When Chana had been a teen, she’d opted out of going to shul more often than not. She hadn’t found any spiritual fulfillment on the women’s side of the mechitzah, had instead found a few friends (Rivky, always Rivky, which is probably why she’d wound up marrying the menahel brother). Her bed had been far more tempting a treat on Shabbos mornings, the rare day when she could sleep late.

Now, as an adult, Chana finds much more fulfillment in shul, in davening in silence without interruption, closing her eyes to let the chazzan’s voice wash over her. She indulges her own teenagers today, lets them stay home with their cousins ostensibly to babysit the little ones, and shul on Shabbos is her own quiet refuge.

By the time Chana makes it to shul today, knee still sore, Mussaf is over and the rav’s derashah is filtering out of the set of double doors at the top of the stairs. Rivky brushes away some dirt on Chana’s face, squinting critically at her. “I think you look fine,” she decides. “Just twist around your tights so the run in the back isn’t so noticeable.”

“You would die before you walked around with runs in your stockings,” Chana points out, hobbling across the room to lean against the wall and pull out a siddur.

Rivky laughs. “Well, I’m stupid and vain sometimes,” she says easily. It’s true, but Rivky is so cheerful about it that Chana can’t hold it against her. Rivky has always been the picture of poise, composed and mature even in high school. She’d been the first in their grade to get married, and no one had been surprised when it had been to Eliezer Hartman, top masmid with a bright future ahead of him.

Chana absentmindedly watches the older boys who are in charge of setting up the kiddush. A few of them are Ohr Gershon boys, though thankfully none of them are on Naftali’s bus.

It’s good for Naftali, driving the bus. Chana had been worried when he’d first gotten the job last year. It has to be humiliating to drive a bus at the school where his brother is the menahel. But Naftali has been cheerful about every aspect of the job. He wakes up at an obscenely early hour without complaint. Eliezer had a small office next to his set up with a fancy computer for the Amazon business that Naftali runs during the day, and Naftali works 14-hour days and seems to be thriving.

Chana is happy for Naftali. She is. She just looks out for him, because it’s a wife’s responsibility, sometimes, to be proactive about her husband’s kavod.

“Those are Eliezer’s boys,” Rivky observes, joining her at the bookcase. “Not Naftali’s, I hope?”

Chana winces and shakes her head. “No.” She knows that Rivky would be horrified if they were, recalls the way she’d gone pale when the families had gone out to eat together last month and two little boys had run over to Tuli! Tuli the bus driver! while their father had shaken Eliezer’s hand and darted curious looks at Naftali.

She changes the subject determinedly. “Think any of our kids are coming for the kiddush?” It’s just two blocks from the house, and a few of Rivky’s girls might still arrive.

Rivky shakes her head. “Not mine. Yours?”

“I doubt it. Even cake and kugel can’t get them out of pajamas on a Shabbos morning. It’s always just Ari. He’s up at the crack of dawn and ready to go with Naftali. I don’t know how he sits still in shul for so long.” Ari is five, already with an intensity and focus that he doesn’t get from Naftali or Chana.

Rivky looks a little wistful. “He’s going to go places,” she says. It’s a long-held point of amusement in their family that Eliezer, who is menahel to hundreds of boys, has not yet had a son of his own. They’re at seven girls now and counting. “It’s so sweet that he goes to shul every Shabbos.”

“He’s a special kid,” Chana says. She glances away from the longing on Rivky’s face and watches the boys prepping the kiddush. “Naftali is great with him.”

“Naftali,” Rivky echoes, and Chana winces and turns. At last, the inevitable. “I’ve been thinking about it,” Rivky continues. “Naftali’s a good guy. A great guy,” she adds swiftly, because she must see the shadows on Chana’s face. “I wonder if you’ve ever considered him going back to school?”

Chana presses her lips together, then releases them, allowing her first reaction to escape with her breath. “Not really,” she says evenly. “He’s happy with what he’s doing now.”

“There are just loads of jobs that he’d be great at. Maybe some kind of OT or special ed, like my speech therapy,” Rivky persists. “I just think it would be a little more… dignified,” she says after a moment of hesitation.

Chana opens her mouth to dismiss Rivky, but the words don’t come. Dignified. Naftali doesn’t want it for himself, but is that only because he’s never known it? He’s always been Eliezer’s little brother, failing every expectation because they’d begun so high, and he’s never had a chance for dignity before.

