Finishing Touches

Cindy Scarr

Summer, 2009. I’m driving my 98-year-old Grandma Frances from New York to Boston to visit her grandchildren. And back again.

Plenty of time to bring up unpleasant subjects.

I glance over at her. Just do it, there may never be another time.

“Grandma, I know this isn’t the most pleasant conversation topic, but… I need to discuss your funeral with you.”

She looks over at me.

“It’s really important to me that you have a kosher burial.”

I’d buried my mother only a year before, and Grandma knew how I made sure that burial was halachic.

“You know I don’t care about this at all,” she says.

“I do know that.”

“But I don’t want to cause you any pain.”

“A nonkosher burial would cause me a lot of pain.”

A few hundred feet of highway rush by in silence.

“All right,” she says.

“All right? You’re agreeing to a kosher burial?”

“Yes. I don’t want my death to cause you pain.”

I half smile. “Well, your death will cause me pain”—she laughs—“but at least your funeral won’t.”

She leans over and takes my hand.

In Boston I update Dad. “Grandma agreed to have a kosher funeral and burial,” I tell him.

“She did?!”

“She did.”

It’s a testimony to the strength of our relationship that that was word enough for him.

One year later Grandma has a serious stroke. From the hospital, she’s sent to the Tietz Center — a glatt kosher, shomer Shabbos hospice.

“By chance,” says Dad, but I know better. There won’t be problems right after death. No problems with shemirah. My father reports on his meeting the rabbi. A miracle is unfolding and from Jerusalem I breathe easier.

Only one day later I get the call. Grandma is gone. “Make the funeral tomorrow afternoon,” I tell Dad, “I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

And when I eulogize Grandma Frances at her strictly halachic funeral, I tell the completely nonreligious gathering not only anecdotes about Grandma, but about This World and the Next, about bodies and souls and what happens to the soul after the body dies — and the story of that car ride.

“She may not have cared at all about a kosher burial then,” I say, “but she definitely cares now. She thought she was doing this out of love for me, but in doing this for me, she did herself the greatest kindness.”

Love in a Bag

Yael Schuster

There she stood, patiently waiting, feet slightly apart to help her balance. She clutched a brown paper bag in her hands, and when her eyes found me, they lit up.

“Yaelinyu!”

Awkwardness flooding me, I shuffled over to receive her embrace. After all, I was in school, third grade to be exact — not in Bubby’s apartment on East 13th Street, where hugs and kisses and impassioned declarations of love were normal, almost appreciated. In school, they shifted the universe a few degrees out of alignment.

That’s not to say, though, that I didn’t enjoy the cinnamony rugelach the bag invariably held, my friends ogling in the background as I relished my treat.

It was a scene that replayed itself many times over the next few years of recesses. In the beginning, Bubby would ask whoever she saw to please call “Yael, the girl with the tzepalach [braids].” Considering how many people didn’t know me, she likely stood there for quite a while until I made my appearance. With time, she became such a fixture that she didn’t need to ask for me — kids would see her and shout, “Yael! Your grandmother’s here!” Time and again, I’d experience that confusing mix of embarrassment, a touch of pride, and the anticipation of a great snack.

Cutting through the layers of discomfort, the sensitive heart of a young girl understood. The oil marks on the paper bag, the rugelach still warm from the oven, the pretty dress Bubby had on, all told a story: This young girl was cherished. She was the center of somebody’s world.

Had I stayed to watch her leave (which I didn’t), I’d have seen Bubby exit the building and link arms with Zeidy, who waited outside this whole time, not feeling it was his place to enter a girls’ school. I’d have seen an unwell woman in her mid-seventies, walking ever-so-slowly down the long road home, escorted by her loyal sentinel, their faces aglow with satisfaction. As hard as it was, they had managed, once again, to sweeten my day.

No Strings Attached

Faigy Markowitz

Cellophane crinkles in my hand. I diligently count and package the printed cardboard papers that line our small kitchen table. The boxes and the mess don’t bother me. It’s the price I pay for helping my husband. I can hear him on the phone in the next room. I sigh as I realize he’s asking yet another relative or acquaintance for a loan.

