I contacted a local rav knowledgeable in matters of Choshen Mishpat, hoping he could step in. But his response was disheartening. Yes, from my side of the story, it sounded like the money promised was still owed to me. But no, there was nothing he could do. Unless I wanted to settle the matter in beis din, but opening a case would cost more than what I was owed. He advised me to drop it.

But I couldn’t. The money wasn’t even the biggest issue — it was the feeling of being wronged and cheated, which hurt just as much as the financial loss.

Several years passed, and we moved to another town. Our financial situation improved, and we weren’t living paycheck to paycheck anymore. A few thousand dollars didn’t sound like such a huge amount anymore.

But I couldn’t fully let go of what had happened. Every time I thought about it, the frustration resurfaced. I regretted the trust I’d naively given them and vowed I’d never let anyone do that to me again.

One day I was listening to a shiur about emulating Hashem’s ways. The rav spoke about the importance of treating others with kindness and flexibility, and how being forgiving and letting things go could lead to Hashem treating us with that same measure of grace.

Something stirred in me. As I sat there listening, I started to search my mind for any grudges I might be holding on to. And then it hit me. That college. I realized I’d been holding on to this resentment for years, allowing it to weigh on me, even if I hadn’t always been conscious of it.

Right then and there, I made a decision. I was going to forgive them. I wasn’t going to carry this burden anymore. I decided I’d let it go.

And something remarkable happened. The resentment that had gnawed at me for so long just lifted. The bitterness that had simmered for years disappeared; the sense of being discounted, ignored, was gone. I felt lighter, happier.

In hindsight, I could understand that they must have been in a predicament and under enormous pressure. I couldn’t hear that point at the time, so distracted was I by the injustice of it, but I could hear it now.

I discovered something profound. The only person who had been suffering all this time was me. The people involved had most likely long forgotten about the situation, moved on with their lives, while I had carried the frustration and pain like a heavy, invisible burden.

I wasn’t doing something for them by choosing to forgive; I was doing something for myself.

And in doing so, I discovered just how freeing forgiveness could be.

I never got the money back. But it doesn’t matter to me anymore. By letting go, I found a deep sense of peace. And that was worth far more than whatever money they could’ve returned to me.

Friendship Adrift

Liz Kepler

Aviva and I were friends at first sight.

We met in seminary, were college roommates, and soon best friends. The strong bond we shared continued into adulthood. I got married several years before Aviva, and she was not only a frequent Shabbos guest when we lived in the same city but also a frequent flyer to our home when we moved out of town. She served as an extra set of hands when I bathed my firstborn for the first time in a turkey roaster pan in lieu of the not-yet-arrived baby bathtub. Aviva flew across the country to help babysit that same baby a year later when I needed to have a medical procedure. And on my end, I was there for her during the twists and turns of several career changes and many years of dating that culminated in a cross-country drive for me to attend her wedding while many months pregnant with our fourth child and unable to fly. Quite literally, we went to great lengths for each other, and all out of love.

After her marriage, we remained close for several years. The in-person visits ended, but we talked on the phone for hours, supporting each other through life’s ups and downs. After almost two decades of best friendship, there was every indication that Aviva was a forever friend… until, without warning, she all but disappeared.

The warning signs were there for a while that she wasn’t juggling the manifold aspects of adult life well. She was diagnosed in adulthood with ADHD, and while it helped her to be medicated and get therapy, the uphill battle of juggling adult life with this new diagnosis took its toll on her. Even though she worked only part-time and lived with her husband and one child near her hands-on helpful parents, she still seemed to be constantly overwhelmed.

At the beginning of Covid we would still talk on the phone, but the calls were initiated by me. Once in a blue moon when she needed something from me (advice, a listening ear, etc.) she would suddenly reach out to me as if all was normal.

