“So how do you like our little company so far?” one of the secretaries asked him, taking a barstool next to his and staring at him with unfeigned curiosity and admiration as she took in his handsome face and the black velvet skullcap that covered his head.

“Fine, fine. All is good,” he said, staring into his drink, mortified by her proximity.

“I don’t know how you numbers guys do it all day. I’d go bonkers keeping track of all that.” She sighed, wiggling just a little to get comfortable, which brought her stool even closer to his.

“Well,” he said, getting up with measured speed. “I have a wife and children waiting at home for me.”

She shook her head and laughed. “Okay, whatever.”

After that, he begged off such occasions except when he absolutely couldn’t get out of it, like company celebrations, birthday parties, or going-away parties. This same woman—her name was Joelle—always seemed to find him.

Maybe that was it, he thought. God was punishing him for talking to Joelle, for trying to be part of this company socially. The more he thought about it, the more upset and confused he became.

I was once a kollel man, a yungerman. But who am I now?

He had no time to think about it. His employer was paying him to work, not daydream or worry. It was a sin not to give a full, honest day’s labor, he scolded himself. With the self-discipline that comes with decades of training in fulfilling the will of God with meticulous, wholehearted obedience, Yaakov forced himself back to his work.

As he stood swaying from the subway pole in the crowded F train on his way home that evening, his weary mind searched for answers, for encouragement, but it was simply blank, a used canvas muddied by failed attempts to create something skillful, something beautiful. He just wanted to go inside the small, rented apartment that was his home and be served a hot dinner by the woman he loved, surrounded by his children, with no questions asked, no tasks required of him as the moral head of his household. He did not want to fight with his beloved young wife, his Leah. He did not want to show an angry, bitter face to his beloved Shaindele, to fill the room with outpourings of indignation and disappointment. He just wanted to be left alone.

But when he got off the subway and crept down the stairs, to his surprise, his feet took him in another direction altogether. It was only when he stood before the door of Rav Alter’s home that he understood where he had been led and why.

The door opened slowly. It was the rav’s married daughter.

“I’m so sorry. My name is Yaakov Lehman. I must speak with the rav.”

“Does he know you?”

“Ah, yes, for many years. I used to learn with him.”