She sighed, but opened the door wider. “Sit down, I’ll tell him you’re here.”

“Oh, I don’t want to bother—”

“Please, sit. He’d be upset with me if I let you go without asking him first.”

He sat down nervously, his fingers drumming on his bent knees, feeling ashamed at this imposition and yet helpless to do anything about it.

“He says to come into his study.”

He followed her. As many years as he had known Rav Alter, he had never been to his home except once during shiva. There was an unwritten rule that it was off limits to all those beseeching his counsel and time, the last bastion of peace for the old man, his sanctuary. The study was empty.

“He says to sit; he’ll come in a minute.”

He sat down, every passing second like a slap in the face for his shamelessness in intruding on the old scholar’s private time. But before he could flee in shame, the door opened, and Rav Alter entered.

“My dear Yaakov.” The rav smiled.

Yaakov remembered their last meeting, and the shiva call after the rav’s wife passed away. But for some reason, even after all he’d gone through, the rav looked better now. All the tension had disappeared, and a transformative serenity bathed all his features. He actually seemed younger, steadier. It was almost a miracle, and one that gave Yaakov hope.

“I’m so sorry to come here without calling. I just had to talk to you.”

“You need to call me? Yaakov, Yaakov.” He shook his head in mock remonstrance. “Does a son need an appointment to see his father?”

Yaakov blushed, the hard lump of agony in his throat, and in his heart, dissolving. “I wouldn’t have come, but I’m so lost!”

The rav put his arm around Yaakov, leading him to a sofa. “Tell me.”

“All those years I spent learning. Were they a mistake?”

Rav Alter seemed surprised. “Do you think they were?”

“I don’t know. Look where I am now. Like everybody else, in an office, using my brains and skills to earn a living, to make money. When I was in yeshiva, we were taught that: ‘God would provide for our every need.’”