At first, I didn’t mind the one-sidedness because in every relationship there’s a certain seesaw element where one serves as the counter-anchor to launch one in the air while the other is down. Still, input and effort in a relationship is ultimately its oxygen, and when she stopped even responding to my messages (which were mostly centered around checking in on her), I began to feel taken advantage of. Those two “all-knowing” check marks on WhatsApp that let you know your recipient has read your message became a curse. I could literally see myself being ignored, and after our shared history, it hurt. As the months went by, the wound grew deeper.

I incidentally heard that she was getting together with friends in her area periodically and so it wasn’t that she had totally seceded from the friendship-verse. She would surface to make an effort out of the blue, such as when she sent me flowers for my son’s bar mitzvah. At first this gave me hope, but when I tried to reach out to thank her and was once again ignored, it just made me confused. Had I done something wrong? Struck a nerve without knowing it? Or was something deeply wrong in her life?

To investigate this last possibility, I turned to a sibling of hers who lived in my town. I asked if she and her family were healthy and okay, and she responded in the affirmative. When I mentioned the nonresponsiveness, she expressed puzzlement and later reported to me that she had actually done some digging by weaving it into a conversation:

“Have you spoken to Liz in a while? I just ran into her and she asked about you.”

“Oh, Liz! I really should reach out!”

This made me even more confused. Were we friends or not? Did I never cross her mind?

Eventually I realized that the bitterness, sadness, and ultimately anger I felt at getting abandoned by someone who had once felt like a sister was ultimately only hurting me.  My pain was like a dog whistle — I was screaming my disappointment into the universe, but she wasn’t tuned in to my wavelength to care. Once I realized this, I worked on coming to a place of acceptance and opened my eyes to the wonderful new friends in my local area who I knew I could deepen the friendship with more easily.

After all, who ever said a best friendship had to be forever? A Hallmark card? Life was about changing, growing, and evolving, and friendship can be the same. When I stopped being bitter about losing my best friend, I was able to put so much more positive energy into nurturing the new friendships around me and several people organically filled in the Aviva-starved gaps.

I had put Aviva out of my mind almost completely until one random morning before Rosh Hashanah 2023 when I got a text message from her: “I was thinking of you and missing you. It’s been way too long since we’ve talked, Liz!! I’m so sorry for that on my end, but I wanted to let you know I’ve been thinking of you and love you and will try to call any moment that’s free!”

Had she sent this a year or two ago I might have been excited to hear from her, but honestly, this just confused me. How could she think we were even still friends?

I decided not to sweep things under the rug this time and to just be straightforward. I responded: “Thrilled to get this message. It’s been so long since we’ve been in touch and the past several times I reached out you didn’t even respond, so in my heart I made peace with the fact that you didn’t want to be friends anymore. Is there something I did? I’d love to clear the air.”

She responded almost instantly: “Wait, what??? You thought I didn’t want to be friends anymore??? No, things have just been super crazy…. I’m so sorry. I thought I had communicated but very well may not have due to said craziness and my brain being all over the place, but truly I thought you knew.”

At this point we arranged a time to speak.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I get it,” I said. “But you have to realize how vulnerable I feel in this friendship now after being ghosted so many times. I really need you to make more of an effort and be the one to reach out for the next short while until I get over feeling burned.”

“I’ll try, but I might not remember. Please know it’s not you, its me.”

We caught up for the next hour or so. It all seemed genuine, but in the end even after I expressed my feelings and what I needed for the short term, our friendship was not prioritized. Almost a year later, Aviva has not made an effort to reach out nor did she even take a minute to RSVP to my daughter’s wedding invitation, let alone send a mazel tov when the day came.

I have come to a place of understanding that Aviva is not capable of what I consider friendship at this time, but the odd part is that I’m pretty sure it’s a totally different reality on her end and that she still considers me a best friend.

