Even though Chaim had cringed at the idea of a photo shoot, hadn’t wanted the entire publicity stunt, she had to admit the photographer was talented. He had captured Chaim at his most alive.

Now the entire family was commenting about their choshuve brother.

Wow, just 41 and already on the mizrach vant of the oilam haTorah!

Think we should buy a red carpet before his next trip to America?

Did you notice? HaGaon HaRav!!!! A gaon mammash! Nisht pashut!

Nu, is it time for a frock and homburg yet?

Think of Zeide Shloime looking down from Shamayim at the kollel in his name….

Mommy Weiss responded with lots of smiley emojis and some hearts, too.

“Chaim, come look!” Perri called him over.

Chaim approached; eyebrows raised.

“You never told me that your father’s photographer actually came down to the kollel,” she said, voice mildly accusing, as she pushed her laptop toward him. “Here, look.”

Chaim skimmed the email chain quickly, not even bothering to sit down. Then he nudged the computer back toward her.

“Nice, no?” she said warmly. It was nice, seeing her husband celebrated publicly. She knew, deep down, that he was really special, but in daily life he was just quiet, passive Chaim, dutifully following the script. The articles, and that photo — they reminded her that Chaim was a leader sometimes. Even if her sisters- and brothers-in-law had to make their witty comments, she could tell they were proud.

He shrugged.

She looked up at him. The eyes — so vivid in the photo — were now opaque.

“I guess maybe not,” she said slowly.

Back in the early years of their marriage, when life had been a vague haze of nighttime feedings, diaper changes, and miserable teething bouts, Chaim’s parents made it a practice to take Chaim and Perri out for supper during their yearly visits to Eretz Yisrael. It should have been a nice event — they always chose a high-end restaurant and ordered generously — but there was invariably an underlying tension. Every year, when they were midway through the main course, Tatty cleared his throat and asked, “So, what are your plans?”

Perri locked her hands together in her lap and looked at Mommy’s handbag, or her diamond ring, or the water glass. Anywhere but at Chaim, who seemed to lose his words under his parents’ scrutiny.

The first few years, he gave his father a halting report of how much he’d covered in kollel and what he had planned for the rest of the zeman. It seemed to suffice. By the time they reached their fifth anniversary, though, Tatty pushed back.

“That’s nice, very nice,” he said, pushing aside his steak with clear dissatisfaction. “But what are your plans? Yechiel already had a few properties at this age, he was already on his way.”

Chaim’s face flushed. “My plans — my plans are….” He swallowed hard. Then he picked up his chin and looked his father in the face. “So the emes is, I really want to go on learning, long-term. I know I wasn’t considered the biggest masmid or baal kishron when I was growing up, but these past few years were — they were different. I feel like pieces are coming together for me, I have a system of chazarah that really works, and I’m getting a sense of the bigger picture. It’s like — I’m able to hold on to what I learned and see new layers in it when I add on. This is what I want to keep doing. I know where I want to get and I want to keep going. If I can.”

It may have been the longest speech Perri had heard him give. She was startled, but also moved, by the passion and resolve that animated her quiet husband. She’d always seen him as a follower — dutifully drinking up the guidance and instruction of Reb Mattis, running out to hear shiurim, carefully reviewing notes of other people’s shiurim. This Chaim — Chaim who had concrete plans, who was actively charting a path for the future — was someone different.

Mommy must have been moved, too. Her mouth trembled a little as she patted Chaim’s shoulder. “Like my father,” she said softly. “The minute he finished with the jewelry for the day, he locked up his office and ran straight from the train to the beis medrash. That’s what he lived for.”

Then she looked toward Tatty. “You remember, right? My father — how he just wished he could learn the whole day?” she asked, and Perri thought there was a plea in her voice.

Tatty was quiet. He stabbed his steak with the wooden-handled knife and shifted it back and forth, eyebrows low.

“I hear you,” he finally said. Then, motioning toward Mommy, he asked, “Some more Diet Coke, Ruchy?”

The next evening, after the kids were in bed, Tatty and Mommy came over to say goodbye before flying back home. For once, Tatty wasn’t interested in Perri’s babka buns. He motioned to Chaim and Perri. “Sit down a minute,” he said.

Chaim and Perri pulled up chairs next to the couch.

“We spoke to Reb Mattis today,” Tatty said.

“Reb Mattis?” Chaim asked. “How — when — you know where he lives?”

“We figured it out,” Tatty said, a triumphant half-smile playing on his lips. “You’ve been talking about him since you were a bochur, the Purim seudos and the chaburos and the Shabbos meals… so we tracked down his phone number late last night, and he told us to come by during bein hasedorim.”

“That house!” Mommy had to interject. “Does a paint job really cost so much money? I mean, his wife was very sweet, she put out cake and tea. But that house….” She shuddered.

“Anyway, we had a nice conversation,” Tatty went on. “Reb Mattis says he knows a lifer when he sees one. He knows America, he grew up there, too. He said that most guys reach a point where they should be going back and figuring out how to balance learning with parnassah…. But every now and then, he meets a yungerman who’s different. He said it would be a terrible thing to pull someone like Chaim out of the beis medrash. That if we could commit to this, it would be a real zechus for us, for the business, for the family.”

Mommy nodded. Was her mouth trembling again?

“So, first thing,” Tatty was back to his businessman tone. “I’m thinking, enough with the rental already, let’s find an apartment for you to buy. Something big, comfortable, with room to grow. We’re planning to come back in a few months, for Shloimy’s upsheren, right? Try to have at least two options to show us by then. If you need a realtor, let me know, Shimmy Rosen from shul just bought his kids an apartment in Yerushalayim, he might know someone good.”

Perri tried not to gape. Chaim collected himself first.

“Tatty, Mommy, I… I don’t even know how to say thank you—” he stuttered.

“So don’t,” Tatty said roughly. “Just make us proud.” Then he looked at this watch. “Ruchy, we have to leave soon, last time there was a long line at check-in and my feet were killing me by the time we made it to the gate. Believe me, I have no patience to stand there for an hour again.”

Just make us proud. That had been Tatty’s only condition for his open-ended support and unspoken but clearly implied approval. Was it so bad if, 13 years later, he needed some tangible way to justify that pride? Was it so terrible that he’d sent a photographer to capture his son doing what he did best?

Apparently, it was very terrible. “I can’t believe my father did this to me,” Chaim murmured. “I’m just davening that none of the guys in the kollel see that article. I can’t believe it.”

“Your parents are good people,” Perri insisted. “Think how much they do for us.”

Chaim’s lips remained firmly pressed together.

“Look, your father is your father. This is his personality,” Perri tried again. “Just like he wants to grow his business because he believes in it, he wants to grow your kollel.”

“But the value of the learning isn’t measured by how many guys are in a kollel,” Chaim protested. “Who says I even want more? Maybe it’s more impressive, but I never did this to impress anyone. That was never the point.”

“I know,” Perri said, even as she wondered. Did she really? The articles, that photo — something inside her had definitely thrilled at the proof, there on her screen, that Chaim wasn’t just one of the crowd.

To be continued….

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1037)