He put down the sefer and walked into another room. She followed him. She watched as he leaned his head against the wall and sobbed

She was there when he was a little boy, memorizing Mishnayos and twirling his peyos, even giving them names (Yanky and Yitzy).

She was there when he went away to yeshivah and was quickly recognized as an illui, completing masechta after masechta. She’d even gone to the siyumim

She was there when things started unraveling, a year or two later, though she was not exactly sure what started it. Quarrels with teachers. Learning on his own. Something with his cell phone.

She was there, listening through the door, as the rosh yeshivah sat with her parents across the table discussing what to do with her brother, a year her junior, the brother she grew up with, her best friend, the one she used to play with and talk to for hours. And though she could not make out the words being said, she knew something was very wrong.

She was there when he came home, expelled from yeshivah. He’d refused to tell her what had happened.

She was there when he was expelled from the next yeshivah he attended.

She was there when he applied for college, still wearing his white shirt, black pants, tzitzis, Yanky and Yitzy still intact, tucked away behind his ears.

She was there when he started attending college.

She was there when he started wearing striped, colorful polos, jeans, tzitzis tucked in. When Yanky and Yitzy became too short to twirl around his fingers.

She was there when he stopped learning Gemara, got a laptop, began watching the wrong kind of movies, listening to the wrong kind of music. The yarmulke came off and so did the tzitzis.

She was there when he drove on Shabbos for the first time, when he stalked away from the Shabbos table, the whole family screaming and crying after him, “Please don’t go!”

And she was also there when—

It was a Shabbos afternoon. The sun was dipping ever so slowly beneath the horizon, casting its rays over the sky, summoning the reverence that Shalosh Seudos — the peak of Shabbos — brings. The family was out at a neighbor’s home, save for she and him. She was engaged to be married, he was visiting the family.

She noticed him looking at the seforim shrank, walking up to it, fingering the seforim. A heavy pall settled over the room.

He pulled out one sefer, sat down, and started leafing through it. Then he looked at another. And another. She watched with bated breath. The heaviness was almost tangible.

And then he suddenly burst into tears.

He put down the sefer and walked into another room. She followed him. She watched as he leaned his head against the wall and sobbed. His voice shook as he began to speak.

“I don’t know…” he said, “this is just a phase I have to go through. I don’t know why I have to go through this phase. I wish I could just skip it.” He took a deep breath and continued speaking.

“You don’t understand. Back then they didn’t eat bread or water. They didn’t need to. They just ate Torah. Rabi Akiva, he just ate Torah. I wish I could have been born then.” His voice rose a notch.

“They just ate Torah! They didn’t have anything, didn’t need anything, because they just ate Torah!”

He closed his eyes. She looked on in awe, scarcely able to believe what she was witnessing.

“I wish I had a Rochel like Rabi Akiva did, someone who believed in me like she believed in him.”

She was shaking now, and crying too, her heart feeling her brother’s intense pain. He looked at her and they cried together. And she realized, no she knew, that behind the striped-polo, jeans, movies, music, rebelliousness, there was a neshamah struggling bitterly, in pain, crying for help, searching longingly for someone who would see beyond his facade.

She watched him go back to college the next day.

She watched as the years went by and he was still struggling, still watching his movies and listening to his music.

She keeps davening for him and doesn’t give up hope.

She occasionally reminds him of that scene, but he shrugs it off and says he’d been overly emotional.

But she looks at him with eyes that say she knows better.

Because she was there.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 632)