Like now, Ayala had been frustrated at her inability to fully articulate what it was that was bothering her. “I hate the idea of taking someone’s tzedakah money for myself,” she’d murmured then and repeated now, even though she knew it was the least reasonable of her arguments.  “Don’t you get how yucky that feels?”

Bracha shrugged as she examined a red pepper. “Sorry, no. How is accepting a salary to run an organization that’s serving a communal need taking tzedakah? In my old job, half of the school’s budget was from fundraising. Should I have felt uncomfortable that my salary was being paid from tzedakah money?”

“Okay, but this feels different. It’s not coming from a pot of money raised for a general budget. It’s… it’s Dini doing a chesed for me, her nebach friend.”

Bracha’s lips suddenly tightened and she waved the red pepper in Ayala’s face. “What, it’s okay for you to do chesed for the entire world, but it’s beneath you to accept a chesed from someone else?”

Startled by her friend’s anger, Ayala chose to withhold her response — but I’m not a taker. It sounded babyish, even to her own ears… but it was true.

“It’s not just that,” she said instead. “It’s also… who said I want to give up my speech job? And if I do, I want it to be my decision, not imposed on me by someone else.”

Bracha’s face relaxed. “That I hear,” she conceded. “You do like it, and you’re good at what you do.”

Ayala mechanically filled a bag with cucumbers. Did she like it? Was she good at it? Yes, she supposed she was, but she enjoyed her Chesed Tzirel work much more, and felt a much greater sense of accomplishment from that, hands down.

So what was making her so hesitant?

Her phone rang; she quickly threw the half-filled bag of cucumbers into her cart.

“Hello, Chesed Tzirel,” she said automatically — and then blushed at herself. Had she, like her twins, taken to answering her phone this way without even realizing it? Maybe her twins had even picked up the habit from her? Did everything in her life really revolve around her organization?

Sure enough, the caller was for Chesed Tzirel. “Hi,” she said hesitantly. “My name is Leora Schwartz. I’m sorry to bother you but I need help. My husband was just diagnosed—” Her voice broke and she started to sob.

Ayala closed her eyes. She was no longer in Osher Ad; she was next to the unknown Leora, feeling her pain and terror as she heard a doctor giving a diagnosis that she couldn’t quite absorb.

She waited patiently for the woman’s cries to subside.

“I’m so sorry!” Leora gasped at last. “But… lymphoma — I can barely say the word — cancer…” Her voice broke again. “S-someone said to call you. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m glad you called,” Ayala said. “The first thing you need to realize is that today, cancer is not a death sentence. The medical treatment today has advanced incredibly, and b’ezras Hashem, your husband will get through this and you’ll enjoy many long years together.”

Ayala dimly registered Bracha throwing her curious looks, and turned away to focus more fully.  “But for now, you and your husband are in for a challenging time. You took the right step by reaching out right away for support — that’s the only way to get through this. We’re totally here for you, and I want you to promise to call me whenever you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Leora said softly. “Thank you, that means so much.”

“Now we need to discuss the immediate help you need. Who else is in your family? Do you need meals? Cleaning help? Someone to stay in the hospital?”

When Ayala finally hung up, she had to blink several times to reorient herself. Supermarket — cucumbers — Bracha.

Her friend was staring at her, a funny expression on her face. “You’re so good at that.”

Ayala shrugged uncomfortably. “The poor woman. Imagine what she’s going through — her husband just diagnosed with cancer.”

Bracha looked down at her hands. “Yeah, to have a husband who’s sick…” she murmured softly. Then she looked back up at Ayala, and clutched her arm. “If you’re able to help these families, how can you not? How can you not give all your time and resources to them?”

Ayala turned away, confused by her friend’s intensity. Wasn’t she doing good as a speech therapist, too? Did she really have to make such a drastic change in her life, when everything had been working perfectly fine until now? Okay, some days were more hectic than others, but that was the case for everyone! Was Bracha actually implying that it was her obligation to accept Dini’s offer?

Dini… she needed to call her now. They had to get the ball rolling on the Schwartz meals; she couldn’t let herself get sidetracked by minor issues like salaries when there were people who needed help.

Dini slammed the phone down so hard that Shuki, lying on the couch, flinched.

