When the young Yoskovitch couple entered their new rented
apartment, they had pleasant dreams that everything would
work out in the best way possible. How did Abba Tanenbaum,
the father of the new bride put it? "Everything is from
Heaven — shidduchim, apartments and also a
livelihood."
His daughter Zahava tried to give credibility to his words in
every way she could. She registered with the principals of
every school in her area and outside of it, she stood in line
for every veteran and novice kindergarten teacher to be
accepted as an aide; she even tried her luck as a cashier for
a couple of days until the store owner told her that she'd be
better off trying to make a living at another place that
required less math.
Zahava agreed with him. She had been one of the weaker
students in math and only her mother, a veteran math teacher,
helped her tread the mathematical waters during her years in
school. But you can't drag your mother to calculate purchases
when you are called upon to do them at lightning speed at the
most pressurized time on Friday afternoon when all the
families suddenly remember, one hour before closing, that
they need a few more milk products or challos. Zahava
packed her bag with mixed feelings: With happiness at being
freed from her inappropriate job and with sadness because she
knew that she had no other possibilities on the horizon.
Her husband consoled her that certainly some job would become
available soon. Everybody knows that there's always a teacher
or two who has to leave her job for happy or other reasons.
But despite the rosy hopes, the horizon continued to be clear
of any shadow of work. Every morning, Rav Chaim Yoskovitch
went to his new kollel and left his new wife Zahava
behind to rearrange the house as she saw fit — or to
study her glowing new cookbooks for three hours at a time,
although they had yet to taste any chocolate cream pies
— and then to fix a simple meal from the vegetables she
had bought the previous day at a reduced price.
Zahava didn't give up and continued looking for work, but it
seemed to be constantly receding in the distance. "Why don't
you go ask the neighbors?" her husband advised her. And she
tried. Of course this had a great advantage, since after a
week of looking for work among the neighbors, she knew them
all very well. But work, she didn't find. And yet the
Yoskovitch couple were far from giving up. They simply waited
for salvation to fall from the sky.
Salvation didn't actually fall but it did land at Lod
airport. However, the couple had no idea as yet what role
they would need to play the upcoming Shabbos.
In the Weintraub family there was to be a simchah. The
youngest child was about to become Bar Mitzvah and all the
Who's Who of the family were invited from near and far. In
the heat of the festivities, they forgot about Aunt Bella.
More precisely, they didn't forget to invite her; they forgot
what she was like.
"Oy, vey!" Mrs. Weintraub cried the minute before Aunt
Bella was supposed to arrive.
"What happened? Did your cream cake fall?" asked Rav
Weinthrop, a maven in the ins and outs of what
troubles his wife under pressure.
"No, the cake is fine, but we forgot to think about Aunt
Bella."
"What do you mean?" wondered Rav Weintraub. "We invited her
and her plane from New York landed last night and she made a
reservation at a hotel for one night and is expected to come
to us before Shabbos comes in. I even sent Shaike to wait for
her downstairs so that she shouldn't confuse our entrance."
This didn't comfort his wife.
"That's all well and good," said Mrs. Weintraub in a serious
tone, "but we forgot that Aunt Bella is already 78 years
old!"
"So?"
"And she's sensitive to noise in any way, shape or form."
"Aah!" Rav Weinthrop remembered and thought with panic about
his five married children and twelve grandchildren who were
planning to stay at his house. Now he too started to get
nervous. What can you do when you invite a respected and
elderly guest to your house and forget that you can't give
her the conditions she's used to?
"We have to think of something," his wife said, becoming
practical. But Rav Weintraub didn't have any ideas.
"Perhaps the Korns could host her? They only have a little
baby," said Mrs. Weinthrop.
"No, even a little baby can scream," Rav Weinthrop vetoed the
suggestion.
"What do we do?"
"Who else in our neighborhood could host her without problems
at the last minute?"
"Katz, Freyer, Wolf . . . I know!" Mrs. Weintraub said
suddenly, struck by a brilliant idea. "Yoskovitch."
"Who? I never heard of neighbors with that name."
"They're new. I met Zahava Yoskovitch when she came to ask me
if I knew of a job for her. I did really try to come up with
something but I couldn't. They're a young couple. That's the
best. A young couple hardly ever stays at home for Shabbos.
They always go to their parents, once to his, once to hers.
I'll ask her and I'm sure she'll be happy to oblige."
Mrs. Weintraub immediately translated thought into action and
rang Zahava Yoskovitch to ask her a big favor on erev
Shabbos four hours before the siren.
"But of course I agree. In fact, you caught us exactly half
an hour before leaving the house. I just haven't finished
baking the cake for my mother-in-law and so we were delayed.
What a question! I'll be happy to host your Aunt Bella, I'll
even leave her a note so she feels at home."
Zahava hung up the phone and went into a work tizzy for the
guest she was expecting. This was the first time someone was
asking her to host somebody and she decided to leave her
guest with a lavish feeling from their modest home.
"And how can you leave a good taste without a cake?" she said
to her husband who had no choice but to agree.
