Shuey looked up. Sholom Wasser didn’t normally talk this way. Entailed? Given to understand? Was he in a courtroom?

On a snowy Thursday morning three weeks after Chanukah, the single was released with little fanfare. It was a week late, but that was normal, Shuey knew.

And the bochurim, the young men whose voices gave the song its energy and life, were oblivious, sitting and learning in the beis medrash.

That suited Shuey Portman just fine. He closed the door to his office, wished that his Dell computer had speakers, and then closed his eyes and listened to himself sing.

“Pretty good,” he whispered. “You still got it, Ports.”

He would play it for the bochurim, of course, but only when he was ready. Maybe after seder, with real speakers. He tried to imagine the rosh yeshivah’s reaction and, even after playing out various scenarios in his mind, he still couldn’t predict how Rabbi Wasser would view this.

He’d heard about politics in yeshivos. From speaking to others in similar positions, it seemed like the tension was part of it and the arguments were inevitable, but this was the closest he and Rabbi Wasser had ever come to friction.

Fully expecting the song to be a hit, Shuey had preempted any stress by mentioning casually at breakfast that morning that the song was special and he hoped the rosh yeshivah would sit down to enjoy it. It was meant to be out any day now.

Shuey didn’t look up as he said this, buttering his bread for the second time and concentrating intently, but he saw the rosh yeshivah’s grip tightening on the handle of the coffee mug.

“Reb Yehoshua,” Rabbi Wasser said, “I have a serious question. Now that it’s all done, all behind you, the oilam sang and it’s going to be public and all that, don’t you think I should have been given to understand before what it entailed?”

Shuey looked up. Sholom Wasser didn’t normally talk this way. Entailed? Given to understand? Was he in a courtroom?

Shuey shrugged. “You know, it was more like an idea, and then one thing became another and here we are. I didn’t know myself what it involved. And the boys definitely enjoyed it — the spirit, the achdus. Look at Shlomo Bass, for him alone it was kedai, he’s a different kid, no?”

The rosh yeshivah looked at him, then shook his head slowly and said, “That’s mamash not the point.”