A Little Light

[First Person]

I hate weddings. And vorts and lechaims too.  I would have made some excuse, but the father is a friend of my husband’s and he’s some big macher in shul and so here I am sitting at a lechaim with a bunch of women, listening to them talk about nothing. This rebbetzin was so inspiring and that morah is the best one in the preschool class and the tehillim club is going to meet an hour later next week. Have you started cleaning for Pesach yet? Did you ever try gluten-free, whole-wheat hamentashen? With organic prune filling? I smile pleasantly and mumble at the appropriate times. Yes, yes, of course, we have started cleaning for Pesach and I would certainly love that Purim recipe, can’t wait to try it, my children love organic whole wheat foods too. Doesn’t everybody’s?

The kallah is beautiful. She is radiant and happy and I look at her and want to cry. Now she sits and smiles and is overwhelmed with joy, with hope, with everyone’s good wishes. Soon enough she will find out the truth, everything the shadchan didn’t tell her, everything the well-meaning references left out. I look at the chosson. He looks nice enough, a beard, a black suit, a hat, a friendly face. Who knows what skeletons he keeps in his closet? Drugs? Violence? Maybe he is gay. Illiterate? Mentally unwell? Maybe she will be lucky and just get someone who yells a lot. I imagine her pretty face falling as he explains in sharp tones that the silverware is not clean enough, the dishes have spots on them, and she should know better than to leave the door unlocked. Something squeezes tight inside of me and I remind myself that maybe it will be better for her, everyone is different.  What a sick person I must be to be so petty and self-centered that I can’t even be happy for a bride at her lechaim. What is wrong with me? Think about something else, anything else.

The speeches are starting. Oh, Lord. Same old clichés, same old worn-out useless sayings. Bayis Neeman B’Yisroel. Binyan Adei Ad. The couple is moving to a far away city, they will work in kiruv. She will open a preschool and he will work with the Russian Jews. A little light pushes away a lot of darkness. We are the lamplighters. The night is always darkest before the dawn and this exile is coming to an end. My patience is coming to an end, too. I can’t listen to this tripe anymore. I pick up my purse and check my cell phone, trying to look important and worried.  I slip out of the room and quietly make my way upstairs to the shul foyer.

It is quiet there and peaceful and I can sit down on a bench and relax.  The sun is still out, they made this simcha before nightfall and I like that. But, how long are the speeches going to last? How long is it before I can leave, sneak out and go home?  I hear footsteps.  Heavy ones, a man’s gait. I quickly grab my cell phone. Must look busy, can’t just be sitting here doing nothing. That would make me look lonely, pathetic. I push some numbers, furrow my brows, pretend to listen to a very important message and jot something down on a sticky note.

The father of the kallah enters the foyer. He is a tall man with a short gray beard and twinkly eyes. I noticed that before, the twinkly eyes, but never gave it much thought. He holds a half-empty, clear plastic cup in his hand and he looks a little tipsy.

He calls me by my first name. I cannot resist the almost physical urge to look around.  Who’s he talking to? Is he talking to me? I am a woman, not related to him and mixed conversations are not done in our circles. I look up at him. He will surely ask where my husband is or if I’ve seen his wife, pretty much the only things that would allow this breach of protocol. He says my first name once again and stops.  What? What is he waiting for? Just ask already. I don’t know where your wife is and I don’t care where my husband disappeared to, he’s probably still listening to the speeches downstairs.

“I wanted to thank you so much for coming. It means a lot to us.” He stops and I am puzzled. Is this his simcha speech? Does he think all of his guests are here in the foyer and he is thanking them all for coming? Is he that drunk? I look around again. I’m still the only person here.  Another thought flashes through my mind. Kiruv. He will now say something about my finally-appropriate skirt length or maybe how nice it will be if I can come to the shabbos afternoon class at his home. I stand up from the bench and prepare myself to nod, to smile, to thank.

He starts again and the words come tumbling out, tripping over themselves. “I want to thank you, to thank you for coming to my daughter’s lechaim and… and…and I want to wish you, I want to wish for you, that you will have the chance to see your daughter so happy, to marry her off. “ He says my child’s name and swallows what is left of his drink. “There is nothing like this feeling, nothing like watching your little girl become a kallah. I finally know what real simcha is and that is what I wish for you.  I want you to have this happiness, this pure joy. And, and… that is all that I wanted to say.”  I look at him and see that his twinkly eyes are brimming with tears. He looks at me a moment longer and turns around and lumbers down the stairs.

I try to process all this and analyze it and formulate the appropriate response. But he is gone. And I am left alone in the foyer. My mind is blank. I reach for the cynicism jar, but it is empty.  It wasn’t about kiruv and it wasn’t to ask where my husband is and it wasn’t about my skirt length or a shabbos afternoon class. This sincere person just wanted to wish me happiness. I am nothing to him, just another guest, one out of a hundred, a wife of someone he is friendly with in shul.  He didn’t have to say anything, he didn’t have to come upstairs. More than that, it’s not appropriate for him to be talking to me, a woman not related to him.  He could have easily avoided this entire exchange, he could have sent his wife to say something; there are a million ways he could have done this differently. But he came up and he spoke to me and he said something that he really meant, something kind and beautiful.

It’s like a winter morning when you open the door and suddenly realize that it is warmer than you thought it would be, an early spring day. And you want to grab on to that first split second of surprise, of realizing that it will be better, it will be warmer, it will not always be so cold and bitter.  And you want to grab on to it and hold on and never let go.

But time does not stay still. And so, I walk down the stairs, slowly, carefully. Holding on to the banister, stepping with caution. Back to the main hall, back to hear the speeches about how a little light pushes away a lot of darkness.