Blimi had `fallen into her hole' again. That's how she
thought of it, `falling into my hole.' The house looked
awful, the kids looked awful, she looked awful, life looked
awful. She tried to encourage herself. "Just make a start,"
she told herself. "`It's not your job to finish the work, but
neither are you free to avoid it...'" But she felt that any
start she made would only be a drop in the ocean, soon to be
undone. Everything felt like such an exercise in futility.
Why bother?
The irony as that she was supposed to be a writer --
and not just any kind of a writer, but an `inspiring' writer.
Not that she thought she was, but local newspapers and
magazines accepted most of what she sent them. Once in a
while, they even sent her a note: "Very inspiring. Please
send more." So if she was so inspiring, why couldn't she
inspire herself? It reminded her of that famous story of the
sad king whose advisors told him to go see a certain
mysterious clown who could make anyone laugh. "The problem
is," he answered, even more sadly, "I am that clown."
Everything seemed so hopeless; she felt so helpless. Is
there nothing at all that I can do, she asked herself,
in this place where I now seem to find myself? From
somewhere within, an answer came: Yes. You can daven. You
can call out to Hashem to help you.
So she did. Time and again in a weak, tiny voice. "Hashem,
please help... Hashem, please help..."
Nothing seemed to happen, though. Another day crawled by.
Another precious day that felt so wasted, so frittered away,
so empty and devoid of meaning, of good deeds -- when she
wanted all the precious days that were granted her to be full
and meaningful.
Nothing seemed to happen, but one night, Dvora Bina phoned.
Blimi had met her in a doctor's waiting room where they'd
commiserated with each other each week, and exchanged advice
about a shared medical problem. They lived in different
neighborhoods, but they had become fast phone friends.
Blimi didn't have many friends. She had always been a loner,
distancing herself from others. She had felt that people
might overwhelm her, not give her space to think about
things, to stay connected to what she really believed. In
some ways, this avoidance of people had worked to her
advantge. But now...
"My house is such a mess," she confided to Devora Bina. "But
that's the least of it. I feel so sad; my life seems to
empty."
Devora Bina tried to help. "Don't you have tapes to listen
to, or shiurim to attend in your neighborhood or
something to read or some chessed organization to
volunteer for? Something to cheer you up?"
"I don't know. I hate borrowing things; they always seem to
get lost, torn or broken. I think they do have classes and
chessed groups here but somehow I never got into them,
and now they're all such young women who all know each other
and I don't know anybody. But enough already about me. How's
everything with you?"
Devora Bina told her about a crisis in her neighborhood,
about how all the neighbors were rallying around to help --
organizing shifts of hospital visits, meals for the family,
groups to say Tehillim. "We actually finished the
entire Book three times in a row last night! Isn't that
something! I never did that before! When you divide it up
among the whole group, it goes very fast. And someone was
saying that Tehillim recited by a group is much more
effective and powerful then when one person says the whole
sefer all by himself. I never knew that. I always
thought that related to men and minyonim."
Blimi sighed. "Devora Bina, I think I made a mistake." It was
so hard to admit.
"A mistake? What kind of a mistake?"
"I think the reason I'm so sad and unmotivated to clean my
house or do anything else is because my life feels so empty,
and that's because I am so isolated. There are hardly any
people in my life..."
"But what mistake?"
"It was when I first got married, over fifteen years ago. As
a single girl, I'd been living with a wonderful family in a
wonderful neighborhood. But as soon as I got married, we
moved away. I let myself lose contact with everyone, with all
those wonderful women who had been so kind to me. And you're
not even going to believe why. It was because of the
cakes."
"The... cakes?"
"Uh-huh. Those ladies were always cooking and baking and
cleaning and running their busy homes. They were forever
knocking on each other's doors, asking for volunteers to bake
cakes for someone who'd just given birth, or to babysit or to
have a family over for Shabbos. I was so ashamed. I didn't
begin to know how to bake a cake or cook or clean or run a
home. I'm still very far from being a great baalebusta, for
that matter, and I didn't want anyone to see how hopelessly
incompetant I was. So I ran away."
"Hmmm. Al tifrosh min hatzibbur, you shouldn't
separate yourself from the community, you know..."
