Part of the Family

Sandy Eller

I stayed up all night bailing water.

IT was Motzaei Shabbos, and I spent it sitting on a chair next to my sump pump, which clearly hadn’t done its job keeping the rainwater at bay. And it wasn’t just any Shabbos — our brand new, just-out-of-sheva–brachos couple had joined us, and we were still hoping to project that image of being amazing in-laws who had everything under control. Which we clearly did not.

But first, let me back up a little. We had spent years discussing how we could expand our Monsey colonial, and our plans finally came together as our daughter, Rachel, was dating. Over nine long months, we had Rachel’s dates coming in through the garage, and instances where we strategically positioned a plant over a soft spot in the front hallway to prevent her date-du-jour from falling through the floor.

We finally made it to the finish line just in time for the big event, and were able to make Shabbos sheva brachos in our newly enlarged dining room. We invited Rachel and her new husband, Tzvi, to join us the following week, and while it rained cats and dogs, the food was beautiful, the new couple was adorable, and Shabbos was everything we’d hoped for.

After Havdalah, which was about 7 p.m. that week, I went down to the basement to put something away when I noticed something odd — the basement floor seemed to be shimmering in the dark. When I turned on the lights, I found myself facing a good inch of water on the floor. It wasn’t just a puddle at the bottom of the stairs. It was everywhere.

I ran upstairs to my husband, and we trooped down the stairs with buckets, towels, and a Shop-Vac — tools that are wonderful at cleaning up small messes but clearly inadequate for the job we were facing. And Tzvi, now a full-fledged member of the fam, headed down the stairs, too, ready to pitch in with the rest of us.

Oh no, I thought. New sons-in-law are supposed to be pampered, not put to work.

“Tzvi, it’s fine, we got this,” I tried telling him, but my words fell on deaf ears. For the next hour or two, Tzvi was down in the muck in his white satin chasunah suspenders, the cuffs of his still-pristine wedding suit pants rolled up to mid-calf as he bailed water like a trooper.

It was clear we were fighting a losing battle.

At some point, Tzvi asked me where we kept the pasta. I remember being grateful that he had helped out for as long as he had, and thinking he definitely deserved a nice, hot Melaveh Malkah.

My husband and I really didn’t make much headway as we worked silently over the next hour. The basement wasn’t small, and the newly dug section that we added on had even more water than the original part. My brother-in-law came by to lend a hand as well, but taking Shop-Vacs full of water up a full flight of stairs isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. Worst of all, we couldn’t figure out where the water had come from — we had a sump pump and French drains in our basement, and it had never flooded before. While eventually we discovered that our sump pump had malfunctioned, all we knew at the time was that we were cold, wet, and tired, and that we still had hours of work ahead of us.

IT

must have been about 10:30 when suddenly I heard a voice next to me.

“Mommy, there’s baked ziti in the oven,” said Tzvi.

“Baked ziti?” I mumbled incoherently, not quite understanding how food had magically appeared in my oven.

“Baked ziti,” repeated Tzvi. “I made you baked ziti.”

Food was the farthest thing from my mind at that moment, but Tzvi had already taken that into account. He assured me that the oven was on low, and that the baked ziti was covered, so that whenever we were ready for a break, it would be fresh and hot. If I hadn’t been so overwhelmed, I probably would have been moved to tears by that simple gesture, but all I could think about then was draining the swamp my basement had become.

We finally managed to get our hands on a small submersible pump and placed it in the water-filled tank that held our sump pump. I parked myself in a chair and watched the submersible do its job — pulling water out of the tank and redirecting it into a bucket. Still, no matter how fast the submersible worked, water kept seeping into the tank, and I had to run upstairs every 15 minutes or so to empty the bucket.

It was a long and grueling night. Eyes half closed, I watched the submersible rise and fall as it sucked up the water, which was just replaced by more water. The one saving grace was that we turned the clock ahead for daylight savings time that night, so 2 a.m. became 3 a.m. and morning came an hour faster.

Fourteen years later, I can’t remember what time it was when I finally gave up my post and crawled into bed. Was it 6 a.m.? 7 a.m.? Did my husband come to relieve me, or did the water finally stop coming up? Those memories are fuzzy, but the recollections of Tzvi pitching in that night in his wedding finery and his bare feet, bailing water and making baked ziti, are still as sharp as ever.

Oh, and the baked ziti was delicious.

Fortress of Safety

Jen Gewirtz

I stayed up all night thinking.

I enjoyed Melaveh Malkah out with a friend, over a decaf latte and deep conversation. Once back home, I settled in for the night, relying on a magazine to lull me to sleep. But much to my consternation, I wasn’t winding down at all. Instead I felt an electric charge in my chest.

