He couldn’t tell the bochurim the story, of course, but he would have to find a way to let them know what Hashgachah means

O

ne of the bochurim had made a joke, Penina Wasser guessed, creating a large “ezras nashim women’s seating” sign and taping it to the back of the mechitzah. If she were the rosh yeshivah, her talmidim wouldn’t be making jokes on Rosh Hashanah, but what did she know, she was just the wife, right? She thought of sharing the comment with Henny Portman, but then decided against it.

Rebbetzin Wasser, it said, next to Rebbetzin Portman. That was it. There were chairs for their daughters. Penina sat surrounded by her own children, enjoying the space — there was that. In Lakewood, Sholom had always requested her seat too late, and even when she was able to go to shul, she usually ended up at the back of the overflow section. Here she had all the space she could ever need: the beis medrash — the old hotel dining room — was large, with high ceilings and huge windows, and the back quarter of the room was sectioned off for her and Henny Portman.

She knew how hard Sholom had worked to make it feel like Rosh Hashanah. When her nephew Ephraim had gone to pick up the children from Monsey, Sholom had sent him to get a white paroches. Sholom and the boys had hung it up with such pride that Penina had felt compelled to take a picture. Not wanting to embarrass her husband, she’d slipped through the lobby as if she needed something from the yeshivah kitchen, then quickly snapped it on her phone.

She was happy with the picture, it captured her husband’s beaming face and the white paroches, so that one day — when the yeshivah was over — they could enjoy the memories. It would be fun for the kids, she thought, maybe some of them would even remember it. She could see them all sitting at home, in their Lakewood home — it was rented out for the year, but she’d quietly told the woman who took it, a harried lady with twin babies who’d just landed from Eretz Yisrael and was desperate to get out of her in-laws’ basement — that the lease was legally until Pesach and then they could discuss what followed.

She didn’t tell Sholom any of that; he was too busy to care about the small details, she reasoned.

But also because she was Penina Wasser, the coper. She’d supported her husband financially since their chasunah, she’d made Pesach two weeks after giving birth, and now she’d moved her young family to Nowhereland, New York, so that Sholom could be a rosh yeshivah.