But why should suffering lead to wantonness? It had not, after all, affected his sons that way, those serious young Talmud scholars learning in one of the Jewish world’s most respected yeshivas. Why, the reports he regularly received about their piety, their diligence, and their intelligence were glowing!

He gnawed his lip. Yes, the decision to send them off to Baltimore to board in yeshiva and spend Shabbos and most holidays with his brother’s family had been wise, if wrenching. He missed them so much. But by shielding his sons from all the harsh realities of their mother’s death, he had allowed them to fall all the more heavily and with crushing consequences on his teenage daughter. While the boys’ lives had scarcely changed, for Shaindele, it had been a life-shattering upheaval, the burdens of housekeeping and childcare falling on her like an avalanche.

He felt sympathy for her, he did. But he refused to accept that as an excuse for her outrageous behavior. Through the millennia, Jewish girls had always faced harsh realities: the pogroms in the shtetlach of Europe, the upheavals of immigration, and finally the Holocaust itself. Religious girls, far from losing their faith and their piety, had been the stalwarts, the ones who made it possible for the Jewish people to continue despite all odds.

As a member of a religious family and community, he had always been taught that women were naturally stronger and more pious with a boundless emunah. Even in the times of Egyptian slavery, it had been Jewish women who had risen to the challenge, saving the nation from annihilation by enticing their despairing husbands to continue marital relations even as Jewish babies were being thrown into the Nile. From their unwavering faith had finally emerged Moses, a redeemer.

So no, he couldn’t fathom what had happened to his daughter. It simply broke his heart, filling him with guilt and depression. Only now, with this new, school-sanctioned arrangement with the psychologist, had a small ray of hope begun to shine into the dark recesses of his soul. He pinned all of his hopes on Rabbi Yoel Grub, who everyone said specialized in young girls who had lost their way. Only Grub could give him back the little girl he loved so much, bright and whole, healed from all the ugliness that had deformed her life. Please God that it would happen! He had it in him to forgive. He knew he did.