“I don’t want to learn with you anymore. I don’t want you talk to me at all.”

There is no one whom HaKadosh Baruch Hu does not test. He tests the rich man to see if his hand will be open to the poor, and He tests the poor man to see if he can accept suffering and not get angry, as is said, (Yeshayah 58:7), “And the downtrodden poor you shall bring home”… and if the poor man withstands his test and does not kick, then he will have a double portion in the World to Come, as is said, “For You shall save a poor people…” (Shemos 20:2).

It happened again that week, on Wednesday at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon. Hershel Friedman closed his Gemara, and pushing the shtender aside, stood up and slowly moved toward the door of the beis medrash of Yeshivas Menachem Ozer, Jerusalem.

He moved slowly, hoping the other boys — bent over their Gemaras — wouldn’t notice him. For several weeks he’d been doing this, always on Wednesday, always at the same time, always five minutes after his chavrusa — Binyamin Gletzer — went out.

Hershel stepped out of the beis medrash, closing the door softly behind him, and then broke into a run down the corridor that led to the exit door from the building. His heart was pounding.

Unlike Binyamin, Hershel did not leave the building. No. Quickly, he climbed the steps leading to the dormitory rooms on the second floor, burst into his room and rushed to the window facing the courtyard. And there they were….

Binyamin and … his mother.

Breathing heavily, he hid himself behind the curtain, in case Binyamin should glance up. All he needed was for Binyamin to catch on to the fact that Hershel was spying on him whenever his mother came to visit. With one eye, he peered past the curtain at the proceedings below. Binyamin appeared to be telling his mother about something that had happened in yeshivah that week, and she answered him with a smile and a loving caress. Hershel felt suffocated. His breath grew ragged, and the tears waited attentively for the order to come forth. Soon enough, it came. Binyamin’s mother handed him a small package. He opened it eagerly, and even from the second floor Hershel could see it was cake. Neat slices of dark brown, chocolate cake. Binyamin’s eyes lit up, and spontaneously he gave his mother a kiss on the cheek as she hugged him tightly.

Hershel’s tears waited no longer. The scene turned into a blur as they flowed from his eyes. His ears heard nothing but wild screams. No, not screams — dreadful, inhuman shrieks. Oy, I’m burning! Breindel, my darling, where are you? Hershel, mein Hershel. Oy! Oy! Shema Yisrael…. And then, silence. And before Hershel’s eyes, down there in the yeshivah courtyard, the flames danced like crazed demons, the flames that the Nazis — yemach shemam — had lit in the silo in the little village near Chenstochov where his father, his mother, his sister and he, little Hershel, were hiding.

He never would know how he managed to escape from the burning silo and hide behind a wagon loaded with hay. He couldn’t remember where he’d ended up, who finally picked him up and saved him. He couldn’t remember anything. He knew nothing but what his gaping eyes saw once again, the silo on fire — the red flames lashing out towards the silent, darkening sky. And his mother’s desperate cries for help….

Now, he stood behind the curtain, his fingers clutching at it until they hurt. Close to fainting, he heard himself murmuring, “Mammaleh! Mammaleh!” And he felt her final embrace, just before the accursed Poles had given their hiding place away to the Germans. Now he was the one standing there below in the courtyard, with his mother. And she was the one giving a hug, to her Hershel!

He lost control. Unaware, he pushed the curtain aside and stood there in full view at the window. With envy consuming his soul and his flesh, he watched Binyamin and his mother saying good-bye. There — she was giving him another kiss. He couldn’t bear it … he …

Suddenly, he froze in place. Binyamin had looked up. He’d seen him. His eyes showed shock and dismay.

Hershel was terrified. What now? He’d been exposed. Overcome with shame, he collapsed onto his bed helplessly.

***

Binyamin said a hasty good-bye to his mother and left her. With hurried steps he returned to the beis medrash. The hubbub of learners’ voices greeted him as he opened the door. He hurried to his place, to the shtender that awaited him.

“Where’s Hershel?” he asked the boys behind him.

“Don’t know… he didn’t come back. Every week he comes back just before you do.”

Binyamin stared at them. “Every week?”

The pair behind him exchanged glances of silent consultation, and one of them spoke:

“Every Wednesday when you go out, he goes out a minute later. And he always comes back a few seconds before you do, opens his Gemara and starts shuckling. But we can tell he’s not really learning. Only this time, he didn’t come back. I wonder why….”

Binyamin said nothing. His thoughts wandered away.

The other boy added, “When he comes back, he looks all upset. What do you fellows do out there?”

Binyamin was silent. With sudden decisiveness he walked out of the beis medrash and headed upstairs, to Hershel’s room. Slowly, he opened the door. Hershel was sitting on his bed with his legs stretched out, his back leaning limply against the wall, and his head hanging loosely forward. He must have heard the door opening, because he lifted his head for a split second to see who it was, and then let it drop again, without a word.

Binyamin hesitated by the door. He and Hershel were good friends, or so he’d thought until now. Their backgrounds were different — he was a sabra from Petach Tikva, and Hershel was a Holocaust survivor, from the unspeakable “there.” But somehow, in the six months they’d been learning together, Binyamin had never really noticed the contrast between them.

Still, under the outer wrappings of their friendship — at a deeper level — perhaps there was a wall that separated them, unseen, but impenetrable? Perhaps there was.

Binyamin took a few steps into the room. Hershel didn’t move. Binyamin sat down on a chair not far from the bed.

Hershel made no response.

“Hershel,” Binyamin ventured in a gentle tone, after a long silence. “Hershel?”

No answer. Hershel didn’t move a muscle.

Binyamin took a deep breath. He was still reeling from the discovery that Hershel had been watching his meetings with his mother. What was going on? Feverishly, his mind groped for an answer. Did his mother remind Hershel of his own mother?  It was torture, not knowing.

“Hershel, answer me! We have to talk!” His tone was more insistent now.

“Please … leave me alone!” Hershel spat out, still not moving.

Binyamin refused to yield. “Well, if you don’t want to talk, how about coming down to the beis medrash and we’ll go on learning?”

Then the bombshell fell.

“I don’t want to learn with you anymore. I don’t want you talk to me at all.”

The words were like a punch to Binyamin’s face. He didn’t know what had hit him or why, but slowly, he got up and left the room, stumbling a little.

Back in the beis medrash, he went to the mashgiach.

Half an hour later, Hershel appeared in the beis medrash, and without a word, he found an empty corner — far from Binyamin — and sat down. At suppertime, he asked a friend to switch places with him in the dining room.

Binyamin was utterly confused and hurt. What am I supposed to do? he thought. I can’t make any sense out of this! What have I ever done to him? Am I supposed to apologize because I have a mother and he doesn’t? I don’t get it.