"You're right. But that's what I did. And now I feel like
I've missed the boat. I don't know anyone around here. I'm
very lonely. And look at you, Devora Bina, look at all the
mitzvos you chalked up this week, automatically. Just
by being part of a community. You were caught up in whatever
was going on, became a collective part of it, and are
included in the reward. You're right in the middle of
whatever's happening. You've got yourself a front row
seat!"
"Yes, that's true. They were knocking on everybody's door in
the neighborhood so, of course, they knocked on mine too. But
Blimi, how long have you been thinking along these lines? I
mean, if you really believe you made a mistake, well, why
can't you correct it?"
"It's too late..."
"Ridiculous! It's never too late!'
"That's what I kept trying to tell myself, but... I'm just
saying how it feels."
"Well, how it feels isn't how it is, Blimi." Devora
Bina pointed out, reasonably.
"Mmmm."
"Why don't you write something? That usually cheers you up,
no? You really are so talented in that area."
"Well, it used to cheer me up. But I think I've just been
wasting my time fooling around with writing. I really wonder
if any of it's even worth reading. I'm thinking I should give
it up."
"What??? But wasn't one of your stories printed just last
week?"
"Yes, but that doesn't mean anybody read it or was helped by
it in any way. I don't think I really have anything new to
say. And anyhow, if I can't even inspire myself, how can I
inspire anyone else?"
"No, that's not true, Blimi. `A prisoner is incapable of
unlocking his own prison cell.' Only someone outside can help
him. We all need each other's help. Even the angels
reciprocate zeh lozeh. Nobody's got anything new to
say. Everything's all been said countless times before: trust
in Hashem, fear Him, keep praying, don't be discouraged, be
heedful about every mitzva, judge favorably and love
your fellow Jew. On the one hand, these messages are ancient
ones, but on the other hand, they're always new because every
second we are presented with new situations in which we need
to apply them. We desperately need to keep hearing and
reading such reinforcing words. And everybody has a unique
perspective on them, a unique voice with which to proclaim
them."
"Hmmm. Well, thanks. I'll think about what you said."
*
Blimi did think about it. She also kept calling to Hashem to
help her. "Oh, Tatte, how much more of this can I stand? I
know You're always near. I know You always love me and truly,
I've seen it in my own life more times than I can count.
Knowing it should be enough but right now, You feel so far
away. I feel so forgotten, so alone. I need to feel You near
me..."
But she was still in her `hole.'
*
A few days later, the phone rang again. "Oh, please," Blimi
whispered, "let this be the start of the yeshua that I
need to pull me out of this depression I've fallen into."
"Hi, Blimi. It's Devora Bina. Listen, Rebbetzin Zweig is
going to be giving a class this morning. Sorry for the short
notice but I only just now heard about it, myself. I
remembered what you said about how bad you felt to have
missed her class two weeks ago, so I thought that if you're
still interested, you could drop everything and come. I'll
give you her address. Oh, remember, her shiur starts
promptly!"
If she was still interested? Of course she was!
Blimi jotted the address on the back of an envelope. If she
left immediately, she'd have time to find the place. She
remembered that the buildings in that neighborhood stood in
no set order.
The phone rang again. Had Devora Bina forgotten something?
To Blimi's surprise, the call was from her mother, just to
say `hello.' She'd never phoned at such an hour before. It
must be almost three a.m. in New York!
It was all of twenty minutes later before Blimi dashed out
the door, clucthing the envelope with the scrawled address,
and with Devora Bina's warning still ringing ominously in her
ears. There were still forty minutes left and if she walked
fast, the bus stop was three minutes away and a bus came
every ten to fifteen minutes. She would just have to pray and
hope. The bus could come right away; she could get off in
twenty minutes and still have fifteen minutes to locate the
address. It could happen that way...
But if she arrived even one minute late and found herself
facing a closed door once again, she'd just slip quietly away
and go back home. Blimi was a very self-conscious, shy,
inhibited, unassertive person. She would never have the nerve
to knock softly or just march boldly into a roomful of
staring eyes and push her way down crowded aisles to find a
seat. Oh, no! The very notion made her cower.
No, you're wrong, Blimi. It doesn't have to happen that
way. If Hashem wants you at that shiur this morning,
then you'll be there. He is not confined by your calculations
and has infinite ways of getting you there.
It was worth a try. To be part of Klal Yisroel, yes, for that
anything was worth a try. That's how she saw it. But fifteen
minutes later, there was still no sign of the bus. Blimi
thought of latter-day kfitzas haderech, miraculous
time- distance leaps recounted by followers of the Baal Shem
Tov who made off for some mysterious destination just before
Shabbos, and arrive, moments later but hundreds of miles
away, just in time.