Zahava made the living room up with new clean sheets for the
guest and immediately went into the kitchen after almost
having left it. She prepared a chocolate cake with nuts for
the guest and a diet cake (just in case). She left them on
the kitchen table with an impressive note in clear English
(Zahava was excellent in English). Zahava dropped the keys at
the Weintraubs before going downstairs and here ended her
part in the hosting.
Zahava didn't think much about the guest over Shabbos. She
was too busy forging warm ties with her sisters-in-law and
mother-in-law, for whom she had worked to especially bake a
frosted chocolate cake. All the sisters-in-law praised her
cake. Her mother-in-law joined in the adulation and even
asked her for the recipe in her husband's hearing. It's no
wonder that Zahava's head was completely turned that
Shabbos.
Until the end of Shabbos when the young couple went home
equipped with the best of everything from the Yoskovitch
parents, they didn't give a second thought to the Weintraub's
Aunt Bella. Therefore, upon returning home, they were
surprised to see the plate with the remains of the cake on
the kitchen table, a pile of folded sheets on the end of the
living room couch and what surprised them even more was a
green bill on the living room table.
"Perhaps a burglar broke in?" feared Zahava.
"I've never seen thieves leave green bills instead of taking
them, and from us, as you know, there's nothing to take,"
said Rav Yoskovitch logically. Zahava relaxed and then
remembered.
"I know; it's from the Weintraub's Aunt Bella, the one for
whom I made the cake at the last moment."
"But why leave money, and in dollars, and a hundred?" Rav
Yoskovitch wondered. "If we do a chesed, why pay us
for it?"
"You're right," said Zahava and they both went over to the
Weintraubs to return the money from Aunt Bella.
The spokeswoman was Zahava who, as we said, spoke an
excellent English. She tried to explain to Aunt Bella that
the pleasure was all theirs and there's no reason . . . but
she didn't know Aunt Bella. No one argued with Aunt Bella.
"You prepared me such a lovely home and everything in the
best taste and I even heard after Shabbos that they let you
know only at the last minute, so of course you deserve it."
When Zahava tried to contradict her, Aunt Bella explained to
her "You planned to leave a clean house and I messed it up.
At least let me pay the price of the housekeeper," Aunt Bella
said and didn't understand why Zahava burst out laughing.
Aunt Bella left, taking with her and leaving behind her good
feelings, and the Yoskovitches were one hundred dollars
richer that they certainly deserved. But that wasn't the end
of the story.
The next week, there was a simchah at the Glicksteins.
The son was getting married in "a good and propitious hour"
and they were a missing a place to put the guests up. Again,
there was someone who thought that the Yoskovitch's house
would be suitable and they should try to get it. The guests
this time were also a young couple.
And again Zahava worked to the best of her talents so that
they would enjoy their time in her rented apartment and went
with her husband to her parents with a happy heart.
On this Motzei Shabbos, Zahava and her husband remembered
that they had left guests at their house. But they were a bit
surprised when they found the young couple still there
waiting for them.
"We apologize," the new husband said abashed.
And his wife added, "I don't know how it happened but we
broke a set of glasses."
Her husband carried on where she had left off, "I imagine the
glasses were a wedding present and probably meant a lot to
you, therefore we're ready to pay so that you shouldn't be
upset."
"No, that's out of the question," reacted Zahava.
And Rav Yoskovitch added, "We forgive you the damage. I'm
sure you didn't do it intentionally."
"Well, that's not exactly true," said the young husband.
"You see, I heard a noise and I thought it was a cat and in
fright, I threw at him whatever I had at hand. And then I
remembered that the glasses weren't mine," the young wife
said embarrassed.
"We'll pay you for the damage and any bad feelings this may
have caused. You're not meant to lose by having us as
guests," promised the young husband and took out a fifty-
shekel bill from his wallet.
"That more than covers the cost of the glasses," Zahava piped
up immediately.
"In any case," implored the young couple, "It will make us
feel better!"
"And you also made a wonderful cake for us," praised the
young smiling wife. Zahava also smiled. The bill exchanged
hands between the husbands.
By the next week, the Yoskovitch's good name preceded them as
outstanding hosts and all they had to do was choose between
the families making simchas in the neighborhood, that
fought over their apartment — and to leave the
apartment over Shabbos.
Some of the guests only thanked them from the bottom of their
hearts but there were many who paid on their own initiative,
each time for another reason.
The old uncle of their neighbors told them, "You're a young
couple and you don't have the means to host people in such
numbers every Shabbos!"
The mother of six who had stayed by them crowed with pleasure
at the end of her stay, "I enjoyed myself so much that I want
to pay you as well," (In truth Zahava had bothered to bring
to the apartment from parts unknown a large number of toys
for the children.)
Then there were guests who didn't say a word, they just
handed over a respectable amount and that was it. And
sometimes it happened in the middle of the week that Zahava
would find a half-hidden envelope in the kitchen with some
amount and a thank-you note for the perfect hospitality.
Thus, without their intending it, Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent
them an easy livelihood. Happy is the believer.
