Tears & Toiveling

I love my husband.

It makes me happy to be able to say that word. Husband. I think: Really? I have a husband? I'm a wife? I'm his wife? How does that work? How can that be? And then I think: How did that happen?

And then I mostly reach a place of wonder and confusion. How bizarre that I should have wandered through Templars, attended North Shore Country Day, blazed my way through the Stern newspaper, met Jordan and reconciled myself more to the beauty that is also existent in the more Haredi world and finally encountered Heshy, another person who walks both worlds. How fascinating it is that the one decision to attend Stern College as opposed to the University of Chicago impacted my life so strongly. This one decision that I owe primarily to my father's tears.

Had I not attended Stern, I would never have met the many Jewish people who have become very close friends of mine, would not have been privileged to form the friendships that have sustained me, would never have encountered the Haredi world again, let alone left behind much of my bitterness, would not have found myself attending Revel...there are innumerable ways in which my life has been dramatically changed simply because of this move to New York.

And this leads me to think about tears. Because the whole reason I decided to attend Stern (aside from the scholarship, which was much appreciated) was because of my father having cried. We often speak of the power of tears and how they can penetrate anything. That God leaves the gates of tears open. But I wonder how often one can see a direct relation between the tears cried and the life path of a person.

In my case, however, it's pretty clear.

Heshy's a fantastic person and he's also a fantastic husband! He builds desks and bookcases alongside his awesome friend Yitzchok, runs back and forth to grocery stores to buy us food, lugs packages up five flights of stairs, went to the mikvah three times yesterday (in the rain! and up and down the huge hill!) to toivel things for me, returns items when I don't like them, doesn't complain about having to wander around half the world in pursuit of what we need, encourages me to actually eat food (something I generally neglect to do), is a great listener and is just in all ways the most helpful, kind, lovely person ever. And this, of course, is from the small things he does because we don't say a person's full praise in their presence.

The point is: Heshy's awesome, my father's tears led to my life working out in strange and mysterious ways and I am a happy person.