In the aftermath, after talking to many people about their needs in a friendship, I’ve realized that some people prefer friendship Aviva’s way and others my way. Some people would rather not have what they consider the burden of reaching out and staying in touch, but are thrilled for a lighter friendship that is there when they run into each other or are in the mood for someone to go out with. Others want a deep relationship where they can rely on the other person and know the other person is thinking about them and cares to invest time in their lives. Neither kind is necessarily “better,” it just depends on your preferred flavor and being self-reflective enough to seek out people that feel the same.

Ultimately, in forgiving Aviva and navigating her disappearance from my life, I had to face the age-old conundrum of how to deal with imbalance in a friendship, how to meet people where they are and not expect them to be someone they are not, but also how to protect your own heart and move on when something is no longer working for you.

The significant change in my ability to forgive Aviva came when I no longer took it personally, no longer saw it as abandonment, but rather as a friend who just doesn’t have the bandwidth to have friendships right now. Many years ago, I came across the idea that a woman can only truly succeed at any given time in two of the three main domains of life (outside spirituality): Her family, her career, and her friendships. In other words, one is always going to go by the wayside, given there is only so much time and energy in the day. And so for Aviva, friendship was that one.

I remember Aviva fondly, but have found other relationships to fill the gap. I’ve learned to speak up for my needs for dual input and to be reasonable about what I expect and what people are able to give. And often that’s all we need. It’s not giant waves that keep a ship afloat, it’s small ones that come consistently. The same input charts the course of friend-ship.

Second Chances

As Told to Lori Holzman Schwartz

MYbaby was two months old, and I had a terrible infection. I was exhausted and at the end of my rope. I called my doctor, and he sent in a prescription for me. I called my husband, Michoel, at work and asked him to pick up the medicine on the way home.

“No problem. I might be home a bit late, but I’ll get it.”

“Okay,” I said, “just be sure to pick it up before the pharmacy closes at eight.”

“Sure thing.”

I called my husband at seven; it went straight to voicemail. I called him at eight; same thing. At nine he came home.

“Do you have my medicine?” I asked.

“Oh, Tanya, I’m so sorry. I got so busy working on a project, it completely slipped my mind.”

I burst into tears. “You never think about anyone but yourself. It’s always about you and what you want. You never put me first.”

Michoel crossed his arms. “Oh good, here we go again. Time to list all Michoel’s faults. You’ve been over this enough that I think I know them by heart. I’m a failure. I’m a horrible husband and father. What else is there?”

I walked away disgusted. How had we gotten here? The photo on our wall showed me in my white wedding dress and Michoel in his suit smiling for the photographer. We were glowing, the joy we felt reflected in our eyes. That had been the happiest day of my life. I spent all night dancing with my friends, certain that I had found my bashert.

I was 20 when a cousin of mine introduced me to Michoel, 23. Everyone liked him. He was just a nice, friendly guy. Every time we went out, we’d meet people he knew, and they’d stop and slap him on the back or give him a fist bump. “This is a great guy,” they’d tell me.

Michoel was sweet, he was frum, he was fun to be around. He had a ton of friends, and they were all nice guys.

Our first year of marriage was good, too. We had our fights, but they were normal shanah rishonah adjustments. But once I had my baby, Dassy, everything started falling apart. I realized that Michoel was lazy, thoughtless, and inconsiderate. I was the one up with the baby all night, and Michoel would sleep soundly and never think to get her in the morning so I could sleep in. If I asked him to give her a bottle at six a.m., he’d do it, but then he’d spend the whole day complaining how tired he was and how he hadn’t gotten any sleep all night. When he came home from work, he’d say, “This house is a mess.”

“If you brought your dishes to the sink, and put your laundry in the basket maybe it would be cleaner,” I told him.

“My mother kept the house clean with five boys.”

“You want your mother to take care of you so badly, go live with your mother,” I’d snap.

Things were really bad, and not getting any better. We fought every day, sometimes late into the night.

We went to one session of marital counseling, but afterward Michoel refused to go back. “All you ladies just gang up on me. The man is always wrong. The woman can never be wrong. What do I need to pay someone two hundred fifty dollars an hour to hear how bad I am? Can’t I just hear how bad I am from you for free?”

