This was Akiva’s territory. “I teach stuff like this, I would love to hear some of your best ideas, it’s so relevant to what I do. Tell me a chiddush”

If Shaindy Brucker had looked out of her window at 10:30 a.m., the sight would likely have ruined her morning. Fortunately, she had just finished davening and gotten busy making order with the siddurim, going on a sheimos tear and checking each one for missing pages.

Nothing had been planned. It was a beautiful morning, and Akiva Putterman had gone for a walk to prepare a lecture and he happened to meet Reuven Stagler. Akiva knew that he needed to be more neighborly. The Staglers had invited the Bruckers for Shabbos, and they, the Puttermans, had been left out — not that he minded, but Rina had been a bit miffed about it. She had watched the Bruckers come, and then leave at 2:15, and said, “Wow, that’s a long meal, I guess they all enjoyed.”

They had plenty of Shabbos invitations too, but Rina said she needed friends who weren’t after Akiva’s brilliant chinuch insights or Shea Helberg’s money, and her two immediate neighbors seemed not to care about any of those things.

Akiva didn’t like stopping while sorting out ideas for a speech, but for Rina’s sake, he would make sure the relationship worked.

“Hey, how’s el presidente?” he asked, his tone light.

Reuven, who had been carrying a stack of binders to his car, lowered them into the trunk, then straightened up and laughed. “Well, technically, I’m not president, just chairman, but I’m okay. Lots of work to be done, baruch Hashem, but slowly…”

Akiva nodded. “I’m sure it’s not easy, but you look like someone who has a method to getting things done.”

There was a flash of interest in the other man’s eyes. “That word, ‘method,’ is exactly what I’m working on now. There are so many little issues and I’m realizing more and more that the only way to deal with them is through finding methods. I’ve been doing some online management classes for this, learning new things here and there.”

This was Akiva’s territory. “I teach stuff like this, I would love to hear some of your best ideas, it’s so relevant to what I do. Tell me a chiddush.”