Dei'ah veDibur - Information & Insight
  

A Window into the Chareidi World

16 Iyar 5765 - May 25, 2005 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
NEWS

OPINION
& COMMENT

OBSERVATIONS

HOME
& FAMILY

IN-DEPTH
FEATURES

VAAD HORABBONIM HAOLAMI LEINYONEI GIYUR

TOPICS IN THE NEWS

POPULAR EDITORIALS

HOMEPAGE

 

Produced and housed by
Shema Yisrael Torah Network
Shema Yisrael Torah Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home and Family

Not Alone
by Eli Or

He lay on his bed, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, sleep eluding him. Tomorrow was the night of his wedding. From tomorrow, he would no longer be alone in the world, one without family. Who could believe that the dream would become reality?

From tomorrow, the sign on his door would read: Applebaum Family.

From tomorrow, he would belong somewhere again. Finally, he would have his own four walls, his own four cubits.

Years ago, when Chezki was a young child of four, his father had left for work one morning. Before leaving, he had lifted him up high in the air, as he always did, kissed him on both pink cheeks — and never returned.

When he grew up, they told him that his father had suffered a heart attack. An ambulance was summoned to his place of work, they said sadly, but he was already gone.

Since then, nothing had been the same. Abba's absence was felt everywhere, even when Ima tried, albeit successfully, to fill Abba's shoes. Yes, there was a void that pervaded the house and also the heart.

And Ima, a smile always on her lips and a joke unsheathed at every moment of sadness or depression, Ima who ran the house and put in double duty — Ima fell ill when he was eleven and then, slowly, flickered out, like a candle. When he was 13, a few months before his bar mitzvah, she died. By then, he was old enough to understand, even attend the funeral and say Kaddish in a clear voice while everyone around him cried bitterly. He, Chezki, did not cry because, aside from a large empty void, he didn't feel anything.

And that's it. Since then, he hasn't had either a home nor a corner to call his own; he belongs to no one and no place. He was for a time at the home of an uncle, then the home of a friend. It was one long period of emptiness. The people with whom he stayed had good intentions but their lifestyles were earthy and revolved around two spheres: work and entertainment and nothing else, and he moved between them, like a planet disengaged from its orbit.

When he was 20, the most wonderful thing of his life happened to him. He was introduced to the holy Torah, a journey that began with a chance meeting with a friend's cousin at a birthday party, a young man wreathed in a beard and payos. The unusual appearance of the man piqued his curiosity and intrigued him and thus he discovered eternal life.

And then, for the first time in many years, he had something that truly belonged to him; The Torah that he learned, the Torah that he acquired through diligence, small steps taken one after another, with tremendous efforts, this Torah became his and only his. A personal acquisition, dearer than gold.

But another difficulty crept like a worm into his heart in the hours of loneliness and pain and this problem had no solution: Where does he belong? To whom? Who would miss him if he went away? Who would mourn for him if, G-d forbid...? Both his mother and father gone from the world and no home.

But his mother had bequeathed to him an inheritance that never left him; a smile and inner happiness and above all, the trust and faith that he acquired in the years of his learning helped him to smooth the bumps and continue on his path, brimming with joy and spreading happiness wherever he went.

His friends, who always surrounded him, sought his advice and imbibed from the happiness that prevailed around him. They knew of his sad family situation. He never invested energy into hiding it, but on a daily level, no one felt it. And sometimes, they also didn't believe it. "Really? That's really his situation?! You'd never know it. He's always so happy!"

On the day he told his friends that he became engaged, everyone genuinely shared his joy. But his bliss overwhelmed him to the point he thought he couldn't contain it.

*

Tomorrow, at long last, the big day would arrive and he'd be about to build his home. Alone, without the support of parents, without a shoulder to lean on and cry the tears of joy that were flowing from his eyes, without an ear or a heart to share his feelings. For not only does one feel alone when one is lonely but also at moments when one is brimming with happiness. And then, especially, the loneliness is sevenfold stronger.

With whom, with whom to share his happiness, the wonderful feeling flooding him that "Finally, I will have a home?"

At the engagement, surrounded with his bride's family, so warm and wonderful, he felt, for the first time after years of repression, the intensity of the feeling: Where is my family?! He searched for them among the faces in the crowd that had gathered to rejoice with him, but in vain.

And today, today when he returned to the Yeshivah with his new suit in his arms that he had bought for his wedding day, his heart couldn't contain the great joy that filled him and he so much wanted to share it with someone. With whom? And then Shloime passed him in the hallway.

"Come here," he called to him. "Come see my suit for the wedding!" and he hung the suit up from the cupboard door, unzipped the case and a completely ordinary black wedding suit appeared.

"So?" Shloime said. "All suits look alike."

But this one's different, Chezki wanted to shout, There isn't another suit like it in the whole world! It's the suit I'm going to wear when for the first time in so many years, I'll have a home!

But he said nothing. He knew: Shloime has a father and a mother; Shloime has had a home since the day he was born. He can't understand the feelings of homeless people like himself.

And so, with stubborn tears erupting from his eyes, in the hour that is neither night nor day, he closed his eyes. And he saw his mother standing before him, the mother from the good old days when she was happy, filled with energy and health.

"My Chezki," she said in her sweet voice. "Chezki who has revitalized my existence here with the dew of the Torah that you have been studying. Chezki," her lips whispered his name. "Don't worry. Tomorrow you won't be alone. Abba and I will come to accompany you. Hold out your hands and we will hold them and then, together, we will walk to the chuppa. We and the Holy Shechina. Tomorrow, you are going to lay the cornerstone for your beis mikdosh me'at which is a stone from the Beis Hamikdosh. Did you think for a moment we wouldn't come? That we wouldn't be there together with you on your big day?"

It was early evening. The sky shone with a canopy of stars when Chezki left the hall and walked towards the chuppa in the courtyard. He extended his hands forward and felt, besides the ushers, the bride's father and his Rov from the Yeshivah at his side, two invisible hands holding him and enveloping his heart with warmth.

Yes, of course he was not alone. Abba and Ima were there, at his side. They were accompanying him, walking with him, step by step, as he built his own home.

 

All material on this site is copyrighted and its use is restricted.
Click here for conditions of use.