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.