I told my mother that our marriage was in serious trouble. “Having a new baby is very hard. It’s normal for there to be some tension,” she told me.

But I really felt it would be easier for me to manage on my own than have to take care of my baby and deal with my husband. After one late-night blowout fight, I asked Michoel for a get, and he readily agreed. Our lawyers worked out the details of the divorce, and in a few months it was finalized.

After the divorce, I started dating again, but nothing came of it. Either the guys didn’t like me, or I didn’t like them. Nine out of ten dates were a one and done.

I focused on my daughter, my family, and getting my business off the ground.

Surprisingly, Michoel and I were able to co-parent Dassy amicably. We both put her interests first and tried not to fight around her. I got Dassy during the week and Michoel got her weekends, but we lived in the same neighborhood, so it wasn’t hard to switch things up if we wanted to. We also were on the same page hashkafically, so we agreed on which school to send her to.

I think Michoel was surprised how hard it was taking care of Dassy. He’d call me to ask me questions about her feeding and schedule. He had never had to do the hands-on work before, and I think he started to realize how much work I had been doing and why I had been so stressed and snappish. When I wasn’t around, he actually stepped up to the plate to take care of our daughter. I was surprised how well we got along post-divorce.

Over the five years we were divorced I saw Michoel grow from a boy to a man. He had been immature when I married him, but as he was approaching 30, I saw that he had grown a lot. I had grown, too. I realized I had also contributed to the breakup of our marriage by harping on all the things he did wrong and never praising him for what he did right.

I’d just started thinking about asking a shadchan to ask him if he was interested in trying again, when I heard that he was seeing someone. I was so jealous I could barely see straight.

When I heard that it didn’t work out, I jumped at the chance. Four months later we were remarried. Our daughter was at the wedding.

When we stood under the chuppah, I knew that we had both forgiven each other for the hurt we had caused. We both had grown so much since the first time we had stood here.

We’ve added another child to our family since then, and Dassy is crazy about her baby brother. Now Michoel and I speak to each other respectfully when we have arguments, but we also have a lot less of them.

School Mismatch

Zehava Siegler

Many people recall their high school years with sweet nostalgia. But others, like me, would prefer them buried and forgotten.

As an eighth grader choosing high schools, the world was my proverbial oyster. I had a strong academic record, winning prizes in science and writing, was athletic and artistic, interested and engaged in class, and had a strong core group of friends. My sister, a grade ahead of me, attended a popular high school that fed from places like my elementary school, and I determined this institution was a perfect fit for me as well.

But from the outset, my parents made clear their dissatisfaction with this school. I honestly can’t put my finger on what troubled them about it; perhaps they were turned off by some of the student demographic, whose last names were featured on building cornerstones and synonymous with prominent charitable foundations. However, this high school provided a rock-solid education and resided in a beautiful, modern edifice, tucked away in a serene, grassy neighborhood. And this was where I imagined I would thrive.

My father, who traveled from our quiet suburb to a noisy New York borough for work, had his eye on another high school situated closer to his workplace. When I attended their open house, I was unimpressed. Not only was the school housed in a crumbling, concrete building whose predominant décor was a motley combination of ugly brown and gray, but since it shared a building with its elementary feeder school, the high school was confined to one long, narrow, locker-lined hallway. Even worse, they were inaugurating a uniform just in time for my freshman year.

But it was the student body that concerned me most. I regarded them as more closed-minded than my grade-school classmates, and far too citified and tough for my sheltered suburban upbringing. I dug in my heels. I wouldn’t go.

My parents were too smart to unilaterally insist I attend, so they relied on another tactic, one which I now understand they saw as harmless, but in reality was an inappropriate burden for a 13-year-old to carry. My sister’s school was around $4,000 a year more in tuition than this one. “Why not let us save money, and we’ll gift you with…” and here they proceeded to list two luxury items I pined for, “because you saved us so much money!”

