Yaffa’le, a good girl at heart, from a good home, was alarmed. This was more than she’d bargained for

Jerusalem

“So Yaffa’le said she needs my help,” Nechami says. “She’s in Sinai, remember? And they’re having some kind of… party.”

“A party.” Shua creases his forehead. “Aren’t they in the middle of the desert?” To him, Sinai means a wilderness, a gift, a hallowed destination.

“Oy, Shua. The desert where Yaffa’le is, isn’t your desert of Matan Torah. Where she is, they have electricity, running water, and a sound system, apparently, and lights.” Her imagination is too narrow to go further.

“And what did Yaffa’le want from you?”

“She wants me to help her find the strength not to go to this party.”

Apparently Yaffa’le’s dear friends weren’t really planning to spend all their time in Sinai lolling about on straw mats, watching the waves and reading books. They had more exciting things in mind. And Yaffa’le, a good girl at heart, from a good home, was alarmed. This was more than she’d bargained for.

So she’d called Nechami.

“But I didn’t know what to tell her.”

“Why not?” Shua asks.

“Because what do I know about these things?”

She can advise her friends on how not to get angry when your husband takes items from your private soda stash and forgets to replace them. (“But I always replace them in the end!” he’ll protest.) And how to refrain from saying anything when he makes Kiddush again with your nice, new siddur and leaves it spattered with wine, smelling of alcohol. (“What? But I was sure it was your old siddur!”) But not this.

“I don’t know how to stop her from going to a weird party with weird things going on,” she says, “especially when she can’t even tell me what the party will be like, because she doesn’t really know. I’ve never been invited to a party like that.”

Shua makes the rounds of the children’s rooms, checking that all is well. The little ones are sleeping, the big ones are reading quietly. “Maybe we should have a party,” he suggests.

“A party celebrating what?”

“The Bernfeld Family going to their secret lookout?”

“Okay.”