“Can you take out your aggression in a different room?” he croaked.

Dini glared. “That was Ayala, but I decided not to answer it.”

“Your passive-aggression, then.”

Despite herself, her mouth twitched, but then her fury mounted once more. Who was he to tell her how loud and angry she was allowed to be? He wasn’t even supposed to be home in the middle of the afternoon! It was his problem if he’d decided that now, when she needed his emotional support most, was the perfect time to come down with a man-cold.

“If you’re too sick to handle noise, you can go into your own bed,” she snapped.

“But then who would be here to stick up for your poor phone?”

Dini made a face. He’d been treating the entire Ayala fiasco as a big joke, which utterly infuriated her. To his credit, when he’d come home that first night, bearing her favorite bottle of chocolate liqueur to celebrate her first fundraising call, he, too, had been properly taken aback to hear Ayala’s reaction. But he’d quickly rallied, insisted she deserved to drink to her win either way, and laughed that her friend had more stubborn independence than he’d ever given her credit for.

It was that flippant laugh that had broken her. How could he not have understood just how devastated she’d been by Ayala’s dismissive response? How humiliated she’d been? As if all of Dini’s hard work had been nothing, nothing!

“I’m going out for a walk,” she said, suddenly feeling the need to move, to get out of her home space if not her head space.

Grabbing her phone, she quicky left. Let Shuki handle the kids if he was home anyway.

She walked rapidly, though without any conscious destination. Ayala! Shuki! No, not Shuki, it wasn’t really him she was angry at, was it? Ayala! Why did she always have to come off as so superior, as such a tzadeikes? Couldn’t she for once accept that Dini, too, had something to give?

Her shoes beat a staccato on the pavement, as she expertly sidestepped strollers and the little children hanging on to their handlebars. Even back when they were roommates in seminary, Ayala had been stubborn in that way. Dini still remembered her shock when she’d rented a tzimmer for Chanukah vacation and invited some friends to join her. “No need to chip in, my parents are totally fine paying for the whole thing,” she’d said blithely. She hadn’t even needed to check with her parents to know this was true; it was what Reiners did. Her friends had been perfectly happy with that arrangement — except Ayala. “I feel funny taking your parents’ money. Why should they have to pay for me?” And she’d refused to go until Dini had accepted her 300 shekels — an utterly ridiculous and meaningless gesture, in Dini’s opinion. (She’d given the money to the first tzedakah collector she encountered the next time she’d gone to the Kosel.)

That was Ayala. But now this wasn’t simply a matter of choosing not to accept a proffered gift; it was ingratitude, pure and simple!  I’ll have to think about whether I want to accept it. That was it! No, “Wow, this is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me!” No, “I can’t believe you actually pulled this off, Dini! That must have been incredibly hard!”

Dini blinked, as she felt a lump forming in her throat. Yes, she wasn’t ashamed to admit that she’d been looking forward to the appreciation. That she’d needed the compliments. This had been one of the first initiatives she’d ever taken upon herself, and had carried through all on her own. Was it so wrong to expect a basic thank-you from her beneficiary?

(We don’t do chesed for the thank-yous, Ayala had quoted over the years, when they’d encountered the infrequent Chesed Tzirel client who kvetched about some perceived lack of service.)

But Dini had never totally bought into that. When you devoted so much time to helping a stranger, wasn’t it fair to expect a decent measure of gratitude in return?

Her phone vibrated in her hand. She squinted through the glare of sunlight. Ayala again. She sighed. She couldn’t avoid her forever. Who knows? Maybe she was calling to apologize?

“Hi,” she said stiffly.

“Dini! I’m glad I finally caught you!” Ayala sounded a bit harried but otherwise normal.  “Listen, a new case just came in, from Sanhedria Murchevet. The husband was just diagnosed, they need our help. Can you please get started on arranging meals?”

Dini gaped at the phone. That was it? As if nothing had happened between them? Just an assumption that, no matter how deeply she might have hurt Dini, she could still count on her to drop everything for Chesed Tzirel at any time of the day or night?

I’ll have to think about whether I want to accept it.

Dini pursed her lips and the words came out, before she could think about whether they belonged to a Dini of ten years ago. “I’ll have to think about whether I have the time to take this on right now.”

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 864)