Four teens share their experiences of how they escaped from their personal prisons… to freedom

Exodus. A prison term so long and unbearable that salvation seemed inconceivable. Yet Klal Yisrael was led to freedom by the only One who holds the keys to true Geulah.

There are all kinds of prisons, and even in America, land of the free, individuals can experience the feeling of being locked in.

Four teens share their experiences of how they escaped from their personal prisons… to freedom.

Miri’s Sentence

Absent. Such an innocent, even typical occurrence. I never expected it to mess me up the way it did, but boy did I choose a bad day to be absent.

Toward the beginning of the school year, our mechaneches, Mrs. Marcus, divided us into pairs of “Chumash buddies.” Three times a week she gave us hachanah time in class, and twice a week we got worksheets for homework. We were basically “chavrusas” during hachanah time, and were responsible to help each other make up missed work if either of us was ever absent or needed help.

I was well-matched with my buddy and we were doing great together, until one Monday, exactly a week into second semester, I was absent. First period, Mrs. Marcus announced a buddy shakeup for second semester, and gave the class half the period to choose new buddies, the only “rule” being that everyone had to pair up with someone new. It would have been a cinch for me had I only been there, because I have lots of friends whom I like studying with and who are my type. But by the time my old buddy called me to fill me in that night, everyone had a new buddy — except for me and the only other girl who had been absent that day, Chavi Gross*.

I knew I had a problem on my hands, but I had no idea what to do about it. Listen, I’m not a baby, I can study with girls who aren’t my type, but this was just… extreme. Socially, we were in way different circles, and even though Chavi’s smart and a good student, as am I — if I may say so myself — we don’t operate on the same wavelength at all. Yet to show up the very next day and try to change things would obviously be rude, as if I had something against Chavi, which, believe me, I don’t. Besides, realistically, who in the world would I switch with, even if I could? If it were any of my friends, then their buddy also wouldn’t fit with Chavi, and if it were one of Chavi’s good friends, what would I gain? No one was about to switch with me at that point anyway.

So I figured I’d just have to make the best of it and see where it would take me. We started off, and what can I say, we were mismatched. Girls in our class who hadn’t really paid attention to the fact that we had both been absent on the big day looked over at us in surprise, like, what in the WORLD are they doing together?!

By two months into second semester, I was going out Of. My. Mind. with Chavi. It was challenging doing hachanah with her, when I wanted to fly through the work and get it done, while she was painfully methodical (at least compared to me). For example, when she bumped into a word she didn’t know, she wrote it down in a special section of her binder (Help! See what I mean?). So on one hand, this was becoming tortuous, and I was wondering how I was going to do this all year long, but on the other hand, Chavi’s a nice person and I really didn’t want to make her feel bad.

I was totally stuck.

Miri’s Keys to Freedom

My “salvation” came about in a way so remarkable that I never could have envisioned it. Amazingly, Chavi did something excruciatingly brave. One night she called and invited herself over to my house. That was a surprise, because outside of being Chumash buddies, we had little to do with each other. But the conversation she started was even more surprising.

“Look,” said Chavi openly, “we both know that we are in this sticky situation together, so instead of ignoring it for the rest of the year and suffering, why don’t we just put it out there and see what we can do to get through this. Let’s try each saying our piece without getting too personal or sensitive, and hammer it out.”

I almost fell off my chair. It took so much guts, and shocked as I was, I was also super impressed, amazingly grateful, and most of all, I felt sooooo relieved. No, we didn’t become great friends, though my admiration for Chavi was way up there after this encounter. The conversation was definitely awkward, but great all the same. And we did it. I told her how it was for me (okay, so I shared more like 80 percent of it, I really didn’t want to insult her; I wonder if she was doing the same). But we came to a great place about how we felt about our partnership and figured out some compromises for how to make it through the next three months. Which we did, and did well.

Miri, tenth grade