We have a new product line, with customers waiting for orders, and all the logistics in place. Like every new business, cash flow is tight. We need a large loan to finish production and fulfill orders.

As a struggling young couple, this business allows my husband to continue learning while we work to get it off the ground. Yet we’re at a loss as to how to raise the needed money to have a chance at success.

My husband approaches numerous people for a loan. Some say no. Some make him call back many, many times — and then say no. Others ask for a business plan, all kinds of documentation, questioning every nitty-gritty detail, and then offer unfair partnerships. Some offer handouts. Nobody wants to loan us the substantial sum we need.

I fall asleep and wake up with the same knot in my stomach. I daven extra tefillos and keep reminding myself that it’s all in Hashem’s Hands. Yet, anxiety follows me like a shadow, darkening our little apartment, filling me with gloom.

Then, my husband calls his aunt. Her one-word answer: “Sure.” She invites us over, chats briefly, and writes out a large check. She reassures us not to feel pressured about the payback time frame and warmly blesses us with hatzlachah.

Designers, printers, and cellophane are a ubiquitous part of life for a long time. Over the years, the business flourishes, the loan is repaid, and the little details blur together like pixels in a huge landscape photo. When the business needs to expand, again we flounder and try to get a loan. This time my husband’s aunt helps us again. No strings attached, only a heart of love and blessings.

After this business, we move on to other successful ventures. Yet whenever we trace the milestones of our life, reminiscing about adventures, challenges, and our na?vet? — intertwined with it all is the kindness that got us to where we are today.

The Gift of Giving

Chaia Frishman

Friday afternoon. A ring at the door. I opened it to find two burly delivery men from Supersol setting down three boxes of takeout food.

Gefilte fish, chicken soup, side dishes, chickens, deli, and cakes (yup, plural of everything). For my family of extremely picky eaters.

There was no gift card, but a call to the store revealed my benefactor. I was floored. It was the second week of school, and I’d just met the parents of my new students. One mother had just heard the news of our summer crisis — a traumatic emergency a few weeks before had turned our house into a revolving door of chesed — and she had made the order. But that week, I had dipped my toe into the ocean of normalcy and actually made Shabbos. My fridge was already full, and the chicken and kugel sizzled on the hotplate.

“What are we going to do with all this food?” my husband asked.

I didn’t stop to think. Shabbos was coming. There were kids to bathe and floors to sweep. Taking a red Radio Flyer wagon, I packed the three boxes and hurried down the block.

“Ima, Mrs. Goykadosh just had a baby, and her boys eat,” my daughter called after me. A short explanation and some chicken and kugel were delivered there.

Next stop was two neighbors who were chairing a tzedakah event Motzaei Shabbos. Their previously barebones Shabbos now had fish, soup, and grilled vegetables to spruce it up.

I insisted that my friend hosting last-minute company take the rest. My son insisted that we keep the cake.

When I retold the story of the unexpected Shabbos fare, a few people decried the waste. “You could have saved so much time had you known to expect the food, Chaia!”

Yet I disagreed. While the content of those cardboard boxes didn’t nourish us physically, it gave me, well, an unexpected gift.

I had been on the receiving end for weeks. So long, that I had forgotten what it felt like just to give. The opportunity to make a difference in the lives of friends who, for many weeks, had showered our family with their love, was truly the biggest chesed my new parent-cum-guardian-angel could have provided.

My Erev Shabbos delivery that week was truly the gift that kept on giving.

A Toast for Two

As told to Riki Goldstein

London. London held the promise. A scrap of lined paper, pulled off a medical pad and scribbled with the name of a professor, was the only option that remained. We had spent 14 years soaking our siddurim with tears and running up and down Eretz Yisrael to see top professors who could help us have children. And still, we had trudged with empty arms through the cycle of the years.

Clutching that paper, we turned our gaze to London. We withdrew our savings, rented out our apartment, and with the help of many kindhearted messengers, a long-term “visit” was arranged. Hashem’s people are unequaled in kindness: somehow we had an apartment, rides to the hospital, and discreet medical interpreters. We were alone and anonymous in a foreign land of green ground and gray skies; the exile could have been overwhelmingly difficult. But instead, we were cushioned by kindness. Soon, we found ourselves filled with tremulous excitement.

