"How do you manage now?" Elizabeth's friends would ask her.
And when they asked this question, she would think of the
red, brick mansion surrounded by the acres of grass and
towering oak trees.
She could remember vividly the delicate, white roses that
grew in the gardens that encircled the pear shaped pool.
Images of the housekeepers that had passed through their home
over the years, with their polite smiles and gentle voices,
fluttered through her mind. She had never learned to wash a
dish or operate a washing machine. In fact, until that year
she had never even buttered her own toast. But in the silent,
lavender bedroom of her childhood, she had sat upon her
canopied bed and stared out at the star-studded sky.
She had dreamed of a different world. She had dreamed of a
life that would bring her beyond the fragile, sparkling
surfaces of her surroundings. She had felt empty and unreal.
When she had finally met Yaakov, she knew that she had found
the beginning of an answer.
After their wedding, they had decided to come to learn in
Eretz Yisrael. Her parents had shook their heads in
disapproval and told her that the minute they boarded that
plane, they would be on their own. At first, this had
frightened her. Though she had always been a brilliant
student, filled with confidence and ambition, she had never
been responsible for anything "real" before. Now suddenly,
she was in charge of managing an entire household on her
own.
It seemed ironic to her sometimes, as she learned to cook
inside of their run-down, tiny kitchen. Here she was, with
her designer clothes and diamond bracelets, struggling to
learn how to boil an egg and wash a floor. When they had
first arrived, their Yerushalmi neighbors had stared at her
piles of expensive luggage and shook their heads in
bewilderment. They all were probably thinking that she would
never be able to cope. She knew her parents were also quite
certain that she would be home in a few months. The night
before her wedding, she had overheard her mother's soft,
musical voice soothing her father in the living room.
"Don't worry, Michael. Elizabeth will be home before you know
it. How long do you think she can live without all of this?"
And from the doorway, Elizabeth had watched her mother
gesture towards the glittering chandeliers, the enormous bay
windows and the glass table that was set with pitchers of
sparkling drinks.
Well, she would show them. She was more competent than anyone
knew. Already she had figured out the washing machine and
last week, she had even made a decent chicken soup for the
first time.
That Rosh Hashanah, her prayers had taken her to a place
inside of herself that she had never known. Finally she was
breaking through the surface and beginning to glimpse a piece
of her neshamah. But as the Aseret Yemei
Teshuvah began, she felt a nagging sense of discomfort.
She didn't like how everyone around her stared at her
ridiculously expensive clothes. She didn't like how her
possessions overflowed their closets, leaving Yaakov with
only a narrow space for his own clothes. And she didn't like
how she was still buying the expensive, luxurious products at
the grocery store. They were a kollel couple now! All
of this physicality was still weighing her down.
So one morning, after Yaakov left for kollel, she took
fifteen garbage bags and filled them with most of her
clothes. Afterwards, she stood in front of the closet and
breathed a sigh of relief. Two weekday skirts. Four shirts.
Two Shabbos outfits. One pair of weekday shoes. One pair of
Shabbos shoes. And a pair of slippers. She felt like she had
cleansed her mind.
She put the bags on the side to bring to the gemach.
Next she tackled the pantry and the fridge. Stepping back,
she surveyed her work. The fridge now had a pack of cheese, a
carton of milk, some yogurt, some fruit and a loaf of bread.
In her pantry she had brown rice, a can of corn, and two cans
of tuna fish. As she piled the extra food into boxes for the
soup kitchen, Elizabeth wondered if she was losing her mind.
But sitting down on one of the mismatched dining room chairs,
she realized that she had never felt saner. All of the
clutter was gone. She could focus now.
And what she realized as she thought about her childhood was
how sheltered she had always been from reality. The full-
powered, central air conditioning insured that she never felt
the heat of the sun. The heating that rose from the floors
and emanated from the walls made sure that she never even
knew when it was cold outside. And the prepared meals around
the clock prevented her from recognizing her own hunger.
Moreover, the constant stimulation from their elaborate home
entertainment system blocked her from having to face her own
thoughts and goals.
Now she could feel the heat seeping through the narrow
windows in the kitchen. She could sense her own hunger and
learn how to respond to it without all of the excess. It was
the overindulgence that had numbed her and caused her to feel
so empty. And now that she knew the simplicity of silence,
she could hear her own voice. And that voice became stronger
each day as it broke through the layers of gilt- edged lies.
She found an unadorned truth lying inside, priceless and
eternally hers.
