“So for you, the question isn’t at how high a standard you want to work in multimedia, but whether you want to go into the field at all. Right?”

"Couldn’t Shua have learned at home that night, so you could go to the event?” Yoeli had asked her. He was asking for Chaya too, she knew that.

“I didn’t ask him to,” answers Nechami. Something in her stiffens. “Shua keeps his phone on silent when he’s learning — and that’s if it happens to be charged. Plus there’s no reception at Milkov. But anyway, that’s not the way it works. He has his chavrusas, his sedorim, his regular shiurim. It’s easy to take a young man and turn him into the household help. It starts with an alumnae event that you can’t miss because it happens only once in five years. Then it’s the wedding of a cousin that you’re really close to, so how can you not go? And then, little by little, you realize how hard it’s getting at night. Maybe at least once a week you can tell him to come home at ten, instead of after midnight. And then on Friday you really need his help. Kavod Shabbos, you know. It’s a slippery slope. I’ve seen it happen to friends. A talmid chacham can’t grow like that.”

You’re too rigid, Yoeli thinks — but he doesn’t say it out loud.

Because her rigidity, her refusal to compromise, is what allowed his brother-in-law Shua to grow into an unparalleled talmid chacham, the pride of their family. And who can criticize a soldier who’s given his life for his mission?

“Maybe there’s a middle way,” he suggests gently. The atmosphere in the room is tense and he opens the window. But the burst of air that comes in is too cold. He closes it. “Chaya, take me or Gedalya, for example. For the first few years we were zocheh to learn a full day in kollel. Later on, as the situation at home changed, we made adjustments. It’s not all or nothing, you realize that?”

Chaya is very clear. “Yoeli, if I decide on something, I do it all the way. You see this computer? It cost 11,000 shekels. I took out a loan to buy it. I bought the most expensive programs, the best fonts, and I took private lessons to make sure I get the best out of the software.”

“And if you weren’t able to put all that money and effort into it,” Yoeli asks, “you wouldn’t do it at all? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. What’s the use of being mediocre? Some of my friends didn’t see why they had to go for the top. They bought low-end computers, collected free fonts, downloaded free clipart from outdated collections they found online. Their computers were always crashing, so they’d squeeze in a little work time on the seminary’s computers. Now they’re whining that there aren’t any jobs in the field. One of those girls went to work for Hamehadhed at minimum wage.”

The window was closed now, but Nechami feels a cold wind on her back.

But Yoeli goes right on speaking to Chaya, probing. “So for you, the question isn’t at how high a standard you want to work in multimedia, but whether you want to go into the field at all. Right?”