The specialist in London was indeed our Heavenly shaliach. Ten months after our arrival, our healthy twins breathed their first. The sheer joy of the moment overwhelmed even the medical team at first, but they soon came back to their crisp British selves. The babies were whisked away to be checked, and the senior midwife shooed away my husband with the admonition that I needed rest after the ordeal and he could return in the morning.

Although still not fluent in English, he understood her signs and her firm tone of voice. He took the Tube back to our apartment. Then came the exciting job of informing our families in Yerushalayim: two three-minute calls. Long conversations abroad cost money that we just didn’t have. That done, he called two acquaintances from the shul in London to share the mazel tov.

He hung up, and sat down on the couch. It was the happiest night of his life, the realization of 15 years of prayer, but the apartment was so empty and quiet. His family and friends so far away. He had never felt more alone.

He looked down at the phone, willed it to ring. Silence. Insides taut, he paced the still room, yearning for the familiarity of his family’s embrace, his shtiebel’s warmth, his kollel’s wishes. And then came a knock at the door. A “friend” from the minyan stood outside, face full of joy, arms holding out cake and schnapps. And in that Yid’s embrace and shower of joyous blessing, in that warm l’chayim and simple celebration, he found a gift of true kindness: company for his joy.

Sanctuary

Rochel Jacobs

The most traumatic week of my life had just ended. The roller coaster dumped me unceremoniously in a broken pile… without family, friends, or home. I had two small suitcases and my cell phone with its contacts, but nowhere to go.

All that would welcome me in a few short hours was the frigid black night.

Finally I thought of Faigy. I didn’t even have her number. We hadn’t spoken since high school. But if there was anyone in the world I could call, it was Faigy. I tracked down her number and called several times, but only got an answering machine. Time ticked away as I fought against panic.

I’m just a regular girl. Regular girls have homes. Normal girls don’t know the terror of calling everyone and finding closed doors and having… nowhere to go.

Zero hour approached. Faigy called me back.

“I’m so sorry, my phone was broken.”

Relief. So she hadn’t been ignoring me.

How do you tell someone that you are homeless? I don’t remember.

“Sure,” she said. “Come over.”

Faigy welcomed me into her home with a smile the size of Texas. She made me feel so relaxed. Everything was just… normal. Her apartment was tiny. She and her husband moved their two little girls into their room for the night. She spread fresh linen over the bed. I sank into its softness, safe in the cozy smallness of the room. Nothing had ever looked more beautiful than the soft green flowers of that bedspread.

I woke to the sound of Faigy singing to her children. Safe sounds, happy sounds, to give me life and warmth.

I needed to find an apartment. I needed a car to find an apartment.

“Sure, take my car,” Faigy said, juggling her hectic schedule with my needs.

One day dragged into the next. I felt horrible that I was imposing so much.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said warmly.

She and her husband acted as if it was completely normal to share their home, food, and car with someone homeless.

Incredibly, I found an apartment. I thanked Faigy from the bottom of my heart and set out to start my new life. For good or for bad, I didn’t know. I only knew it would be rocky.

But the rocks had a foundation — in people like Faigy. Without her, how would I have survived?

The Taste of Care

A. Aster

It was just a bagel, really.

Then on Tuesday came a tuna wrap and Danish, and Wednesday it was cheese blintzes and soup. Thursday was bagels again, with a muffin and a bottle of Snapple. Not the biggest deal, right? But they were the greatest kindness imaginable.

When I lost my 11-week pregnancy, I decided within 30 seconds that absolutely no one was going to know about this. We hadn’t yet told anyone our news, so there was no need to announce this either. When my husband questioned the wisdom of such a decision, I went ballistic. There was no way, I said, that anyone was going to know this time. I wasn’t making that mistake again.

My reaction was extreme, but it stemmed from experience. Several years earlier, my loss was the schmooze of the week, and I hated the idea of everyone knowing my business.

When I’d cried to my husband over my lack of privacy, his response was, “They care; they just want to be able to help!” He had a point. So I waited… and waited… for an offer of help, a supper, a kugel, to take my kids on Sunday… something? Anything?