By the time I’d gotten to the serial, it was 2 a.m., and I was panicking. Why couldn’t I fall asleep?

Then it hit me. It was the coffee.

I balled my hands in frustration. I’d asked for decaf. I know I did. Did they not hear me? Did they mess up the order? Ugh.

It wasn’t just the insomnia. My mind was spiraling: ruminating, worrying, replaying Shabbos conversations about the rav’s derashah, planning Sunday’s schedule. My brain was in overdrive.

I needed calm and connection. So I made the worst decision I could make: I checked my email. And there it was, in the list of unread emails from Gourmet Glatt and Kol Save and my son’s rebbi, I found it:

From: BrownieJoseph@yahoo.com

Subject: Sammy

It was an email from Debra, my sister who struggled with severe mental illness.

Debra hadn’t always been this way. We grew up in a dysfunctional home, and as the older daughter, she bore the brunt of the abuse and neglect. Still, she had the soul of an angel, mothering me in ways our actual mother never did. Debra let me cry on her shoulder when my mom hit me. Debra brought me treats from her job at the drugstore with her own money (our parents didn’t approve of candy or give an allowance). Most of my rites of passage — graduating, my first date, my first child — were intertwined with memories of Debra’s love and support. Later, she quit her job just to babysit for one of my kids so I could go back to work.

But years of being told she was a disappointment eventually took their toll, and about ten years ago, something shifted. Debra seemed less settled. She was annoyed that my ten-year-old son, her first nephew, wouldn’t hug her anymore. She became obsessed with what we ate, and disapproved of how we lived as frum Jews. Her political views were wacky and in our conversations, she always sounded withdrawn and suspicious.

One day, out of nowhere, Debra sent me 15 consecutive emails, one more unbalanced and accusatory than the next. I was plotting to steal her inheritance, she claimed — accusations that had their roots in lies she’d heard from our mother, who later admitted she’d wanted to drive a divide between us. She didn’t like when we were too chummy.

I was devastated at the destruction of our relationship and did whatever I could to find a way back into Debra’s heart. I begged, I pleaded, I even offered to pay her, but to no avail.

Now, in the quiet of the night, I read her latest email. She wanted to contest my custody of Sammy, our autistic brother who moved into our home after my mom had died. She claimed I’d taken him in for the money and he’d be better off with her.

I paced around the room as I absorbed her vitriol — and then one word jumped off my glowing screen and made me stop in my tracks: “lawsuit.”

Debra wanted to go to court to gain custody of Sammy.

But he was doing well with us. He was finally acclimating to our home, and he had friends at shul and at the library where he volunteered and shelved books. He was thriving. Debra, on the other hand, lived in a cramped apartment with her Japanese husband and didn’t keep kosher.

I started sobbing. It was three in the morning, and my heart was beating wildly from caffeine and fear.

Then I remembered something I once heard from Rabbi Y.Y. Jacobson about the body’s response to trauma. There are Four F’s, four possible responses, he explains: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn. I stopped crying and allowed myself to consider my options.

I could fight fire with fire — “You sue me? I’ll bring out the big guns and make you wish you hadn’t messed.”

I could run, hide — but where? I imagined Debra hiring a private investigator to come after me.

I could freeze — that’s classic me, and is indeed what happened the moment I read her email.

Or I could fawn and make nice — also a classic pattern in my interactions with Debra, though she always accused me of being disingenuous.

But that night, at 4 a.m. and on a caffeine high, something shifted within me, and I added another F: force field.

I imagined a protective dome — like the glass cloche you use to cover a fancy cake — lowering from above me to the floor, sealing me in. I breathed in faith, fortitude, focus. Nothing could hurt me without Hashem’s will. Nothing could enter my fortress of safety unless I allow it.

By now it was almost 5 a.m., and with this new visual in mind, I found myself slowly calming down. I allowed myself to close my eyes before tackling the next day.

The saga didn’t end just yet. Per my lawyer’s advice, I emailed Debra that all our communication would have to go through a third party, and that I would no longer engage. With Hashem’s help, after a long, difficult process, we managed to retain custody. There’s a part of me that still waits for the other shoe to drop, but I’ll deal with that if it happens.

But that night taught me something vital about boundaries. And now, when even minor irritations creep into my life, I return to that force field visual. Nothing can hurt me without Hashem’s will, I remind myself. Nothing can enter my fortress of safety unless I allow it.

It took an extraneous caffeine high and a threatening email to bring me here, but it was worth it.

