girl still. Why hadn’t anybody understood that? Because in their world, a sixteen-year-old girl was almost a kallah moide, a girl ready to be a wife, a mother. But Shaindele wasn’t. She was still a child. To that, too, she had been blind, to her granddaughter’s pain, her youth, her guilt, her neediness. All the while, she had been focused on what the neighbors would say, on her own responsibilities, on Yaakov, never giving a thought to what Shaindele, her granddaughter, had been going through.
“I know it’s been hard on you, Shaindele, but it’s your tateh who has suffered most of all. You have no idea, your poor tateh! Without your mameh’s salary, he had to take out loans from the gmachim to pay for rent and for food. Now the government helps him. But still, he owes so much money. He even thought about becoming a schnorrer! Did you know that? He took a bus to Lakewood. Got a certificate—”
Shaindele shook her head, shocked.
“But he couldn’t do it. Instead, he went back to school at night so he can get a good job and pay back all the money and give you a decent dowry when the time comes. It was the hardest thing in the world for him to leave the yeshiva. But he’s doing it out of love for his family—for you, Shaindele.”
The girl’s cheeks reddened with shame, understanding for the first time the full dimensions of what her father had been going through.
“They said things about Tateh, about him leaving the kollel.”
“Who said? What things?”
“The girls in school. They made me feel ashamed of him for wanting to be a baal bayis instead of a talmid chochom. I was ashamed.”
“Such gossipers and defamers! And they call themselves God-fearing! They will become the kind of people that condemn a poor woman for being sick, the kind of people I was so afraid of I let your mother die.” She wept. “So lonely he’s been, you don’t know, my poor Yaakov. I tried to find him a shidduch, believe me. But the ones the shadchonim came up with, they were nothing like your mameh. Divorced women like bitter herbs; widows thinking only about gelt. They didn’t make him happy. He didn’t think they would love his children. The one shidduch he was interested in, an older single girl, rejected him because he was too old, too poor, with too many children.”
“That girl that came over, Rachel? She didn’t want him? Not the other way?”
She shook her head. “He was heartbroken, your poor tateh. Not every woman is willing to take on a widower with a big family and no money, Shaindele. But now, Baruch HaShem, he has found someone. For the first time since your mother got sick, I see some happiness in his eyes. No one can know what fills another person’s heart or why. But Leah fills your father’s heart. And he and you children fill hers. She loves Chasya and Mordechai Shalom, and would love you, too, if you just gave her a chance to know you, the real you. Just try. You know, you share many things. She, too, had a hard childhood and lost someone she loved. And I’ll tell you something else.” She hesitated. “Your father was willing for you to stay in Baltimore. To get married. He was angry. But Leah … Leah told him to forgive you. That you were just an unhappy child.”
“Really?” Something hard shifted in the young girl’s heart, softening. “Bubbee, what are you saying? That you think it’s all right now, this marriage? With such a person?”
“More than just all right. I think it’s a blessing. I think it’s God’s will. Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David, was a Moabite, an idol worshipper. But her heart was pure and she loved God and she wanted with all her heart to leave her own family and their ways and be part of Naomi’s. And look how HaShem blessed her and Naomi’s family! Leah will also bring us blessings.”
“But what about my shidduchim? What will people say?”
Fruma Esther sat up straight. “They will say they’d have great mazal to marry into the family of the Admor Yitzchak Chaim Sonnenbaum and Rav Eliezer Ungvar! The shadchanim are picky, but I am pickier. You will only marry the very finest boy. I give you my word.” She trembled with emotion as she said this. Who knew if it was true? But God is good. She depended on Him not to make her family suffer anymore.
The two women, old and young, sat side by side weeping softly, thinking of what could have been.
“Forgive me, Shaindele, for all my sins. For not saving your mameh.”
Shaindele grasped her grandmother’s wrinkled hand warmly in her own. “I remember how you sat with Mameh, day and night. You never went home. You worked so hard.”
“But the one thing I should have done, the only thing that would have saved your mameh, I didn’t do.”
They wiped their eyes.
Fruma Esther held her granddaughter’s hand. “Come, let’s talk to your mameh.”
Side by side they stood by the cold, gray headstone that even the spring sunshine could not warm, both thinking of the pretty, vital young woman who had once laughed and loved and given birth.