Nothing. Not one offer, and I was left feeling more vulnerable and downhearted than ever. My news was public, but I was left to cope alone.

This time I wasn’t taking chances. I’d get through this alone again — and at least the hurt wouldn’t be there.

My resolve lasted ten hours. Late that night, curled up in a ball and feeling like I was hit by a truck, I called my sister who lives several hours away. She’d been through this enough times to commiserate. She oy’ed and tsk’ed in all the right places, even validating my stubborn decision.

She called each day to check in, while I performed a grand show for the rest of the world. But I was miserable, and she knew it. Sunday night, dear Sis called and told me she’d arranged for lunches to be delivered for the duration of the week, courtesy of my local Bikur Cholim.

I didn’t think it was that big a deal, until they arrived. A simple bagel and drink — who would have thought they could have such a healing effect? But along with those lunches came the feeling of being cared for, cared about, and thought of.

It was the greatest thing anyone’s ever done for me.

Matchmaker

Ashira Davidson

I had been dating Moshe, a very nice young man, for quite some time. After a while, however, I ended it — mainly because we had both given it a good chance and I didn’t feel the relationship was progressing. Moshe had been optimistic about our future together and was disappointed — he asked me to give it another shot. I felt terrible hurting him, especially because we had dated longer than usual. A few weeks later, Moshe reached out to me and asked if I could reconsider. But I said no, again.

Months later, I was sitting across from my soon-to-be-husband, Yoni, at a restaurant in my hometown. Yoni was on vacation with his family, and he had contacted a shadchan and asked if he could set us up. Soon enough, one date turned into the next, and we both began discussing engagement. During one of our later dates, talk of Yoni’s friends came up.

“By the way, we have to thank Moshe for this… can you believe I first heard your name from him?”

“You know Moshe?” I asked in amazement.

“Know him? He’s one of my best friends!”

That day I learned that the main reason Yoni considered me in the first place was that Moshe had told him about me, and had even suggested the idea, months earlier.

I couldn’t believe that not only did Moshe not harbor ill feelings, but he was able to rise above his own disappointment and suggest me to one of his good friends. He did so knowing full well that the match could go through, and even hoping it would, as he told us later. He easily could have wallowed silently in regret. Instead, he refused to let his own feelings get in the way of his friend’s potential spouse. I had never been more grateful.

Several weeks later, at our l’chayim, we presented shadchanus to Moshe and thanked him from the bottom of our hearts for the greatest kindness he’d ever do for us: find our true match.

Coming Clean

Shira Isenberg

“We’re just not doing Pesach this year.”

It was Motzaei Shabbos, four days before Pesach, and I wasn’t ready — and I couldn’t imagine I ever would be.

I love Excel. I had a plan for Pesach. The baby was supposed to be born Seder night, her due date. By then, everything would be done — cleaned, burned, cooked. Or maybe she’d be born after the first day. That would be okay, too. She was my first baby; no way she’d be early.

My daughter made her arrival a week before Pesach.

I had dutifully cleaned the rest of our small Baltimore apartment. But… the kitchen. That narrow galley kitchen was my Everest. Holding a crying newborn who didn’t like to nurse or sleep, how would it ever get done?

Going away wasn’t an option. So I did the only thing I could — I called my old roommate, Sarah, in New York.

She shared some comforting words and hung up. What could she really do?

A few minutes later, the phone rang again.

“I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Huh?”

“I’m driving down to help you.”

Relief washed over me. Sarah was coming. Sarah would fix it.

After the four-hour drive, she barely took time to admire my adorable little girl, before getting down to business. Sponge in hand, she scrubbed my fridge, all the while giving directions and advice to organize the entire kitchen cleanup. When I mentioned food, she said nonchalantly, “Oh, Rebecca is bringing over dinner.”

At some point between our conversation and her arrival on Sunday, Sarah not only arranged dinner for that evening, but all my meals for the first days. She even got a friend in Silver Spring to make one meal; when she called to ask if we wanted soup, I told her no — I didn’t have a pot to warm it up. Well, soup arrived with the rest of the food, along with a brand-new pot. I still have it.

