Before and After

Yael Ancier

That phone conversation at Dave & Buster’s will never leave me

A

ugust 17, 2022, is a day etched in my heart forever. That morning, my husband, Chaim, set out on his third ride for Bike4Chai. He was excited, determined, and motivated by the cause. I was home in Minnesota with our four kids, trying to keep them busy and happy, and decided to take them on a fun day out to Dave & Buster’s.

The arcade was loud, full of flashing lights, buzzing machines, and children. My kids played for hours, darting from game to game. Cell service inside was spotty so I wasn’t paying close attention to my phone.

When we finally left, I pulled out my phone and saw several missed calls. They were from two of Chaim’s friends who were riding with him. My stomach tightened.

Then, another call came in.

I answered — and in that moment, my life changed.

The voice on the other end was serious. Chaim had had a medical emergency during the ride, the person told me.

My mind raced. My only question was, “Is he conscious?”

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. I knew, even before he answered, that it was bad.

Chaim had gone into cardiac arrest while biking, and he’d had to be intubated on the spot.

Since that day, nothing has been the same. Chaim survived, but he has an anoxic brain injury. This means that his brain was deprived of oxygen during the cardiac arrest and so was damaged. The reality of that is something I could never have imagined. Today, Chaim is nonverbal, nonmobile, and completely dependent on others for all of his needs. He’s 40 years old, but he’s living in a nursing home.

Each day is a fight — for his care, for his healing. We’re working tirelessly to bring him home, where he belongs. But there have been endless obstacles to achieve that, including much red tape, a painful reminder that the system doesn’t always work smoothly for families like ours.

Still, we push forward. Every day, we advocate for him.

That phone conversation at Dave & Buster’s will never leave me. It was the moment time split into before and after. It was the moment our story was rewritten without our consent.

And yet, from that moment forward, we’ve been lifted up by extraordinary chesed, by the unwavering support of our community. The meals they’ve provided, the visits, tefillos, kindness, countless acts of generosity carried us through the hardest days.

We daven. Our prayer remains steady: that Chaim Moshe ben Leah should have a refuah sheleimah. That one day, we’ll be able to welcome him home, not just into our house, but into our lives again, in the way we so deeply yearn for.

Every tefillah for Chaim Moshe ben Leah brings us closer to the miracle of his recovery. Amen.

Message on a Slip of Paper

Rebbetzin Aviva Feiner

It all began with words scrawled on a blue-and-pink slip of paper

MY

precious only child, Avraham Yeshayahu, was born on the  ninth of Shevat 2008 after 12-and-a-half years of marriage. When he was born, we were living our dream life in Sha’arei Chesed in Yerushalayim Ir Hakodesh, in the house we thought would be our home forever.

Shortly after his birth, Avraham Yeshayahu’s condition deteriorated and became critical. After spending six months in the hospital, he came home to his sweet bedroom, and a week later had his long-awaited bris. The following week, continuing to defy doctors’ predictions, he was deemed strong enough to fly, and we were on a plane to the United States for my youngest sister’s wedding. She was the last of our siblings to get married, and the only sibling’s wedding we attended with our own child, so it was a very joyous event.

A week after the wedding, we went to Camp Simcha, where my husband had been serving as the camp rav and I had a position as arts and crafts director. It was in Camp Simcha’s supportive environment of frum doctors, nurses, and paramedics, who were all our friends, that I was introduced to the techniques I’d need to care for my very medically fragile baby.

It was also there that we were advised to stay in the United States a bit longer. The United States offers such benevolent services for children with special needs under the age of three. I knew that my son needed speech therapy, OT, and PT. He also ended up qualifying for vison therapy and a special ed teacher. Early intervention laws require that all these therapies and services be provided in the child’s home.

I’d already met the system back home in Israel. I’ll never forget the Russian doctor who bluntly informed me at my first meeting that I should know, “There are other places for children like this, and if you don’t want to keep your son, you don’t have to.” I knew that in Israel, I’d be schlepping him from appointment to appointment by car, and because of the way the medical system functions there, I wouldn’t be able to choose his therapists, the way I’d be able to in America. (Most of the therapists who would end up providing my baby with intervention were people from the neighborhood, part of the frum community. In fact, they became my first friends in America.) It made sense to delay our return home.

We called our workplaces and explained that we’d be staying in the US for six months. We made the decision without thinking past that. We weren’t planning to leave Eretz Yisrael permanently. It was a decision guided by Hashem, and we never had any idea what was coming next or that it would last longer than that.