She hesitates, and at that moment, Naftali emerges from the double doors. Ari’s hand is tight in his, and Naftali walks him to the restroom. He notices them a moment later and wanders to Chana, offering her his wide smile, open and uncomplicated. “Gut Shabbos.”

He doesn’t comment on her lack of heels or disheveled sheitel. “Gut Shabbos,” she echoes. “Ari’s behaving?”

“He’s been sitting next to me, counting the words in each perek,” Naftali says, wonder lacing his voice. “Whatever entertains him.” His eyes flicker around the room, and he says suddenly, “What’s going on down there?”

Chana follows his gaze down to the kiddush room just as they hear a metal trolley topple over with a bang so loud that it reverberates through the shul. Rivky jumps.

“The kugels!” one of the boys cries out, panicked.

“Oh, no. Oh, no. Rabbi Pasternak is going to be furious,” another says, voice high with stress. “He said we should wait—”

“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” says a third boy. They are snapping at each other now, throwing around blame loudly enough that Chana can hear the sentiments, if not every word.

All of the hot food for the kiddush had been on trays on the trolley, ready to be wheeled out to the tables. The door is closed, but Chana can imagine the worst, can picture kugels flung across the floor and cholent everywhere. She tries to peer through the windows of the doors, tense with chagrin, when someone hurries past her.

It’s Naftali, moving with purpose. He’s a broad man, large enough that he can’t quite slip between the doors into the kiddush room now that the trolley is blocking it. Instead, he speaks to the boys, with a calm confidence that Chana usually only hears from him around their children. It must be his bus driver voice, she realizes, and she watches, fascinated.

“Boys,” Naftali says calmly. “Breathe. You need to move the cart over a little so I can come in and help.”

From behind the closed doors, she hears grunting, the clatter of wheels on tiles as the trolley is righted. Naftali is able to inch the doors open wide enough to squeeze inside. There is kugel on the floor, Chana sees, but more face-up pans than face-down.

Naftali’s voice is a low, calm rumble as he speaks to the boys. They have stopped panicking and are listening, responding to his instructions as he walks them through their mini-crisis.

“That kugel is gone,” he says. “Turn the other tray carefully. Here, like this,” he adds, then, “The noodle kugel should be fine. Careful with the cholent — I think it can be salvaged.”

The boys spring into action. Chana is awed. She can’t help but feel a little streak of gratification washing through her as she glances at Rivky. You see? she wants to say. You see who he can be?

The rav’s derashah concludes, and the shul hall is filled, at once, with the echoes of pounding footsteps and chattering voices. Rivky hurries to the first few men who come down the stairs to explain the situation.

“They just need a few minutes, I think,” she says. “If you can stand by the kiddush doors…?” She speaks with authority, and the men nod and set themselves in front of the kiddush doors, holding off the throng of hungry shul-goers with explanations.

Chana is surrounded soon enough, but she keeps her spot near Rivky, peering down through the windows of the kiddush room doors. She can see flashes of Naftali, up and then down again as he helps the boys scrub the floor, and then, at last, the doors are open and the kiddush is laid before them in all its pristine, fleishig glory. There’s no sign of food on the floor or fallen trays, and the boys are beaming as they stand beside Naftali.

Naftali gets a few slaps on the back from some of the men, a handshake from one of those who’d held the door. He ducks his head and looks overwhelmed at the attention. Within moments, there’s a distraction: Eliezer is descending the stairs, and men detach from Naftali to pump Eliezer’s hand.

“Rabbi Hartman! What brings you to our neck of the neighborhood?” they ask as they crowd around him.

The brothers are both big men, broad and just a little bulky, but the similarities end there. Eliezer has a full beard and dark-rimmed glasses that add a touch of sternness to his face. He moves with undeniable gravitas, the sort of man who consumes a room with his presence.

Naftali’s hair is lighter, his beard smaller but less groomed, and he’s easy to overlook, easy to forget. He is relieved by the shift in attention. He speaks easily with the teenagers instead of the adults as they pile cholent on their plates. Chana watches, lingers by the wall instead of heading into the women’s kiddush.

“He’s wasted on a school bus,” Rivky says beside her.

Before, Chana had been puffed up with outrage, ready to fight for Naftali’s dignity. But Rivky punctures her, leaves her deflated with only six words, and she’s left without retort.

Rivky is right. Naftali deserves better.

“Think about what I said,” Rivky says, her voice kind but uncompromising.

And Chana means it when she says weakly, “I will.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 950)