Saved on Impact

Mindel Kassorla

I stayed up all night… davening

IT was Shavuos evening, June 2000. Usually, my father would spend the night learning in “The Shtibel,” our family’s shul in Cedarhurst, NY, but  that year, he announced that he was walking all the way to the Sulitzer beis medrash in Far Rockaway — a three-mile trek, each way.

“Are you serious?” my mother said with an incredulous laugh. “Why not just stay local?”

But Abba wouldn’t budge. He wanted to spend leil Shavuos immersed in learning  among the chevreh at Sulitz.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said cheerfully, grabbing his hat and waving goodbye as he stepped into the quiet night.

I stayed up for a while afterward with my siblings and our guests, lounging, nibbling leftovers, and schmoozing well past midnight. It was really late when suddenly we heard someone pounding at the door.

We opened the door slowly. Standing there was our friend and neighbor, Allen Hammer — a paramedic — along with his wife. Behind them were a few others, including two serious-looking men we assumed were also from Hatzalah. (Later, my mother told me they were actually homicide detectives.) Our shul rav, Rabbi Spiegel, was there too, looking somber.

My first thought was Abba. Something happened to Abba.

Everyone crowded into the living room. I was just 11 years old, and the room quickly felt like it was the wrong place for me. So I stood in the hallway, doing my best to eavesdrop.

“We need to see a picture of Sam,” Allen said.

My mother brought one out.

The men studied the photo. “That’s him,” they confirmed.

Then they gently sat my mother down. I heard Allen start to explain what had happened, though I only caught pieces: “terrible accident,” “drunk driver,” “he’s being taken care of.”

Moments later, a frantic Imma, my oldest brother, and my uncle Arnie were escorted out the door. The rest of us were left at home to wait.

So we did what Jews do. We davened.

I remember how hard it was for me to get the words out. Not because I was overwhelmed by emotion. I was worried, sure, but I honestly believed he would be okay. Abba was strong, almost larger than life. The man who carried heavy furniture without breaking a sweat, who could push me in endless circles on the merry-go-round with one swift thrust of his arm, whose bear hug was so huge and so safe that I felt nothing could ever hurt me when I was in his embrace. He would be fine.

No, the challenge was simply the words themselves. I could read Hebrew perfectly, but long kapitlach of Tehillim always felt endless to me. That night, however, I pushed through. I sat with a sefer Tehillim in my lap and kept going until dawn began to break.

None of us really understood that night just how serious the accident had been. The responders hadn’t lied, but they hadn’t told us the full truth, either. The impact of the crash was catastrophic, with one bystander describing it as appearing like “a giant black garbage bag was hurled over the car.” People who saw the accident or arrived at the scene assumed my father hadn’t survived. But somehow, he had.

A week later, he woke up in his hospital bed — fully conscious, with absolutely no memory of the past week, the accident, or even a full day before it. (We’d already been visiting him in the hospital for several days, but his speech had been fragmented and nonsensical, like he was trapped in a half-dream.)

That morning marked the beginning of a very long recovery. His body was battered. His brain had endured trauma. And while he eventually came home and resumed many parts of life, in other ways he was never quite the same.

It took years for him to walk properly again. (Today, baruch Hashem, my father walks as any man his age would, with no limp.) He also permanently lost his sense of taste. Even more jarring were the invisible changes — subtle but unmistakable shifts in his personality, his memory, his tone of voice, his storytelling. He was still Abba, but there was a slightly different rhythm to him now. Our home adjusted, slowly and painfully, to this new normal. For a long time, everything was measured against a line we all used: “ever since the accident…”

I remember feeling angry. Confused. Bitter. What about shluchei mitzvah einam nizakin? How could something like this happen to someone on his way to do a mitzvah?

Years later, in seminary, I had the chance to tour Poland. As we stood silently in one of the barracks in Birkenau, our teacher told us a story about a man whose life was spared because he had insisted on putting on tefillin.

At first, the sting rose again in my chest. I thought of my father. Of the cold road to Far Rockaway. Of the knock on our door.

Why wasn’t Abba protected?

And then it hit me.

He had been.

My father almost died that night. People at the scene thought he had died. The police didn’t expect him to live. A local newspaper even called us after Yom Tov, asking if we wanted to place an obituary.

But we didn’t need to. Because he lived.

It took me years to see it — but the mitzvah didn’t hurt him. It saved his life.

When I think back to that Leil Shavuos, to a living room full of people gripping their Tehillims and davening with every ounce of heart they had for one man to make it through the night, I wonder: What did those tefillos accomplish? What decrees did they destroy?

What spared Abba? Was it a mission he still had to complete, the power of our tefillos, or some other zechus? We’ll never understand, but we’re so deeply grateful that this all-nighter was not his last.