My parents lived in Riverdale and my in-laws in Lawrence, but we were unsure where we wanted to live, so we registered my son to my sister’s address in Queens, thinking we might rent somewhere near my sisters.

Then came the moment that would change the trajectory of our life.

My husband had grown up going to The White Shul, on the border between Far Rockaway (which providentially is considered to be part of Queens) and Lawrence, Long Island. Unbeknownst to us, that summer, the position of rabbi of the shul opened up.

There was little cell phone reception at camp, so most phone calls went through the office. The bulletin board next to it was covered with pink-and-blue slips with “So and so, please call so and so back” scrawled onto them. It was a fine day in my arts-and-crafts room when somebody gave me a little pink-and-blue paper that read, Rabbi Feiner, call Gavriel Heller*. I stuffed the note in my pocket and brought it back to my bunk to give to my husband. I recall handing it to him and saying, “Gavriel Heller? Isn’t he your old yeshivah roommate’s brother? What do you think he wants?”

Hameichin mitza’adei gaver had plans for us.

Gavriel was the president of The White Shul. He wanted my husband to fill in as the rabbi for the Yamim Noraim, after which they’d begin the arduous search to permanently fill the position of rabbi.

And here we are, beginning our 18th year as rabbi and rebbetzin of The White Shul! I like to say that my husband became the rabbi of the shul he grew up in without being the rabbi’s son.

Over the years, I’ve watched children grow up and marry, and wonderful people age and pass on. I’ve watched my husband lead a kehillah and neighborhood through many a simchah, and unfortunately, through many challenges — Hurricane Sandy, Covid, October  7….

In the beginning, I was one of the youngest rebbetzins in town, which came with its own unique set of challenges. I’m now an experienced rebbetzin, who advises others on how to fulfill the role of rebbetzin in terms of supporting their husband and being mechazekes the women’s community and girls.

And it all began with a phone message recorded on a pink-and-blue slip of paper on a regular summer’s day!

The Voicemail

As told to Golda Keilson

“A plane just flew into the World Trade Center!”

IT

was September, and I had been on unpaid bedrest and then maternity leave since early March. My husband and I literally couldn’t pay our bills. I called my father and stepmother, Rachel, and asked them if we could borrow some money, just to get us to the end of the month.

It was a burning shame, having to ask my parents for money. But while my father was reticent, he was generous, and Rachel was more than happy to help us, too.

My father had met Rachel when I was in my early twenties. She was someone who always looked to infuse goodness in the world. She would give homeless people a sandwich and coffee. She volunteered as a clown in a children’s hospital. She was the best step-grandmother in the world, and she loved our children more than anything. She jumped at the chance to spend time with them, and she always made it an experience — once, she showed up with an entire script, puppets, and a puppet theater!

On Sunday, September 9, Rachel brought over the money. We sat together in the kitchen for a while as I unloaded the stress of the last several months, crying as I bemoaned our financial state. As always, Rachel was there to comfort me.

Once I had collected myself, the conversation turned toward happier things. “I’m going to my daughter’s house after work on Tuesday to see the proofs from her wedding,” Rachel told me. Her daughter had gotten married just a few weeks earlier.

But there was no after work on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, I was in the car after driving the kids to school, my baby in the back seat, some inane talk show playing on the radio.

Suddenly, the broadcaster interrupted himself.

“Oh, my G-d!” he shouted. “A plane just flew into the World Trade Center!”

I gasped. What a horrible accident!

Just 17 minutes later, it happened again.

“A second plane hit the Towers!” the broadcaster cried out.

My blood chilled. This wasn’t an accident.

Who do I know who works in New York City? I thought frantically. I didn’t know much about New York at all. My father and Rachel are there. Doesn’t Rachel work around there?

I couldn’t reach my father, and I didn’t feel safe alone right then. I drove with my baby to my mother-in-law’s house, where we sat and watched the buildings smoking and smoking, until…

The Twin Towers imploding was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.

It didn’t end there. The Pentagon was hit. Then Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. What was happening in this country? Where would these attackers strike next? Florida? California? Was nowhere safe?

I have to get my kids. I bundled the baby back into the car and headed to their school. Other parents were there, too, shellshocked and white as ghosts. “Everyone I know is okay, how about you?”

I think so? I don’t know!

On the drive home, with my three kids and two cousins in the backseat, I tried calling my father. Once. Twice. Three times. But there was no service in New York.

Then the phone rang.

It was my husband.

I remember exactly where I was. Route 1, northbound. Wendy’s, coming up on the right. Passing the Park Shopping Plaza on my left.

