Shawls? I’d been prepared for messianic Jews, and they wanted to talk capes?

My fingers hover over the phone, as I wrestle with myself. Why am I so reluctant to make this call?

It’s not as if we’re strangers, just old neighbors out of touch for years, not counting her invitations to bar mitzvahs and weddings (the trip to Bnei Brak always precludes my attending). I vacillate for another minute, nails pressed into nervous palms, then coax my fingers to dial the number jotted on a slip of paper.

“Hello, Miriam?” I ask in my most polished Hebrew, “it’s Elana Moskowitz, your old neighbor from Yerushalayim.”

For years, Miriam’s boys had been fixtures in my home, a spirited trio who knocked faithfully every weekday afternoon, asking to play with my son. I saw it as a privilege; they were scions of a towering Rabbinic family. The oldest among them even bore the exact name of his great grandfather, a celebrated European gaon.

Though a decade my senior, Miriam and I chatted easily in the park, on the bus to work, and outside our building. She frequently inserted Torah thoughts into our conversation, but her words were so natural that they didn’t trigger my usual allergy to preachy talk.

In the years we shared a building, Miriam taught me many things, but her greatest lesson emerged from our encounter with the women in shawls.

It was late evening. My children were in dreamland, the day’s chaos swept and scrubbed away, when a pair of smiling women appeared at my door. “Can I help you?” I asked, taking in their modest attire, dark shawls concealing their figures.

“May we speak with you for a minute?” they asked sweetly.

Only then did I notice the sheaf of pamphlets each woman clutched in her hand. Instantly, my alarm bells went off. What if they’re closet missionaries, I fretted, knuckles tightening on the door handle. I’d better not let them in.

But they looked too frum, too utterly Yerushalmi to fit that bill.

“Um, sure,” I replied, while valiantly trying recall the number of Lev L’Achim, the anti-missionary organization.

“We want to share some thoughts with you and some reading material on…”

My hand clenched the doorframe, as I braced myself for their heretical sales pitch.

“…the importance of wearing a shawl when going out in public,” they concluded with gentle smiles.

Shawls? I’d been prepared for messianic Jews, and they wanted to talk capes?