“Zissele, I came here with your daughter. See how beautiful she is! Such a good girl! Such nachas for you. I came to ask your mechilah. You should forgive me, my dear daughter, for not giving you the help you needed. I was confused and weak. I should have convinced you it was no shame to go into a hospital if you were sick. But I didn’t. I promise to do teshuva, to take care of the mishpocha, to fight until my last breath if anybody tries to harm them. Your family is well. Yaakov has finally found a kind woman who cherishes your children and cares for them as if they were her own. They will be a happy family, Zissele, the kind you always wanted them to be. And when the time comes, we will find, with God’s help, the finest shidduch for your beautiful daughter, someone worthy of her, and of you.”
Shaindele listened wordlessly, and when her grandmother h
ad finished, offered up her own silent prayer.
Dearest Mameh, I forgive you for leaving me. Rest in peace. I’m so sorry for everything you suffered and for not being able to help you, for not calling the ambulance faster. I didn’t know. I’m sorry for being so angry all the time—at you and Tateh, at the children. I felt lost. I wanted an easier life, like my friend’s. Forgive me for losing my temper, for being unkind to Chasya and Mordechai Shalom because I could see in their eyes they knew what a bad job I was doing taking care of them. Forgive me for hating Tateh’s bashert, Leah, and trying to get rid of her. She’s better at everything than I am, and the children love her. I was jealous. I’m so ashamed. I promise, bli neder, from now on, to help Tateh, to be happy for him and Leah. She is a stranger but a good person. And on the zchus of my teshuva, may God grant me a good shidduch. But not until I’m ready! Pray for me, Mameh! Watch over us. We will always love you.
As was customary, they placed small stones on the grave as a sign of respect. Then they poured water from a cup over their hands twice, ritually purifying themselves from the dust of the dead. Arm in arm, they turned toward the exit and the long ride home.
EPILOGUE
The vort of Yaakov Lehman, the widowed son-in-law of the late Admor Yitzchak Chaim Sonnenbaum, had all of Boro Park talking. People who had not been invited traded information about the number and prestige of the guests who had filled the catering hall to bursting. They spoke about the words of the Torah that the great rabbis who attended had spoken in honor of the Sonnenbaum family, and the praise they had heaped upon Yaakov himself as a distinguished scholar who had undergone great trials.
People who had actually been there, however, remembered different things, things they found difficult to put into words but kept close to their hearts: The way the eyes of the bride-to-be shone like little gleaming jewels out of her pale face. The way Rebbitzen Fruma Esther linked arms with her on one side, while her granddaughter Shaindele linked arms with her on the other. The shine on Yaakov’s face when he looked at Leah, like that of the high priest exiting the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, having successfully performed his duties and made atonement for the entire people of Israel. They remembered how Yaakov and Leah had held his youngest children in their arms, and how the children had hugged them and laughed.
There were other things, too, things many found remarkable and impossible to understand: the presence of a woman in a sleeveless red dress with uncovered, bleached-blond, spiky hair. The man in the Sikh turban who stood next to her. The tall, beautiful black girl with marvelous hair. The large, fierce-looking Israeli in a knitted skullcap who talked all night to a young, wig-wearing religious woman with an Irish accent who held a gorgeous blue-eyed baby in her arms. There was also a beautiful young woman some whispered was a rabbi’s daughter, a doctor, who had herself recently become engaged to a convert and a divorcé, also a doctor.
Most of all, those present would remember the moment that someone loaned the woman in the red dress a shawl to cover her hair and shoulders so that she could be honored with an invitation to share the ceremonial plate with Fruma Esther as it was smashed, like the cup under the wedding huppah, to symbolize that even during the most joyous celebrations, we must not forget our tragedies.
Whether or not the invited guests gossiped about these strange things later to others, ruining reputations and causing misery and unhappiness, is hard to know. It is just as easy to imagine that those who came to this special occasion, which included many great rabbis and scholars of the Talmud, were scrupulous in keeping the laws of the Torah and therefore said not a single word that might be construed as negative, preferring instead to simply express their gratitude that the unhappiness of a widower and his orphans, well-respected members of their community, had been transformed by the Holy One Blessed Be He into joy. And that they—as a community—had had the great privilege of embracing a pious young woman who had, like Ruth, at long last found her way to them, and to the God who had clearly directed the uneven steps of her long journey home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I suppose the genesis of this book would have to be Far Rockaway, New York, where, as a seven-year-old, I entered the Hebrew Institute of Long Island as a scholarship student and where for the next ten years I received a Jewish education that transformed my life. I thank Simon Cohen, the philanthropist whose funding made it possible to educate poor Jewish children who would otherwise have grown up in ignorance both of their heritage and the unique relationship between themselves and their God and people.
