She starts off by saying she just saw a documentary about penguins. She says it was the most beautiful thing she ever saw. She goes on about how their devotion to one another and sacrifice for having children is unsurpassed.

At first I don’t catch the gist because you don’t expect someone you’re trying to make a shidduch for — who you haven’t really kept in touch with for 20 years though she moved to Israel at the same time as you who was actually your first birthing coach — to start talking about penguins. But then I hear something there I feel needs to be said.

“Can I hear more about penguins?” I ask. At first she’s taken aback that I’m so interested. She doesn’t really want to continue because she can’t see the purpose but I ask again and explain I have a reason.

“They’re so beautiful” she says.

“They travel in mass groups because they live in the coldest place; thousands of them move across the plains together. And they go back to the place where they were born in order to raise the next generation. They inherently know where they were born.”

I listen intently.

“When an egg gets big enough — after about a month — it’s passed to the father. The father keeps it while the mother goes off to get food a month’s journey to a place in the ocean where the ice is thin enough to actually let her fish. They dive in to catch the fish so they have enough nutrition to feed their babies when they get back.

“Meanwhile all the fathers go for a few months without food — thousands of them together in the dark and cold just waiting for their partners to come back.

“During this time the father chokes up this small amount of milk-like substance that he feeds this new baby who’s in his pouch.

“When the mothers come back after this long trek each begins searching for her partner in this crowd of thousands. They make their own unique cry like ‘eek-eek’ or ‘squaw-squaw’ and they recognize each other through this. And then the father carefully passes the baby back to the mother. But if the cold hits the baby for a split second it dies. And the grief of the mother if it dies is so great she attacks other mothers whose babies survive.”

She takes a breath.

“There’s no sunshine there. It’s a desolate place with fierce winds and darkness and cold.”

She pauses again.

“Could you imagine — thousands of them all looking alike and they find one another? Isn’t that amazing? Doesn’t it make you realize there’s a G-d in this world?”

I don’t answer.

“And I realized” she answers her own question “that’s it’s all about life unity survival and love.” She pauses to fake laugh to cover her tracks as if she’s being hunted.

“Every single person wants to have a partner in life” she says as if she just understood it for the first time.

“So when you used the words ‘he’d be your best friend…’$$$separate quotes” her words fade out with a laugh that’s more of a cry a cry that one could recognize in a crowd of thousands.

“I need a friend a real companion like these penguins” she says getting back to the original purpose of her call.

“The whole key to survival is love.” she says unflinching. “I’m bereft of deep connection and only G-d can fill that.”

I don’t say a word.

“I told a friend about the shidduch you suggested. My friend said ‘So what if he isn’t chassidish? What does chassidish have to do with this?’$$$separate quotes$$$”

Sudden silence.

“He has a beard?” she asks me.

“He has a heart. He’s a mentsch. A great mentsch. He’s kind” I answer.

“But another thing” she adds “I need nice things. Maybe he’s too simple?”

I remind her of what she’s just shared.

“The penguins live in a dark freezing cave and wait for their partners to return. They find each other through their unique calls. Meet him. Talk to him. See if you have the same calls” I say.

Once I was on a packed bus returning from the Kosel. I overheard a foreign-looking couple talking. “There were thousands there. It was so beautiful” one said to the other. “Didn’t they look like penguins?”