Scribe for Her Soul

Yocheved Goldberg

I stayed up all night writing.

IT was over 16 years ago, but I remember that Thursday night like it was yesterday.

Chana was a 40-year-old mother of four — active, kind, and reserved. She was the type who said little but did a lot. She had battled cancer once already, gone into remission for a while, and then it came back. This time, after a long, harrowing fight, it was clear she was nearing the end. She was spending more and more time in the hospital, and her friends and family would stay overnight with her so she wouldn’t be alone.

When it was my turn, I had very mixed feelings. I knew it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. As her rebbetzin and friend, I wanted to be there with Chana, for her, during this darkest time. Still, I was very nervous — she wasn’t someone who engaged in idle chit-chat. She spoke when she had something wise to say, and I wasn’t sure what the night would bring or how we would pass the hours.

When I arrived at the hospital Thursday evening, the hallway was quiet, the room dim. Chana was lying in bed, pale and weak, wincing in pain, drifting in and out of sleep. I sat by her side and we began to talk.

At first it was light — memories, updates, moments from our children’s lives. Then, in the stillness of the night, around 2 or 3 a.m., when the pain kept her from sleeping and the rest of the world was hushed, I felt there was an opening. I leaned over and gently said, “Would you like to share anything with your children? Messages? Thoughts you want them to carry with them?”

She hesitated. Then reluctantly, she nodded.

“This is something I know I should do and you’re the right person to do this with.”

And so we began. I pulled out the pen and some loose papers I had brought with me, in the hope that we might be able to accomplish this together. I didn’t own a laptop back then, and phones weren’t capable of what they can do now. If something was going to be preserved, it had to be handwritten.

At first, it came out slowly. Chana’s voice was faint, her breath shallow. She paused often — either from pain or emotion or sheer exhaustion. But she was determined.

Child by child, she shared her vision of them and her hopes for them. Her dreams. Her advice. Her love. The little things that only a mother would know to say. The things no one else could possibly say on her behalf.

I encouraged her to keep going, even as she took breaks and dozed off. It was too important to stop.

And I kept writing, even when my hand felt like it was cramping beyond repair. I didn’t want to lose a single, precious word.

As the hours passed, the sun came up and light began to fill the room. It was clear that our time together would soon end. I looked at my friend. “We accomplished a lot, this is a rare gift you just gave,” I said. Holding back tears, I forged ahead. “I promise I will give these letters to your husband when the time is right.”

And then we sat in silence, the kind of silence that comes only after everything has been said.

When the morning light had permeated the curtains, I knew my shift was over. I put the papers in my bag, held her hand, and whispered goodbye.

I walked out of that hospital with a weight on my chest I had never felt before. The pain in her voice, the heartbreak, the desperation — it all stayed with me. Her words had been a goodbye she wasn’t quite ready to say, and I was the messenger who had the responsibility to deliver it.

I went home, washed up, pulled myself together, and began preparing for Shabbos. It felt surreal, going from deathbed to kitchen, from raw emotion to routine. But that’s the nature of life — we flow between extremes whether we’re ready or not.

Then, that same morning, the phone rang.

It was my doctor’s office, calling with results from a blood test I had taken earlier that week. “Congratulations,” the nurse said. “You’re pregnant.”

I froze.

That very day, after spending the night bearing witness to the final moments of one mother’s legacy, I was told I was carrying a new life.

Hashem gives, and Hashem takes.

That Monday we got the call. Chana had passed. Her neshamah had left This World.

I put the letters in an envelope and set them aside, knowing there would be a time for them, but not just yet.

I cried and mourned for the friend I had lost.

At the end of the shivah, I handed her husband the envelopes.

“These are from Chana,” I said simply.

He looked at me, confused, and I explained to him what was inside.

He was shocked and completely overwhelmed. Grateful beyond words. “This is… this is everything,” he said.

It was the one thing she could still give her family. Her words. Her love. Her motherly voice, preserved on paper.

This experience impacted me deeply and has never left me.

And when my daughter was born months later, she became a living nechamah for the heartbreak I had witnessed. She reminded me every day that we live in a world of both loss and light. That the timing of life and death is often impossible to understand, but never random.

That night in the hospital, I thought I was there to simply sit with a friend in her final hours. In the end I became a scribe for her soul.

I stayed up all night writing. And I carry her words with me still.

Dedicated in loving memory of Chana Miriam bas Yosef Tzvi. 

Yocheved Goldberg is the rebbetzin of the Boca Raton Synagogue, a vibrant and growing shul, with over 1,000 families. She is also a shadchan and kallah teacher.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1063)