It never occurred to them that now I felt burdened with responsibility for my family’s assets. Nor did they ever anticipate what would finally tip the scales for me.

One evening, while still in limbo about my high school destination, I overheard a conversation from behind the closed door of my parents’ room. “I don’t know how we’ll be able to afford it if she goes there,” my father gravely intoned, referencing my sister’s high school. “It will be the end of us!”

At once, my stomach turned to stone. I was too young to understand that his outburst was less about money and more about some other work-related stress he’d encountered that day. To my early adolescent mind, my family’s solvency depended on my high school choice alone! How could I be so selfish to insist on attending my school of choice if I’d be financially toppling my family in the process?

I made up my mind. I would give in.

The next morning, I informed my mother of my change of heart, conveniently omitting the catalyst to the sudden shift. My parents were overjoyed. I hoped for the best.

But unfortunately, the best never came. For four long years, I endured the companionship of girls whose abrupt city manner was so unlike the muted subtlety I craved. Though they were fun, exciting girls, they were simply not people with whom I naturally connected.

I hated everything about school, starting with the 50-minute daily commute that catapulted me to a parallel world. I hated the coarse urban neighborhood with its narrow houses hunched together. I hated that even in the spring, the overgrown buildings withheld the beauty of the sky, and I hated the miniscule patches of struggling grass, poor substitutes for the verdant yards at home. I felt trapped in the browns and grays of the grimy city and yearned for the gentle suburban landscape of trees and grass.

When summer arrived, I’d finally exhale and reclaim a longed-for version of myself. At camp, I reveled in a tight group of girls, people I connected with on a soul level, who verified the person I truly was, not the caricature of myself I’d assumed at school. And when the realization dawned that most of my summer friends attended the school I’d wished for, I had a moment of deep clarity: This was simply a case of misplaced context. Right girl, wrong school.

My parents certainly weren’t clueless during my high school years. They couldn’t ignore my demeanor. Early on they capitulated and offered me the chance to switch to the school I’d originally pined for. But by then, my confidence was drained from so many months of feeling alone, and I feared another major change wouldn’t bode well. So I stayed, glumly trudging through the days and weeks and years that paved the way to graduation.

Initially, forgiveness wasn’t on the radar. Seminary, like summer camp, surged with girls who were natural peers, and I was too preoccupied with learning, cementing friendships, and absorbing the rich spirituality of Eretz Yisrael to think of residual anger toward my parents. But in the ensuing years, the latent anger sizzled out like lava streams. But I didn’t think it wise to discuss it with them, and part of me was ashamed that a four-year interval from decades ago was still so intensely relevant, that it held me submerged beneath misery and regret like a diver’s bell.

Interestingly, it was my eldest son who unwittingly delivered the cure. Years ago, when we were young and dumb parents, we’d sent him to a cheder we felt was superlative. Eager to shed our “American” identities, we enrolled him in an institution where, as the only English speaker, he was surrounded by Yerushalmi rebbis and schoolmates who couldn’t fathom his American pedigree. In anguished retrospect, too many things about that institution were an outstanding mismatch, and I shudder when I consider the sense of otherness he endured in those impressionable elementary years. In conversations we’ve shared about cheder, he describes an experience that shares so many commonalities with mine, though it’s animated by another language and set of cultural norms. And I’d have to be profoundly blind to miss the parallels between us, between my parents and myself, to unsee how I repeated the injustice I’ve held them so accountable for.

I failed my son. I did. And like his mother, his personhood is undoubtedly pockmarked with the scars of “right person, wrong school.” But peering back on that decision in the rearview mirror, I know with hard certainty that at its molten core was our innocent desire for his success. True, we were clueless; true, we were ill-informed; but malicious we were not. We were mistaken, just like my parents were, way back when.

And for mistakes, there is always room for forgiveness.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 914)