After finishing up in the kitchen, Sarah left for her long drive home.

It was an awkward first Pesach for us as new parents. We took lots of breaks for nursing and crying (mostly the baby). It could have been a disaster, but instead it’s a happy memory.

For a long time afterward, I shared that story with whoever I could because I knew it wasn’t normal. I was lucky — and still am — to have a friend like Sarah.

Permission to Mourn

Millie Samson

Mum. Such a small word, a word redolent with love and giving, it was a word I had never said — until I married my husband.

I’m from the generation that hid sadness. When my mother was niftar, leaving four small children, she was effectively erased from our lives. My very precious mother-in-law became the mother I never knew. She wove a web of compassion that encompassed every facet of our lives. In the grainy film of our long-ago chasunah, there she is, arranging my wedding dress, giving my hand a squeeze, gazing proudly at us, accepting without question the choice of her only son.

Our love deepened, strengthening with the joy of children and grandchildren. When my in-laws moved to a retirement home, I was there several times a week, sometimes talking, sometimes delving into cardboard boxes filled with memories. We exercised together, sang together, explored the beautiful gardens.

It was her smile, the smile that lit her whole being and suffused the world with light, that drew everyone like a magnet. It was the smile and the “Hello, darling” that brightened my every week.

Then she was gone, slipping quietly away while we were in Israel this Succos. We sat by her side, my husband and I, saying Tehillim, trying to come to terms with a maelstrom of overwhelming emotions.

With my husband in aveilus, I had to facilitate everything needed for the levayah and shivah. As we reached the prayer hall, my husband was swept away to join his sisters. I was enveloped in a bubble of grief, yet I was apart from the mourners. As they tore kriah, my heart tore kriah. As my husband and his sisters buried their mother, I stood alone, on the other side of the grave.

Our rabbi appeared at my side. “In days gone by,” he said so quietly that only I could hear, “children-in-law were also in aveilus.” He nodded, indicating a clod of loose earth. I reached over and, with the earth trickling through my fingers, whispered, “Goodbye!”

Throughout the week of shivah those words gave me the strength to comfort those who needed comfort, and enable my husband to cope with the never-ending stream of visitors. They allowed me to mourn, to acknowledge my loss, and to face the future without the woman who’d been a mother to me.

They were a kindness I will never forget.

Boy oh Boy

Faigy Peritzman

It was 4 a.m. on a winter Motzaei Shabbos, but my adrenaline was high as I dialed.

“Mom! Dad! It’s a boy!”

My in-laws’ excitement came down the wire. “Finally! A boy after all the girls. We’re coming to the bris!”

I crawled back into bed, exhausted but elated. Yet as I drifted off to sleep, a thought niggled in my mind. Did someone say bris?

Two days later, all elation had faded, and fatigue was making my brain foggy.

“I have a lead on a mohel and we’ll make the shalom zachar here, but where should we have the bris seudah on Shabbos?” my husband asked.

I stared at him glassy-eyed. “No clue. Why not just buy schnitzel?” Girls were so much easier. No major decisions before I could get my eyes fully open.

“My parents are coming and our siblings. Can you walk a couple of blocks down to a hall?”

“I can’t walk down the hall to our dining room!” I wanted to weep. To sleep. At least till Baby’s bar mitzvah.

By Wednesday most of the details were taken care of, including inquiries about buying food. But where to host the seudah? I glanced around our dining room, now crowded with a carriage and baby swing. Even a bare minyan wouldn’t fit.

My husband came home from Shacharis with a funny smile on his face. “You know Greenberg from across the street? He wants to make our bris for us.”

“He wants to do what? We barely know them! We can’t accept that kind of favor!”

“I agree, but he kept insisting. His wife’s calling you now.”

Mrs. Greenberg was even more persuasive. She kept maintaining it would be her greatest pleasure to prepare all the food and host our bris.

My husband asked our rav and his answer was unequivocal. If someone wants to do a mitzvah, you can’t take that away from him. So despite my discomfort, a weight was lifted off my shoulders.

