Shani Leiman with Zivia Reischer

I knew Esther fairly well and had set her up twice before, and I knew Nesanel well too. I would never have thought of putting them together

W

hen Nesanel called, he wasn’t asking me if I had any suggestions for him. He already had a suggestion from a different shadchan, and he wanted to know if I knew her.

“Esther Greenberg? Of course. She’s wonderful,” I said warmly.

“But?” he prompted.

“But nothing,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

The truth is I was a little surprised. I knew Esther fairly well and had set her up twice before, and I knew Nesanel well too. I would never have thought of putting them together.

“I want to know if you think it’s a good idea,” Nesanel said.

Nesanel was a brainy guy. He liked to read sci-fi, but also enjoyed plowing through thick books on topics like physics or chemistry, simply for the pleasure of knowledge.

He wasn’t a geek — he had an outgoing, spontaneous personality and was always getting into the kind of situations that are cool to hear about but that you’d never want to happen to you. (Like the time he was on vacation in an unfamiliar area and decided to check out some unusual-looking plants on a property he was walking past. You and I wouldn’t even know the plants were unusual, but he did. He leaned over to examine them; when he looked up again, he was facing the barrel of a gun, at the end of the arm of one infuriated landowner. But that’s a story for another time.)

Esther wasn’t like that. She was straightforward and straight-laced, with no identifiable sense of humor. She could be reserved, and I think she believed that having fun was a waste of time. She was serious and committed: davened with intention, said a lot of Tehillim, learned hilchos shemiras halashon with a friend, and had a Partner in Torah. She was all about getting the job done, and she did that well; in fact, she worked as a librarian, which suited her personality perfectly.

But a love of books was probably the only thing Nesanel and Esther had in common. And now Nesanel was asking me if I thought the shidduch was a good idea.