Pinchas wanted to be a commander in the army but became the head of the kitchen instead.

He wanted to annihilate the enemies that had hurt his brother and set all the wrongs in the world right.

He was fighting for justice.

He woke up in the morning fighting and lay down at night fighting.

He fought with the fruit vendor and the taxi driver.

But worst of all he fought with his wife.

One day unable to hold in the supposed pain of his situation any longer he went to an old neighbor to share or unload all the wrongs about his wife and to ask advice about how he could “fix her.”

In the middle of his conversation with the neighbor the phone rang in his home. Rachel his wife seeing the call was from her husband’s number immediately answered.

“Hello?” she said. “Hello? Hello?” She said it louder and louder until she realized that although she could hear her husband he couldn’t hear her.

Pinchas had no idea he’d dialed his wife he had no idea he’d dialed anyone. His phone must have hit something in his pocket and automatically dialed.

“She’s crazy” Rachel heard her husband say. “She doesn’t cook for me she doesn’t clean up she doesn’t take my advice.” Rachel listened on. She just stayed on the line her heart not even broken just cold and numb; this time just cold enough by one degree to freeze her over.

Suddenly she heard her husband’s voice rise “Oh no!” he said and the line went dead.

Pinchas didn’t know if his wife had listened or what exactly she’d heard if anything or everything.

When he came home that day she noticed the signs of his guilt. She’d known him long enough to know when he was hiding something or thought he’d been caught doing something wrong.

He wasn’t fighting.

Rachel didn’t say a word.

It was Erev Shabbos so there was nowhere to go and nothing to do about it anyway but that phone call had pushed her to a place she’d never dreamed she’d reach.

She planned to leave.

No fireworks no parade. She’d just pack a suitcase and make a silent exit.

Pinchas and Rachel ate their regular Friday night meal.

Her husband didn’t notice a thing. She was quiet and hospitable showing no signs of the effect the phone call had on her. She held up like a princess now sure of her place in the world. Sure it wasn’t with him.

It felt good. Freeing settled and clear. She had never been so clear before.

The next morning Rachel served her husband tea before shul and over the tea he said “I had the most amazingly real dream last night.”

Rachel thought it was going to be another one of those war dreams where the world gets destroyed but they escape.

“I had a dream” her husband said with a faraway look “I mean I’m calling it a dream but it was so real as if my mother were standing next to me in real life and she—”

Pinchas paused for a moment.

Rachel wondered if she was dreaming and was now in some rendition of Fiddler on the Roof. But her husband wouldn’t play with his mother’s memory. His mother was a real righteous woman. Pinchas continued.

“She was wearing her flowered housedress and she had a huge smile but at the same time she was very serious very serious.

“And she said to me ‘Pinchas. Stop fighting.’$$$separate quotes$$”

Rachel felt her mother-in-law had clearly gotten the message Above that she Rachel was serious and her son had crossed all boundaries. Hashem must have sent Pinchas’s mother because Pinchas had no idea of her feelings her plan to leave or that she’d heard that entire conversation.

She also noticed a serious change in her husband at that moment.

Rachel decided to stay and to give it another chance figuring if her mother-in-law had gotten permission to come all the way from the Next World to speak to her son it must be pretty important to “stop fighting.”