“I couldn’t reach Dad or Rachel,” my husband said, an undercurrent of panic in his voice. “But I called our answering machine, and your father had left a message. He said… he said that Rachel was at work in the World Trade Center. He hasn’t heard from her yet.” My husband’s voice cracked. “Shari, he was crying.”

All at once, the air in the car vanished. I choked, unable to draw in breath through the crushing panic in the middle of my chest.

“I can’t breathe!” I gasped out. “I can’t breathe!”

“Should I come get you?” my husband asked, worried.

“No! I’m going to pull myself together.” I kept driving. I didn’t want to scream or cry in front of the kids. Instead, I frantically whispered, “Please let her be okay. Please let her be okay. Please let her be okay!”

The rest of the day was a blur. I think I went back to my mother-in-law’s house. I think my husband left work to be with us. I think I went home to listen to my father’s message myself.

Some people in the buildings got out. Some people called for help, called their loved ones, left messages for them.

Not Rachel. There was never going to be a phone call.

I thought about how I had just spent hours complaining to her about my material problems. I thought about how excited she had been to see pictures from her daughter’s wedding. I thought about how proud she had been when she got her job — a prestigious position for a prestigious company in a prestigious building.

Of all the people who worked on her floor of the World Trade Center, only six didn’t make it out. Rachel had just had foot surgery; maybe she felt like she couldn’t make it down the stairs. Maybe she was helping someone else. I’ll never know.

Hearing my husband’s words on that fateful day was undoubtedly the most traumatic moment of my life. Even the phone call I received from the police, ten years later, saying that they identified her body through advanced DNA testing, couldn’t surpass that moment.

I never erased the voicemail my father left.

From the Sound of Your Voice

Yocheved Traub

“Your father wants to talk to you”

I

remember the table — brown, fake wood laminate. It seemed big to me, and it took up almost all of the space in our kitchen. It barely fit the five of us with one end against the wall, though it usually only sat three: my sister, my brother, and me. We’d be eating dinner when the phone on the wall with the long spiral cord would ring. It happened every night, without fail. My mother would go over to answer.

“Hi, honey.  How’s it going?” Pause. “Mm-hmm.”

Then it was our turn. “Your father wants to talk to you.”

His clear, confident voice would be on the other end.

“Hi, how ya doin’?” he’d ask.

“Good,” I’d reply because everything really was good.

“Who loves ya?”

“You, Daddy!” I’d answer joyfully, confidently.

“Love ya! Let me talk to your sister now.”  And the receiver would be passed on.

See, my father traveled a lot — all over the country, then all over the world. His job was to establish relationships with foreign governments so the country could set up telecommunications companies in places like Russia, India, and China. He was at launches in South America for the satellites our cell phones rely on today.

And every night, regardless of time zone, whether he was about to get on a plane or just getting off a plane, he’d call at dinnertime. Always at dinner. He’d ask one, maybe two questions. The conversations were so short — really, barely conversations at all.

When I was in seminary in Israel, I asked him what I’d always wondered. Why did he call every day? The calls were so short.

“I needed to hear your voice,” he answered. “Just a word or two. I could hear whether you were happy or upset, hopeful or frustrated, just from the sound of your voice.”

I didn’t believe him. With all my teenage wisdom, I couldn’t fathom how he’d really known how I was doing from a word or two.

It’s a summertime Erev Shabbos. I’m busy shaping challah, frying schnitzel, turning the kitchen upside-down before I turn it right-side-up again. My cell phone rings, a number I don’t recognize flashing across the screen.

“Hello?” I ask tentatively.

“Hi, Ma?”

I sit down at the kitchen table. My youngest son is calling. It’s the first Friday of his first year away at camp.

“How ya doin’?” I ask.

“I guess I’ll survive,” he answers.

And I hear it. His smile. Everything is okay and will be good. With all my parenting wisdom, I just know it from the sound of his voice.

After we hang up, it’s my turn to dial.

“Hi, Ma,” I say.

“How ya doin’?” she asks.

“I heard from Yosef today,” I answer.

She’ll ask how he’s doing, but she already knows — from the sound of my voice.

Multiple Brachah

Chaim Schwartz

After waiting for so long, we finally had good news

WE

had been married for a couple of years without children.

After many tefillos, tears, trips to gedolim, doctor appointments, and treatments, the doctor finally called us with the incredible news: My wife was expecting. But this wasn’t the moment that changed everything.

Shortly after the call, we went to the doctor’s office in New York City where he took a look at the ultrasound and reported an update.

“Twins!”

We were thrilled with this double brachah.

Then the doctor pointed to a third dot on the screen. “That was almost a third baby, but it wasn’t viable,” he said.