Was there any point in wasting the next hour, and bus fare,
just on a chance? Yes, Blimi decided.
The bus came. The ride took fifteen minutes with Blimi
consulting her watch every other minute, agonizing over every
stroller that needed lifting on or off, every red light. She
couldn't read the last part of the address she's scrawled.
Had Devora Bina said to get off at the first stop after the
grocery store or the second? She got off at the first with
ten minutes to spare.
There didn't seem to be any street signs anywhere. Oh, there
was a lady hanging laundry from her porch.
"Slicha... Rechov Blumenkrantz?" Blimi called
softly.
"Lo, lo... Ketzat lemaala."
That could mean a half-hour hike or just twenty paces. Blimi
rushed up the steep hill. She rounded a building. There it
was! The second bus stop and a street sign with arrows
pointing to Buildings #15, 16 and #17.
A joyful Blimi skipped up the steps of the building on the
right. She'd actually made it early... Except that the
beautifully painted olive wood doorplate on Apt. 8 said BEN
NISSAN and not ERLICHER.
She ran back down to check the sign and noticed that the
arrow on #17 had a bend on it. Did that mean further up the
hill and around the building? Blimi continued rushing up the
hill, all but jogging and not even glancing at her watch for
fear even that would slow her down. She was gasping for
breath and suddenly realized she was crying. Triggered by the
physical exertion and disappointment, they were,
nevertheless, tears of yearning. Yearning to stop being
alone, to be truly part of Klal Yisroel and to feel the
closeness of Hashem amidst His children.
She rounded the building and gasped in dismay. Before her was
a maze of buildings, stone stairways leading up and down,
stone bridges and gangways, archways, exits and entrances,
crannies and courtyards. It was all very pretty but
thoroughly confusing. None of the buildings seemed to have
numbers on them... and then she'd have to find the right
apartment! And the shiur was starting right NOW!
What was that? Some two flights below she could glimpse two
women dashing into an entranceway. Blimi raced down the steps
and into the building, her eyes on the stairwell ahead, but
the two women were nowhere to be found. Had they gone up or
down? Were they headed for the shiur altogether? What
difference did it make? Blimi was already too late.
Nevertheless, she started up the stairs.
She'd barely got to the third step when she heard a voice
floating from just behind. Blimi turned back and saw a door
on the left open wide. Inside, several rows of women
listening intently. Next to the rebbetzin, sitting by a
table, was Devora Bina, half standing, grinning a warm,
delighted smile of welcome and gesturing excitedly to the
empty chair she'd saved for her friend. Blimi quickly took
her place, at the rebbetzin's right hand.
"...and so we see that Hashem's Providence over each person
extends even to the tiniest detail of our lives," she was
saying. "He is constantly aware of all our needs, our
struggles and desires. He always wants to help us, whether we
deserve His help or not. He knows, at every single moment,
the precise best thing for each of us... No one else can help
us or hurt us; we're completely in His hands..."
Yes, thought Blimi, You brought me here today, to a
place of prayer. You have opened a way for me out of my
sadness and surrounded me with strength.
"...as someone was showing me in a story, this week..."
What was that? What was the Rebbetzin saying?
Why... why Rebbetzin Zweig was quoting her... was
quoting from the story that she'd written! Blimi glanced
behind her. Jewish women, younger ones, older ones, women
bouncing babies, soothing toddlers. Listening, nodding,
drinking in the sweet, sweet words of Torah. On the table, a
pile of Tehillim waited to be distributed after the
shiur. From the walls, faces of tzaddikim
looked down.
Here it was: that so sweet Nearness for which she had yearned
and begged.
After the shiur, Blimi took a booklet, joining her
soft whispers to those of the other women in the room.
"Please come visit me," Dvora Bina urged her afterwards.
"Please join me for lunch."
"Oh, no... no!" Blimi reacted instinctively. "I have to be
somewhere. Some other time." And she made her way to the
door.
I did it again, she reflected, waiting for the bus
home. I fell back into my habit of isolating. Well, a
person doesn't change the habits and instincts of a lifetime,
overnight. But now I know the direction in which to go; I
know what needs work. I know Hashem is with me, helping me...
and the door is always open.
