“Oh, come on, you know how Rabbi Wasser can get, why did you have to challenge him that way?”

L

ate on the night before Yom Kippur, Sholom Wasser left the house for a walk.

When people asked Penina how she juggled so much — running a busy office, little children, wife of a rosh yeshivah — she liked to say that busy people don’t have time to worry, so they manage better.

Now, Sholom realized how true that was. He was struck by the intensity of this thought: running a yeshivah was dinei nefashos, and it would have been wiser for him to be a plumber, or a cook, or a bookkeeper like Penina was; anything but this. Why had he done it?

He left quietly, not wanting to wake anyone, and gently closed the creaky front door and headed out.

Who was he, after all, to take responsibility for the growth of these young men? What about their happiness? Could he be sure he’d never hurt any of them?

He didn’t think he was the perfect mechanech. He knew that there were times when he was too intense, or too set on doing things his way. The old menahel had made sure that he knew that.

Once, Sholom remembered, the Hellenberg boy — Sholom had tried hard to be mochel and forget his name — had come into class late, sauntering in just in the middle of a Tosafos, just before the best part of the teirutz. Sholom hadn’t said much, he’d just placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and redirected him toward the door.

“Later, come back later, after recess, not now,” he whispered. The boy had turned again, heading toward his seat, putting Sholom in a difficult position. He couldn’t pull or push, but he couldn’t look away from this open challenge.

“I can’t teach with people coming and going at will, there are zemanim in this class, I need you to leave,” he said with as much pride as he could muster.

Hellenberg had shrugged and sat down, opening his Gemara.

Sholom was aware that all eyes were on him, that even the dozers and space-outs and doodlers were following the proceedings with interest. Later, he’d revisited the scene and tried to think what else he could have done: Perhaps he himself should have summoned up his dignity, smiled sadly, and left the room. That probably would have been the wisest course of action.

But he hadn’t done that.