Henny surveyed the two bedrooms with satisfaction. All her
belongings were in place. Now where should she put the empty
suitcases?
She pulled open the shutter to the indoor porch. The owner
had mentioned junk, but she hadn't expected junk with a
capital J!
The porch appeared to be large, yet there wasn't an inch of
empty space. Boxes and appliances and suitcases and, my
goodness -- filth! All over the porch. Filth on the windows,
the sills, the floor, on the dryer. She felt her anger
rising.
"Well, it's not my mess and I will not clean it!" she
declared with determination, seeing that the stuff would have
to remain there, anyway, not being hers to dispose of.
She closed the shutter. Out of sight, out of mind. She went
about giving the kitchen floor a final scrub. There, she was
all settled in her rented apartment.
Shavuos was four days away. She already had two Israeli
cheesecake recipes and goodie, her husband had already
bought the stuff she'd requested.
Henny set the ingredients on the marble counter. She measured
and mixed and beat, then reminded herself to turn on the
milchig oven. She mixed and tasted and beat some more
until she had four cheesecakes ready to slide in.
Henny felt the oven door with the tip of her finger. It was
cold. She waited five more minutes. Strange, it didn't seem
to be getting any hotter. She stuck her hand in. It was
cold.
She checked the plug and made sure that she had turned on the
right oven. Everything was fine but the oven was cold.
Something else the owner forgot to mention, I suppose. Now
what? Four cheesecakes ready for the oven but no oven!
She knocked on her neighbor's door with two cakes in her
hands. "Could I please use your milchig oven?" she
asked in her sweetest, friendliest voice.
Her elderly neighbor eyed her from the slippers up. Henny
cringed and blushed but stood firm. "Only this once," her
neighbor warned.
Henny nodded and felt the woman's eyes boring into her back
as she set the two cakes on the table and went to get the
other two.
That Shavuos, the cheesecakes were delicious. For the next
year, she'd have to find another solution. The year passed
quickly.
Despite Henny's many efforts, she wasn't able to land a job.
With all the extra time on her hands, she volunteered at an
at-risk girls school and she offered to bake for a charity
organization every Thursday. Henny was busy and content. She
didn't bake pizza or lasagna but she did cook and bake some
great parve and meat dishes that smelled as well as tasted
heavenly.
Shavuos was fast approaching again. Henny's list was very
long. She needed to bake a cheesecake for Zeidy and Bubby
Katz, a sugar-free cheeesecake for Saba Raba (her great-
grandfather), five cheesecakes with crusts for her Tzedoka
people, three cheesecakes with cherries for her `girls,' a
chocolate chip cheesecake for her nephew in yeshiva and a
deluxe cheesecake for Moshe, her husband.
Henny had the list. She even had the ingredients; however,
she didn't have an oven. She thought and thought... She
picked her husband's brain. Their options were limited. They
could have kashered the fleishig oven but in her husband's
family, they avoided doing that. They couldn't afford to fix
the broken oven and the owner refused to help them out. They
looked into buying a toaster oven, but that was too expensive
and would have been too small, anyway.
"Hold it!" her husband jumped up. "Aren't there a couple of
stoves sitting on the indoor porch?"
Henny nodded, turning up her nose. The day before, she had
actually entered the porch, moved aside the dirty boxes,
trudged through dirt and insects, and found what looked like
two old ovens. She had removed the cans of paint and old
books from on top and cleaned the space in front of them and
opened the door.
The first oven was just an empty shell, no floor. She laughed
and tried the second one. Dirty and grimy, smelling nasty, at
least it looked like an oven. Henny went to get a pail of
soapy water. She scrubbed and scratched and in no time, the
oven sparkled. She pushed it around and got the plug into an
outlet and held her breath as she turned the knob. Twenty
minutes later the oven was still cold.
*
"So you say it doesn't work?" her husband asked.
"Nope. Why do you suppose the owner didn't keep it in the
kitchen?"
"We have to try again. This time, though, let's both do some
davening before."
Henny eyed her husband. strangely. Did he expect a miracle?
But she did what she was told. She walked over to the open
window, looked up at the beautiful blue Jerusalem sky and
prayed:
Hashem, You know that I don't eat cheesecake. I want the
oven to work so that I can bake for others. What cheesecake
will my Tzedoka people eat? Who will give cheesecake to poor,
lost girls? And Zeidy and Bubby and Saba Raba -- wouldn't
they prefer my homemade cheesecake to a bakery one? And
Yaakov in yeshiva. He'll feel so lonely if no one cared
enough to send him a cheesecake for Shavuos. And Moshe,
too... Please Hashem. Do it for them.
Moshe had done his praying at the other end of the room. He
gave tzedoka and then, with heads bowed low, they
headed for the oven. Henny plugged it in and they waited
impatiently. Five, ten, twenty minutes. The oven remained
cold.
They let out their breaths.
"Didn't work," Henny said miserably. They tried again but got
the same result.
That night, Henny went to bed feeling very sorry for herself.
She tossed and turned but her eyes refused to close.
Just one more time, she promised herself.
Quietly, she got out of bed and turned the light on in the
indoor porch. She saw a swarm of insects scurrying away but
was too determined to turn back. She plugged in the oven and
slowly, slowly turned the knob.
Her eyes nearly popped. A little red light went on. She went
into the living room and prayed like she never had before.
Fifteen minutes later she was back. She put her hand to the
oven. It was hot!
She let out a whoop! and a "Thank You so much, Hashem!" and
ran to wake her husband.
"It works! It works!"
Moshe didn't know what hit him but found out soon enough.
"Great. Now go to sleep and you'll bake in the morning."
"No way! I'm not taking any chances. I'm baking right
NOW!"
"Now? In the middle of the night?"
"Yup!" Henny skipped out of the room.
She turned the heat in the oven to its strongest and while
she prepared the many different batters, she let the oven get
kashered even though it hadn't been in use for who knows how
long.
She was up all night baking for all the people on her list.
At the last minute, she decided to bake a cake for her
elderly neighbor across the hallway. By seven thirty, all the
cakes were done. Henny smiled, murmured her thanks to Hashem,
and turned the oven off.
The recipients of her cheesecakes were very happy that
Shavuos. Afterwards, Henny curiously wanted to try the oven
once more. "And if it works, I'll make pizza for supper."
She plugged the oven in and slowly turned the knob. The red
light did not go on. The oven remained cold.
"I knew it," she said to herself. "I knew that it must have
been a miracle for my cheesecakes..."