We laughed at the thought. After waiting for so long, we were going to have twins!

Up until this point, I had never missed a doctor’s appointment. But my wife felt that the next appointment was really going to just be routine, and I shouldn’t leave kollel that day to join her. I was in the middle of learning when I reached into my pocket and saw several missed calls — and a text.

The text read, “Avi. There’s a third.”

I ran out of the beis medrash to call my wife. She was still sitting with the doctor, and we started talking this through. I was half laughing and half panicking. Okay, mostly panicking. Triplets. Like, three of them. The next few hours were a blur.

What I do remember clearly was the next phone call… my mother-in-law, who called me because she couldn’t reach my wife. (She had taken a nap [or fainted] for a few hours after hearing the news.) “Avi, how did the appointment go?”

“Um…”

“Did she lose one of the babies?”

“No, no, no! Baruch Hashem, no!”

“Did… did she gain another baby?”

“Um…well….” (I didn’t want to steal this exciting announcement opportunity from my wife.)

“Okay. Okay. We’re going to be okay. We’ll be okay. We’re going to get through this.”

Baruch Hashem, we did get through it — through bedrest and Covid and multiple false alarms — until finally, our three babies were here!

The Way Home

Adina Glen

Our home felt unpredictable and unsafe

IT

was a regular Monday, and I was looking forward to evening, when my mother would be hosting a party for my grandmother’s 61st birthday.

First, my husband of eight months and I had an appointment with a well-known psychologist, someone whom I hoped would give us some clarity. I was trapped in a marriage ruled by control and blame, where my attempts to speak only echoed back as accusations, and I clung to the hope that this therapist might offer us a lifeline forward. At that point, our home felt unpredictable and unsafe for me, and I knew something significant needed to change.

We got home from the appointment about eight o’clock. I hadn’t prepared supper, and planned on eating at my mother’s, but not wanting to upset my husband, I carefully asked him if he’d prefer I buy food or go to my mother. Sruly said he wasn’t hungry; he was going to shul to learn.

“Please let me know when you’re on the way home,” I asked.

He nodded and left without another word.

I walked the few blocks to my mother, mixed with hope and despair. The psychologist had validated me and I felt seen, but his words also hit hard; I was facing something serious, and if I stayed in the marriage, it would be a long grueling climb. For now, though, I focused on the party. I was looking forward to catching up with all my cousins and aunts — people who didn’t know the load I was carrying.

At ten the party wound down, and I offered to stay to help clean up.

“I’m fine, Ma. Sruly hasn’t messaged yet.”

My mother gave me a tired yet grateful smile, and I started gathering the vases of baby’s breath and glasses of water, checking my phone for any messages from Sruly.

Nothing.

At 10:45 there were still no messages from my husband letting me know that he had gone home.

I was frustrated but not worried. This was typical for Sruly. He rarely kept me updated about his schedule, and I’d stopped asking. I’d done that too many times, only to be rebuffed. I had learned to expect communication only on his terms.

At 11 p.m., my parents’ home was back to its usual sparkling state. I took some leftovers I thought my husband would enjoy and started my walk home.

On the way, I called my friend Kayla. We were both in the same stage, and we were laughing about the horrors of the never-ending laundry and piles of dishes when my phone buzzed.

“Wait, Kayla, that’s my father. Give me a sec.”

I switched calls. “Hi, Ta.”

“Adina?”

I stopped walking. My father’s voice sounded off. Heavy.

“Adina, it’s over. He went home. You can turn around now.”

I froze. Sruly had left. I didn’t have to go back to him anymore. For the first time in forever, I could breathe, could step into a place that was truly safe. I could go home.

You can turn around now.

The words echoed in my head as my father kept talking, his voice filled with emotion. Beneath the heaviness, I could clearly hear his relief. It’s over. His sadness for what I’d been through. His gratitude that I could finally come home.

He spoke in low tones, his words a distant hum to the emotions rising in my chest.

He went home. You can turn around.

The bag of food I’d prepared was suddenly heavy, but my heart felt weightless. I’m safe. He went home, and I can go home, too. I’d fought hard to keep my marriage, but now the fight is over. He went home.

I switched back to Kayla as I walked up my parents’ steps.

“Kayla,” I whispered into the phone. “I’m getting divorced.”

The words sounded strange on my tongue. I knew I was leaving one battle for another, but this time, I wasn’t afraid.

Summer Camp

Esti Perlman

My daughter had no friends

“M

ommy?” A small voice piped up from the back seat as we drove home from school shopping a few years ago. “What about sleepaway camp next summer?”