The seudah was magnificent — food, ambience, and the atmosphere reflected the warmth of the hosts’ hearts. I wondered if I’d ever have the opportunity to return the favor.

Years passed. The Greenbergs moved away, and no, I was never able to reciprocate. But I pay them back every time I call a neighbor saying, “I heard you’re making a simchah. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Book of Life

Esther Kurtz

I stood there, hand on hip, waiting for her chastisement.

“The Navi speaks to me, Esther,” she said. “It doesn’t speak to you. And that’s okay. Everyone has different things that pull and inspire them. I just can’t have you sleeping through my class.”

She had started off well, but not sleeping through her class wasn’t really an option; my eyes would glaze over on their own.

“I’m giving you this sefer.” She handed me a nondescript book. “I want you to read it, take notes, summarize, jot down your opinions — if you agree, disagree, any questions you have. This will be your curriculum, your notes, and your test. Okay?”

I looked at her questioningly. This seemed too easy — just read a book and take some notes? But I accepted the book, and the task.

The book was Rabbi Akiva Tatz’s Living Inspired; it changed my life.

I still slept through my other classes — Historiah, Chumash, Parshah — but twice a week for 45 minutes, I engaged in intense learning and inspiration, gaining clarity on the cycles of life, on daas Torah, on hishtadlus versus bitachon, and other big-ticket questions.

And with renewed clarity of thought came deliberate choices, and the expected trajectory of my life shifted. I owe the life I am loving to my 12th-grade Navi teacher.

When mailing my wedding invitations, I slipped a note into hers.

Dear Rebbetzin Blum,

I don’t think I’ve ever fully expressed how much I appreciate what you did for me in 12th grade. I know, it seems simple enough, a good idea that panned out: Give a disinterested student an interesting book, have her be involved in something Jewish during your class instead of drooling on the desk in slumber.

But had you not done what you did, I would not be who I am today. And I would not be marrying the person I am; I have you to thank for that.

By being the shaliach, by introducing me to the works of Rabbi Akiva Tatz, I am forever indebted to you. Those books changed my perspective on everything, and my life, outlook, and actions reflect that.

I hope to share in many simchahs with you. And anything good, anything of merit, anything I or my husband, or children, or generations to come, accomplish is all because of you.

Thank you,

Esther

Unforgotten Kindnesses

Ahava Ehrenpreis

There are few moments in a woman’s life more extraordinary than her first look at her newborn baby. When the doctor handed me my son, there was a brief moment when I thought, He doesn’t seem like his brothers and sisters when they were born. The thought was dismissed in a haze of fatigue and joy. It took no longer than the brief transfer to a recovery room for the confirmation that, indeed, this little guy was not like his siblings. He had a dark complexion, no hair, a strong cry, and a different number of chromosomes.

I would like to say that I thanked Hashem for this opportunity to protect and nurture this special neshamah; that I knew Hashem must really love us to give us this opportunity and He never gives you more than you can handle. I wanted my money back. This was not the order I had made. This was not the deal agreed upon with the One Above. I don’t do special needs. It rained for the three days of my hospital stay, and the endless raindrops confirmed that even the Heavens were crying with me at this totally unfathomable turn of events.

My best friend called. Words weren’t really necessary. “What are you going to bring him home in?” she asked.

I hadn’t had a boy in quite a few years. “I guess I’ll find something in a box somewhere. Anyway, I don’t plan to go anywhere with him.”

She made no comment.

Fortunately, we are a people of required rituals, and I had to go through the motions of preparing for a simchah, no matter what my internal barometer read. Somewhere in the blur of those first few days of me operating on autopilot, the doorbell rang. It was my friend, Naomi Kunda a”h. I opened the door, her arms were laden with bags and boxes. I found myself opening packages with bright blue stretchies, yellow giraffes and red and blue teddy bears, pristine white sweater sets.

“Let’s see what will be just right for the bris,” she said. She held up a deep-blue velour stretchie. “You know, he really looks adorable in this.”

Yes, it was undeniable, he really did.

I put the sweater set on him, and took him for a walk down the avenue. It was spring, and gray skies and rain clouds had given way to sunshine and puffy white clouds.

