“He left us! Sar HaTorah has left us!”

I

was feeling pretty proud of myself — a woman in her second trimester sponging wine off the floor after a raging Friday Purim seudah. It had been a success, my children had had the time of their lives, my husband was in that cute drunken state where he was trying to help but really just needed to sleep it off before Kabbalas Shabbos, and I was grateful.

Grateful for my family, grateful for a job well done on a Friday Purim, and grateful that Shabbos was coming and I was only having ten bochurim and a family that night (I may or may not be crazy; it’s up for debate).

But before that, I was going to clean my home, bathe the children, and get ready. The cholent was bubbling, the hotplate plugged in, and Shabbos was in the air.

And then the door burst open. A Sephardi bochur we didn’t know — but hey, on Purim, everyone’s invited — barged in, grabbed my intoxicated, sleepy husband by the shirt, and sobbed loudly and brokenly, “He left us! Sar HaTorah has left us!”

And then he turned around, ricocheted off the door frame, and was out, leaving footprints in my sponja and broken hearts behind.