During the course of writing this book, I reached out to others who had experienced this same transformation. Some were kind enough to answer my questions about their own journey toward faith, with its spectacular scenery as well as its detours and obstacles. Thank you so much, Karen Furman, Judi Kirk, Kate Kramer, Eva Goldstein-Meola, Devorah Taitz, Lissa Goldman, Leone Hersh, Vickie Lecy, Lisa Bellin, Tara Carey, Shoshana Kent, Karen Cohen, Jessica Vaiselberg, and Aura Wolfe. Your words were inspiring.
I also found the following books extremely informative, and I thank their authors: Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism by Sarah Bunin Benor; Tradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism by Lynn Davidman; Rachel’s Daughters: Newly Orthodox Jewish Women by Debra Renee Kaufman; A Tale of Two Souls: My Hand of God Story by Ilana Danneman; Frumspeak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish by Chaim M. Weiser; and Behind the Smile: My Journey Out of Postpartum Depression by Marie Osmond. I thank the many other women whose riveting accounts of postpartum depression I read on the internet for helping me to understand and describe some of the consequences and symptoms of this disease.
A special thanks to author Mark Oppenheimer, whose excellent article “The Beggars of Lakewood,” published in The New York Times Magazine in October 2014, gave me a fascinating virtual visit to that community and its beggars and helped me to depict it more realistically in chapter 4.
Although I was not a stranger to Boro Park, having spent a year there as a student in the Sara Schenirer Hebrew Teachers Seminary in 1968, I must give a very warm and heartfelt thanks to family friend Charna Klein and her husband, Tom, who not only hosted me in their lovely Boro Park home during the writing of this book but gave me a tour and an insightful update into the community’s fascinating culture and customs. In addition, my deep appreciation to my son Akiva Ragen for his helpful description of yeshiva life and the relationship between chavrusa study partners, which I could not have figured out without him. A thank-you also to my son-in-law Oren Bratt for allowing me to include his personal story of finding an apartment in Manhattan (my daughter warned you that this would happen if you talked to me!). A special thanks also to my talented copy editor, Sara Ensey, for her careful eye and insightful comments.
Last but not least, my deepest thanks to my talented editor, Jennifer Weis, and my intrepid and encouraging agent, Mel Berger at WME, who have nurtured whatever gifts I have and continue to make it possible for me to share my ever-evolving understanding of the special world I entered fifty years ago and continue to inhabit.
GLOSSARY
baal bayis. (singular) baale batim or balabatim. (plural) pronounced baleh bawsim. Literally, “house owner,” but used in an often derogatory way to indicate status: bourgeois, prosperous merchant, or working class as opposed to scholar.
baal teshuva. Literally, “possessor of repentance.” Refers to one who leaves a secular lifestyle to become religiously observant. baalas teshuva. (feminine) baalos teshuva. (feminine plural) baale teshuva. (plural) Refers to penitents of both sexes. Teshuva. Penitence. To repent is to “do teshuva.”
Bais Hamigdash. Temple in Jerusalem.
balabusta. Laudatory term for an efficient, hardworking housewife.
baruch she’bara brios naos b-olamo. Blessed be He who created wonderful creatures in His world, a blessing made upon seeing any unique natural wonder.
bashert. One’s perfect match as ordained by God.
bitachon. Faith.
bli neder. A formula that accompanies a vow used to prevent a person from swearing in vain.
bracha. A blessing.
bracha levatala. A useless blessing that takes God’s name in vain, such as wishing for a certain gender of child when a woman is already pregnant.
bri’ah. God’s creation. The universe.
BT. Short for Baale Teshuva.
chas v’chalilah. God forbid. Also Chas v’shalom.
chavrusa. Talmudic study partner.
chazal. Acronym for the Hebrew “our sages, may their memory be blessed.”
cheder. Religious nursery school.
choson. Groom and/or son-in-law.
davening. Praying.
dafka. Specifically and emphatically.
dreykops. A scatterbrain who talks endlessly but says nothing.
eshes chayil. Woman of valor, a virtuous wife and mother, also name of Friday night hymn of praise traditionally sung by husbands to their wives.
ezer k’negdo. Man’s helpmate. Biblical description of Eve.
farmisht. Confused, befuddled, and dysfunctional.
fleishig. A person’s state during the six hours after eating meat, when no dairy may be consumed.
frei. Literally, “free.” A derogatory term of those not adhering to God’s laws.
frum. Devout or pious. Committed to the observance of Jewish religious law that often exceeds the bare requirements of halacha, the collective body of Jewish religious laws.
gashmius. A derogatory term meaning indulgence in earthly pleasures.
gmach. Free loan fund that distributes a wide variety of goods and services as a good deed. Gmachim. (plural).