I was witness to a great little interplay the other day.

I was waiting at the dry cleaners unnoticed almost like a fly on the wall while two older Sephardic women were carrying on a lively conversation.

One — I’ll call her Cheftzibah — starts talking about the water on her knees. The other — I’ll call her Alizah —is giving her remedies about sitting in steaming hot water for twenty minutes three times a day for two days straight.

She’s tried this she’s tried that.

They both pay and say goodbye.

It’s my turn.

Somewhere in the middle of my turn the two women come rushing back in together.

“Did you see my glasses?” Alizah asks.

“No” the man behind the counter answers.

Cheftzibah searches the store while Alizah is checking her handbag. “They were right here on my head” she recalls

“There they are!” Cheftzibah exclaims trying to bend down to pick up the glasses from the floor.

“You know I’m forgetting everything lately” Alizah comments.

“Me too.” Cheftzibah agrees. “It’s age.”

“But” Alizah adds “there’s one thing I never ever forget. … ”

Cheftzibah is listening.

“I never forget a thing my husband said or did” Alizah says. “From the chatunah” she adds with a deep Sephardic emphasis on the word chatunah.

A few years ago I heard a beautiful vort that a Rebbe said to one of his children about looking at moving cars on Shabbos. At the time I heard it we had just moved to an area overlooking streets where unfortunately one could see cars in action on Shabbos.

At first I found myself saying all too often “Don’t look! Don’t look!” But it wasn’t helping much.

Then I heard the vort from the Rebbe: That it’s not good to look at someone who’s in a car on Shabbos because when that person goes to the Next World — you will be called to be a witness.

We want to be witness to good things.

My friend was in the hospital recently and her husband sat at her bedside day and night. “After 120 years” she will speak up on his behalf. She will be his witness for the good he has done.

“The walls are her witness” it says about a woman in her home. I read once that it’s forbidden to rip open a bag with one’s teeth even in the privacy of one’s own home because it lowers our standards of ourselves how we witness ourselves in our own eyes.

My husband explained to me some of the rulings concerning a witness according to Jewish law. One of the very special rulings which only Jewish law has against a false witness is that he receives the same punishment that he wished on the person against whom he was falsely testifying.

In A Jew and His Home Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov says that a husband should see his wife as perfect in all ways and vice versa — only then can there be peace. Once they start to judge or criticize each other — they’re surely being “false witnesses” in many cases. Because many times the meaning of a certain action is not interpreted according to the person’s true kavanos intentions.

So many times what we want to do gets mishkabobbled — and comes out completely different. Miri wanted to have dinner on the table when her husband would walk in — but two people phoned one with a surprise aggravation (or a surprise simchah) and she got carried away and forget to turn on the oven. When Miri’s husband gets home dinner is a raw chicken and hard unbaked potatoes. But that’s not what Miri meant at all. Far from it.

“Don’t look! Don’t look!”

As the Rebbe says don’t be a witness to such things.

If you asked for meat and your husband brought home a beet — “Don’t look! Don’t look for the bad; look only for the good. Most probably he’s positive you asked for a beet and he even went to three stores to find one because beets are out of season.

Husbands and wives want to do what’s best for each other. That’s what they promised that’s what was in their hearts under the stars under the chuppah.

G-d is their Witness.