Close to sunset, Abba went out to daven Minchah. He left his phone at home, and it started singing “V’yiheyu Rachameicha Misgollelim.”

“Tovi, would you answer that, please?” Ima said. “Find out who it is, and take a message.”

It was Kibelevitch.

Kibelevitch is the gabbai of the Shemesh Tzedakah Fund, the big fund for all the kehillos in Beit Shemesh.

One time when I was five years old, Abba fixed an electrical socket in the living room. He left it open for a minute, with the wires sticking out, while he went to turn off the power and get some tools. I was little, and I wondered what would happen if I put the blue wire and the brown wire together. (That was before I learned not to be so curious.) I found out. The shock was like a huge buzz going through me. My hands were vibrating like a washing machine in full spin. When I heard the name Kibelevitch, I felt like that all over again.

“Tell your Abba, please,” he said, “that the number is 9621.”

“The number of what?” I asked in a shaky voice — the voice of a girl who’s just suffered an electric shock.

“He already knows,” Kibelevitch said. Nicely, but in a hurry. And he hung up.

This was just too awful. But somehow I managed to hide my feelings. Like the heroes in all the books, I kept my cool and took action.

I went down to the neighbors, the Benedeks. I asked if I could borrow a cell phone for a quick call. On the floor in the lobby, and in the wastepaper bin under the mailboxes, were a lot of Shemesh Tzedakah leaflets. Orphans who were getting married and all that, with the phone number for donations in big, bold, red print. I dialed that number, and put the Benedeks’ phone to my right ear. A lady with a nice voice answered.

“Shalom,” I said in my nicest voice. “I’m calling to ask about Fund Number 9621.”

I wanted her to say they had no fund listed under that number. That’s what she was supposed to say. But she didn’t play the part I’d written for her. Big tears came into my eyes when she said, “Yes… here it is. Nine six two one, Keren Tovat HaYaldah. How much do you want to donate?”

“Um, I’d like some information first,” I said, trying to sound as grown-up as I could. “What is the fund for?” The phone was getting hot in my hand, burning my ear. A normal person would switch it to the other ear, I thought to myself a bit snarkily. (Ima says being mean doesn’t apply only to other people — I shouldn’t be mean to myself, either.)

“Critical medical treatment for a local girl,” the lady answered. “How much would you like to donate?”

I let the phone fall to my lap and stared at it with big eyes. I stared and stared. The lady didn’t understand why I wasn’t saying anything. Didn’t I want to contribute something to help a poor young girl, from right here in Beit Shemesh, who needs medical care? She was saying something, I could hear a voice from the phone. I fumbled for the “end” button, pressed it, ran up the steps, and quickly gave the phone back to the Benedeks’ five-year-old son. I went home, lay down on my bed, and felt electric shocks buzzing through me. Through my arms, my heart, my head.

Ima was sitting on the rug in the other room with my little sisters, building things out of Duplo with them, and I lay in bed and cried. No one could hear me, because I pushed my face into the pillow.

I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be different — disfigured.

I want to have an ear like everybody else who gets it for free.

I don’t want anyone collecting tzedakah for me!

I hated myself. I hated this horrible empty space on the side of my head, I hated it! And let nobody dare tell me I’m pretty. I’m missing an ear! I hate it! Why do I have to be like this? Why? All the other girls were born with two ears — two nice, normal ears that work without artificial equipment. And nobody has to collect tzedakah to get them a biological implant. No one except for me.

• ••

For a woman, a friend is like oxygen, the choicest part of air — pure, rich, and life-giving.

“We made a mistake,” Leah Silver says. Her nails gently scratch the dark blue velvet. Yocheved’s sofa is so nice.

“We all make mistakes,” says Yocheved. “Tell me, what happened?”

“I guess our parents’ generation was right — when you marry off a child, you have to start them out in life without any financial pressure.” Leah lets the velvet go and gazes out the big picture window at the view. She gets up and opens the window, and a draft of cold air hits her. The scene spread out before her eyes is not a panoramic view of Jerusalem under the night sky. Instead her eyes see hundreds of thousands of apartments. She multiplies them by their prices, and it makes her dizzy. How much is this city worth in shekels?

