“Don’t let it slip!” Yaakov admonished his friend and chavrusa Meir, whose pudgy body in the warm wool suit was melting from fatigue as he held one of the ends of the chairs aloft.

“I’m going to let you fall?” Meir laughed. “Me?”

Yaakov smiled down at him to show he had not meant it seriously. How could you admonish Meir? After all, it if hadn’t been for him picking up the phone and arranging that first date with Leah when all the official shadchonim of Boro Park had categorically refused to get involved, there wouldn’t be a wedding!

Meir smiled in return, willing his weakening arms to stiffen under the unfamiliar assault of physical exertion. After all, as a Talmud scholar, he did nothing more strenuous all day than turn the pages of his holy books. In many ways, he thought, he had already gone beyond his strength in playing matchmaker at his friend’s request. There had been consequences, whispered in his ear by angry members of his congregation and fellow students in the kollel, who questioned not only the suitability of the match but opening the door in general to the slightest whiffs from the depraved secular world.

Meir, the most naive and innocent of men, was downright shocked at some of the uglier and more sinister hints of his friends at the kind of life a girl like Leah might have experienced before she saw the light.

“What she’s done and what she knows…,” they whispered to him, shaking their heads sorrowfully. “How do you bring such a woman to our saintly, innocent Yaakov?”

What could he say? He didn’t know anything about the depraved secular world or what young women did there. Instead, he had sweated and gone red and answered with all his heart: “As our sages tell us in Talmud Yoma, ‘Even willful misdeeds are accounted to the penitent as merits,’ and in Bava Metzi’a: ‘Once a man repents, stop reminding him of his past deeds.’”

Chastised, but unconvinced, they had slunk away.

But now, sweating beneath the burdens he had taken upon himself, he wondered. Being from such different worlds, could they make a successful life together? He studied the face of his dear friend looking down at him, then followed his happy gaze to the bride’s excited and ecstatic smile. It should only continue this way, he prayed, unable to forget the more urgent warnings of his critics to “think what example such a match sets for the community.” As it is written: A man in a boat who bores a hole under his own seat cannot say to his fellow passengers when they protest: What do you care? It is under my own seat.