Synopsis: Hadassah has upstair-neighbor problems.
Sometimes it is dirty water dripping on her clean windows or
things falling on her porch. She tries to judge favorably but
finds it very difficult. Finally . . .
One lovely summer night, dotted with many shining stars, and
a heart full of goodwill, Hadassah returned from a lecture.
The lecturer spoke of "as water to water so the heart of one
person to another," and Hadassah felt the words making
inroads in her heart. It was a moment of elucidation. To
recognize that one can implement this not only on children
and close family but also on an annoying, upstairs neighbor.
And she implemented it. It took great internal strength and
tremendous restraint but Hadassah was determined.
Friday night was the night she decided on. Hadassah baked her
pear cake, "the one no one could resist," as her husband
always said, put on a festive robe and went up the 22 steps
which seemed to her like Mount Everest. She knocked gently.
No one answered. They just kept asking, "Who is it?"
"Our mother is resting now," said the daughter, who finally
opened the door and looked at her innocently.
"Oh," Hadassah said and she felt wrong-footed.
"So just tell her that I came by to say Gut Shabbos
and I brought her this." The tray exchanged hands and
Hadassah went back downstairs.
"How was it?" her husband asked after the peace offering,
aware of his wife's high hopes and soul-searching.
"It wasn't," she answered, passing him the fish.
"Yes, she had gone to rest, or at least that's what I was
told." The disappointment was palpable and hung in the air
like the aroma of the soup.
"You'll see, she'll come downstairs and say thank you. Your
effort was not in vain," he tried to be optimistic. The
optimism gave way to fact. No one knocked on the door; no one
said thank you or excuse me or please. Nothing. Two days
passed before Mrs. Levin, who was passing in the hallway,
acknowledged the cake.
"Thank you very much for the cake," she said and didn't even
look her way. "You didn't have to, really."
Really I didn't, Hadassah agreed silently. It's
impossible to continue this way, she thought. One day,
we'll come to some fairy tale ending. We'll discover
something that will shed new light on the Levins. Our son
will marry their daughter. (It doesn't matter that he's
currently three and a half.) We'll discover that they're one
of the 36 Tzaddikim or that she pays half my bill at the
grocery store and that everything, including the jumping and
the yelling, are all a facade. We'll understand how
pitiable they really are and that one can't begin to judge
them at all. That's how it always is in books, no?
No.
Life, what can you do, isn't beautiful like in the storybooks
or more correctly, you can't always change it by a wave of
your quill and call it "All's Well that Ends Well." So what
now?
In the mailbox, there was a hard designer envelope waiting.
She picked it up indifferently trying to think who was about
to have a wedding or Bar Mitzvah. She was mistaken. It was an
invitation but sans bride and sans groom. It
was a conference reunion of the graduates of Meorot Chaim
complete with program. A few soft chords sounded in her heart
as she wrote on the calendar: "Graduates Conference —
Meorot Chaim". The nostalgic melody continued to play the
entire day as if it had been taken from her personal photo
album and imbued with a life of its own.
*
It seemed only yesterday that she landed for the first time
at the airport. She could see herself trying to deal with
three heavy suitcases the size of refrigerators. Loud shouts
in English and the first excited smiles in Eretz Yisrael. She
remembers how they stopped a large yellow taxi, explaining
that they needed to get to the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem
and began the trip that was meant to be one month and
continued for an entire year.
The trip was the initiative of the youth leader in the Jewish
school which she attended. It was a Jewish school but
religion was mainly tradition. Established, wealthy,
religious American families, with open hearts for any holy
cause but not always aware of the fine details of Jewish law.
Hadassah, who was known then as Hudi, was like the rest: Long
earrings, unkempt hair and chewing gum.
The trip to Israel was fraught with preparation. She had
never been away from home so long and it didn't even occur to
her, in her wildest dreams, that she would want to extend her
stay. Then it happened. One lecture brought her to spiritual
heights she had never known and which made her understand
that there is another layer to Judaism that she wasn't aware
of.
"Where can I hear other lectures?" she went up to the
lecturer at the end of the class. From there, the path was
quick to Meorot Chaim, a seminary for English-speaking girls.
It took one or two days among the special staff and wonderful
girls to change her, to make her more insightful, more
introspective and made her realize she couldn't go home when
a few thousand kilometers away there was a priceless
treasure.
She returned home in any case, as planned, developed her
film, unpacked her suitcases and planned her next flight to
learn for a year. It had been a great year, a year of
spiritual ascent, a year that led her light years away from
the place she had been before and onto the path to
establishing a Torah home.
Her mother didn't understand all this. "Hudi," she would say
again and again, "I don't understand what you get out of
this. You won't have any degree or profession or anything.
What about college?" Her mother could understand a year of
touring like her brother had done or seven years at
university like she had done. But one year of intensive
learning with no degree and hardly any trips was beyond her.
What did an eighteen-year-old girl have to do there?
"Mommy," Hadassah tried to calm her mother in their trans-
Atlantic conversations, "it's for me, to help me grow, to
mold my personality and point me in my life's direction."
Mommy still didn't get it but Hadassah was very
convincing.
*
She was very excited about the upcoming conference. Many of
the foundations of her life had been laid there. She had
gained much more than an academic degree or photographs from
the world. It was inside her.
Hadassah went out onto the balcony embraced by a soft
nostalgia. A cool breeze wafted from places unknown and
Hadassah enjoyed every breath. Until she came across three
sticky popsicle sticks on the chair she was about to sit
on.
"Levin." The thought drove away all the pleasant memories
that had filled her but a moment ago. An uncontrollable rage
added fuel to the constant fire within her. "It's
insufferable, that kind of chutzpah. Why do I need such
neighbors?" she thought to herself in despair as she wiped
the stains off with a wet cloth. "What do we get from them
other than endless anger and heartache?"
The breeze turned into a wind and the invitation in her hand
trembled slightly.
"Why?" your mother had asked dozens of years ago.
"For me," you had told her. "To build my personality."
Really? Only in a nice comfortable seminary you can do
this? And a few sticky annoying popsicle sticks can't build
anything within you?
Sometimes, we're so engrossed in our own moments of anger
that we forget that we can turn them into a school without a
registration fee. We can make them into a building of
maturity and restraint, on a day-to-day basis, each time we
see the name Levin in front of our eyes and feel fire burning
away everything good. And in spite of it, we turn our faces
towards it and douse it with unlimited restraint. By breaking
our pride and repressing vengeance. Isn't that worth a plate
of sticky pasta, scorn and a bag of garbage that sits
constant sentry in the hallway?
If it all doesn't end well, can't we create our own happy
ending? "Those who are insulted and don't hurt back, who hear
their disgrace and don't respond — they are His beloved
ones, like the sun burning at its zenith . . . "
A sun that shines and brightens and enlightens. Without anger
or resentment, vengeance or hatred. A blessed sun.
Thank you Levin family for not moving.
MENTIONED IN PASSING
The above story was translated by one of our favorite
writers, Rosally Saltsman. She is the author of a recently
released novel, Soul Journey. It is currently
available at Gittler's in Bnei Brak, Moriah in the Old City
or by contacting her at her email address:
rosally_s@yahoo.com
This is not an endorsement, just a mention. I second Rabbi
Zev Leff's affirmation that it makes for very interesting
reading . . .
