“I won’t say anything. I’ll trust that just as Hashem hears my tefillos, He’ll hear my silence”

The chuppah had ended, and I headed out to begin the grueling 75-mile trip back home. Before I reached the parking lot, I was stopped by a man I didn’t recognize, who said his wife was waiting for me in the lobby.

The woman introduced herself and added her maiden name. I remembered Sorah G. from her time in Passaic 20 years ago, when she was a single woman just back from seminary.

She had secured a position as a second-grade morah and would occasionally ask me questions. Although we had lost touch, I recalled her situation.

She had rented an apartment with Leah H., and they became good friends. They only had one issue: Leah was obsessively and compulsively insistent that “everything had its place.”

If Sorah left her coffee cup on the counter in the morning with intentions to wash it when she returned, Leah would descend into a frenzy of anxiety. She would wash the cup thoroughly — multiple times — and place it back into the cupboard exactly where she determined it must go.

Leah, who worked from home, could tolerate no trace of disorder — even a siddur left on the table. It soon became apparent to Sorah that Leah’s obsessive and compulsive need for order was something out of the ordinary, and that it was making her friend suffer greatly. She decided to speak to Leah about it directly.

Leah broke down and revealed to Sorah just how agonizing her condition was and how she had attempted for years to get help. In the interim, though, Leah’s behavior put stress on their friendship.

Sorah reached out to me for advice. But aside from lending a sympathetic ear, there was little I could do.

Things came to a head one Monday morning near the end of the school year. Sorah had been up until 4 a.m. filling out her students’ report cards. When she finally finished, she put the completed report cards on the table and fell asleep on the couch.

When she awoke at seven, she quickly jumped to gather her papers and be on her way to school. But to her disbelief, she couldn’t find the report cards.

She frantically confronted Leah, who always started her day of cleaning and organizing at 5 a.m.

Leah agitatedly replied that some papers had been left messily on the table, and she had disposed of them.

Sorah looked at Leah incredulously. How could she have done that?

Leah had not known that losing the report cards could cost Sorah her job. Sorah was beside herself. Leah looked at her friend contritely, but clearly felt helpless and hopeless.

Sorah called me early that morning and asked me if she was allowed to inform the school that her roommate, who suffered from OCD, had discarded her completed report cards. Was this lashon hara? Was there a toeles?

During the all-too-brief time we had to discuss this difficult and sensitive issue, Sorah declared on her own, “I just finished teaching the class about the severity of embarrassing another person. I won’t say anything. I’ll trust that just as Hashem hears my tefillos, He’ll hear my silence.”

I was very moved by Sorah’s decision to put her friend’s honor before her own job. Not knowing what to say, I ended the conversation with the perfunctory brachah, “We should meet again at simchahs.”

Sorah headed off to school without the report cards, and indeed, she was not invited back the following year.

And now, 20 years later, here at the chasunah, was Mrs. Sorah surrounded by her children.

Before I could say a word, Sorah said, “Rabbi, do you see? The brachah has been fulfilled — we’re meeting by simchahs!”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1051)