“What happened, Leah?”

“We overshared. We let Chaya know too much. We let her take too much on herself.”

Yocheved keeps quiet, like oxygen. Leah releases another bit of information.

“We thought she was mature enough to deal with it. We thought a responsible 19-year-old girl who’s old enough to get married and start a family could handle the reality of the financial side of things, too.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yes, we thought so,” Leah says. “But it seems that it’s too much of a burden to put on her. Apartments are just too expensive, the mortgage she’ll have to take will be enormous, and she’s scared of what the future holds. She should be going with the mechuteneste to pick out jewelry, and coming back with sparkling eyes, and instead she’s sitting at the dining room table making calculations and chewing off her nails.”

“You need to take her out of the picture,” Yocheved said.

“I did,” Leah said. Then she sighed. “But the damage is already done. I’m eating myself up with guilt for dragging her into this. She shouldn’t even have known what financial commitments we made to the other side.”

Yocheved was quiet, supportive. “I’m wondering,” she ventured tentatively. “Did you try talking to the mechutanim about buying in a housing project somewhere outside of Yerushalayim and renting it out while the young couple takes a little rental here in the city?”

“Yes… we tried.” Leah doesn’t want to say too much, but her mouth seems to have a mind of its own. Sitting here on these sofas is like being on a psychiatrist’s couch. For both of them. “The Shpinders wouldn’t hear of it. They were upset that we even brought it up as a suggestion. Then we found out why. It seems there was a whole complicated story with their oldest, the chassan’s brother — also an illui. He was promised an apartment, but the mechutanim never made good on their promise. They had all sorts of excuses, bubbe maisehs about investments that ‘couldn’t be liquidated at this time,’ a yerushah that hadn’t been divided up yet because of some legal issues, and so on. They paid the young couple’s rent at first, and then they stopped. The Shpinders gave all they could, which wasn’t much. That son is living in some little town in the Negev now, and he has to work half a day to make ends meet.”

Yocheved Beigel is a good friend. First, she listens. Then she encourages. She hears the range of options. She offers to go apartment-hunting with Leah, with the clear understanding that they’ll leave Chaya home until they find a place the Silvers would actually consider buying. She helps her clarify just what they will and won’t settle for in terms of distance, size, and condition.

Only after several moments of silence, only after she sees Leah feeling much calmer — for the first time this week — does Yocheved shift the topic to the favor she wants to request.

Raphael is here in Israel for three weeks, something to do with his job. Inge stayed at home this time, with Emily (“my goyishe granddaughter,” Yocheved calls her, and the pain of it contorts her face as if she had a sudden back spasm. Leah doesn’t know what to say).

Yocheved and her husband met Raphael yesterday. They talked — he wanted to hear how the whole family was doing, his siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. And he told her, half-jokingly, that sometimes he feels nostalgic about learning. He thinks back to those days of shteigen over a shtickel Gemura — he said it like that, with the chassidishe pronunciation — and he misses it.

It was like a burst of fresh, pure air to an asthmatic. There might never be an opportunity like this again. She pounced on it. Let the German girls stay in Germany, and let her son learn some Torah. Its light could set that little spark ablaze once again; he might do teshuvah. She offered to set him up with a chavrusa.

“Why not,” he said. He’d even be willing to pay — but on two conditions. One: No preaching. He wouldn’t be receptive to mussar or preaching of any kind. Two: The chavrusa had to be someone really sharp, and really accomplished, not just some random yungerman. After all, Raphael was a top-tier bochur in Keter Torah. Or had been, once upon a time.

“I thought of your son-in-law, Shua,” Yocheved says. “My second son tells me he’s something special. I’m looking for someone like him to learn with Raphael. A talmid chacham with a really developed character.” She’s found a thin thread of hope, and she’s grasping it tightly.

Leah’s heart is stirred. Shua’s been learning Torah, absorbing it into his bones for most of his 37 years. It’s time he started shining that light outward, letting others absorb it. Bringing back those who’ve gone astray.

“I’ll speak with Nechami,” she says.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 877)