Sleepaway camp? Where was this coming from? “You’re a little too young, sweetie. You’re only going into fourth grade. Let’s wait a few years, okay?”

“Mommy, no. I’ll be going into fifth next summer! There must be some camps that take my age.” Shevy’s voice lowered. “Mommy, please. I don’t want to go back to Shemesh*.”

Ah. Now I understood.

It had been a rough two years for Shevy since we’d moved to our out-of-town community.  My husband and I absolutely loved our new shul, our neighborhood, and our friends. My other kids had adjusted to the new school. But not Shevy.

We’d had two years of tears on the way home from school, two years of Shevy unable to find partners for projects and being assigned to girls who told her they’d rather be with someone else. Two years of Shevy being told there was no room for her in games at recess. I was told she needed more self-confidence, but it’s hard to develop that when you’re constantly being turned down. We met with the school and they were understanding, but change with the girls was slow to come.

In Camp Shemesh, she was stuck with the same girls from school, and the teen counselors weren’t equipped to deal with these issues.

And now, this request for overnight camp. “Let’s find something else for next summer. What about a local art camp?”

“Mommy, you and Abba won’t even think about overnight camp? It sounds so fun. I just want to try it.”

I paused. Did I really have a reason to say no? Was she too young? I came up with a compromise. I told her she had to have two sleepovers at friends’ houses, to see if she’d be okay staying overnight away from home, then I would start looking into camps.

Minutes after we got home, she was on the phone, asking a neighborhood friend for a sleepover. And I did my research. Only a few camps even took her age, and one looked promising. Most of the girls were more modern, but the hashkafah of the counselors and the hanhalah matched our own, and the program and atmosphere sounded perfect.

With trepidation, I filled out the form, entered the credit card number for the deposit, and clicked “apply.” The school year proceeded, worse than the previous one. While I fielded new issues, we got that precious email. We were in!

A week after school ended, I flew with Shevy to New York and put her on the camp bus. She seemed nervous but optimistic. I said Tehillim on the plane home. What if these girls ran all over her? What if it was worse than school? Could she ever come back from that? I kept davening. Please Hashem, please, let her have a good time.

And then, about a week after camp started, my phone rang. I was in the car by myself, on the way home from dropping the other kids off for the day at good old Camp Shemesh.

“Hello?”

“Mommy? It’s me! Shevy!”

I pulled over the car to be able to give her my full attention. “Hi, sweetie! How’s it going?”

“Mommy, it’s amazing! Okay, so yesterday, we did a foot show! That’s where you sit on the top bunk and you act out a play! With feet! And then at barn time — so that’s when we also hold the bunnies — a chicken ran in! And Noa and Maya — they’re identical twins but they have different shoes, also necklaces — they caught the chicken! Wait, do you want to say hi to Noa? Because they’re trading off talking to their parents.”

She took a breath and put Noa on the phone. They giggled together and told me about a late-night ramen party on the basketball courts. “Did I tell you about tefillah troupe? We learn about davening! With Puppets! And then, each morning after dance—”

I was having trouble processing all of this. Giggling? Calling a friend to the phone? “Wait, so you like it?”

“Mommy, I love it! So after dance, we colored on each other’s shirts, but it started pouring, so we took garbage bags and…”

On she went, for almost 45 minutes. I was so moved that I took a picture of the screen in the car that showed the phone call, an attempt to freeze that moment in time. My Shevy, the one who was miserable during almost every car ride home, was having the time of her life. With friends! I had never heard her talk this effusively. Something had shifted. This was not the same child I’d brought there.

The month went on like this, each phone call more enthusiastic than the previous one. I flew in for visiting day and saw it all: the foot show and the twins and the necklaces and the joyous ease with which my daughter interacted with the other girls and the loving staff. I couldn’t get over it.

When Shevy came home, I was terrified that this new confidence would just go away once the school year began. I confided in a friend whose husband was a rebbi at another local school, this one smaller and more modern. She gently broached the subject with me — maybe Shevy would be happier there? There was a chevreh of kids from our circles, including her own, and the hashkafah of the school was solid.

My husband and I spent the rest of the summer doing more research. In the end, right before school started, we decided to switch her.

It’s been two years. Shevy’s had three amazing summers at a wonderful camp where she comes home ebullient and excited. She’s about to start her third year at the new school, where she’s been accepted and has made many friends. Where she’s maintained the fun-loving nature that blossomed that first summer at camp.

Although, Baruch Hashem, I’ve gotten many other such calls since, I will never forget that first call from camp. When I answered the phone, my daughter’s future was on the other end.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 961)