Decades later, my son still looks handsome in blue.

Golden Deed

Malky Lowinger

In  New York, you can walk into a takeout store on Erev Shabbos an hour before the zeman, and order your seudah from soup to nuts. But in Yerushalayim, the city begins to shut down at chatzos, as it readies for Shabbos.

A beautiful concept. Except that, as an American family spending Yom Tov in a rented apartment for the first time, we had no clue. We’d landed the night before, and by the time we were ready to order our Shabbos fare, we discovered that the stores were closed. Oy.

Somehow, we managed to get a kugel, some deli, challos, and dips. But my toddler only ate chicken soup. And there was none to be had.

Eventually, we remembered that our sister-in-law’s sister-in-law lived upstairs in the same building. Yes, that’s a stretch, but when it comes to a cranky, jet-lagged toddler, you do what you have to do. An hour before Shabbos, I climbed the stairs and bravely knocked on the door.

The sweetest young lady answered and welcomed me in. Toys were strewn about, little ones chased each other — it looked like the typical hectic Erev Shabbos scene. I explained our predicament: Could she possibly spare a small bowl of soup (marak?) just for my little one (tinok sheli?).

She smiled some more and offered to show me the awesome view from her porch. Well, okay then. I oohed and ahhed at the view and excused myself, returning to my apartment with the same empty plastic bowl I’d taken upstairs.

So he’ll eat cereal, I thought. Worse things have happened. We were in Yerushalayim , the holiest city, on Shabbos, the holiest day. And that’s what matters.

As the sirens sounded, there was a knock on our door. My husband answered. Standing there was a bearded young man, smiling from ear to ear.

In his hands: A huge, piping-hot pot of soup.

We were speechless.

He placed the pot on our stove top. The aroma was intoxicating. We peeked inside: chicken floating amid a garden of vegetables and noodles. A complete Shabbos meal for a whole family neatly packaged in one big pot.

We protested, of course. This was obviously the soup meant for their own family. We offered to siphon off just a bit and return the rest, but no, our hero simply disappeared up the stairs. Just like that.

It was the best soup I ever tasted.

You Didn’t See Me

As told to Faigy Schonfeld

The foam crackle of egg cartons, clinking of gherkins against a jar of jam, the buzz of voices and children squealing. Items bump off the conveyor belt and the register dings.

As usual, I try to be courteous to the customers, while my mind is crunching numbers. Old Mrs. Winkler takes a while, fishing for coins, blowing at her cracked, reddened hands, cajoling the guy bagging her groceries to carry them home for her. A man in a short coat stands right behind her, shoulders hunched.

Mrs. Winkler finally shuffles over to allow the man to move up. He leans in toward me, speaks in whisper, “Tell me, how much do the Perlsteins owe? I’m, uh, helping out.”

My heart sinks. The Perlsteins. A father broken by illness, nine bewildered, hungry children. I could see the taut desperation in Mrs. Perlstein’s eyes each time she drops by for a bottle of milk. I’ve been extending their credit, but they are not the only needy customers. It’s getting difficult.

“Two thousand,” I say.

The guy retrieves a wad of bills from his wallet, counts out two thousand, and hands it to me. I do a double take; he’s nondescript, slim and clean-shaven, gray scarf hanging over a bomber jacket, the kind of guy who sits in the back of the shul.

“This is… really kind of you,” I say, finally. And in the way of heimishe grocery banter, I add, “Who are you? How do you know the Perlsteins?”

He digs his hands into his pockets and shrugs. “You didn’t see me.”

I watch him leave, climb into an old-model minivan.

To this day, I don’t know who he is, not his name, nor where he comes from, nor how he got to know the Perlstein family. He comes by on occasion, and, wordlessly, pays the entire bill. At some point, the younger Perlsteins started coming in daily to stock up on ridiculously overpriced nosh, and I feel compelled to share this with their anonymous benefactor.

His brown eyes go hard and he grips the metal edge of the counter. “Please. Don’t say a word. If this makes them happy, let them buy whatever they like.”

I agree, and since then when I pass the guy who sits in the back of the shul drumming his fingers, I wonder what hidden deeds lie inside.