Most of the time, though, she grudgingly admitted to herself that he had chosen well, for himself at least. Gone was the listless, defeated widower with rounded shoulders who had allowed tragedy and loss to drain the sparkle from his eyes and the hope in his heart. He was—she thought a bit resentfully—as happy as she had ever seen him, including during his marriage to her Zissele. In fact, he seemed like a different person altogether. Realism had replaced idealism, and instead of floating through the air on Talmudical exegeses, he wore sturdy walking shoes that were planted firmly on the ground. He’d finished his accounting course, passed the CPA exam, and had just accepted a job offer. Soon his years in kollel would be behind him, along with all the dreams of his youth of becoming a great and revered rav.

It was tragic. But who was she to criticize? Earning enough to provide for his family was a necessity, although a heartbreaking one. Such promise! He had been a shining star in the yeshiva world, or so she had always told herself. Otherwise, she would never have considered the match for Zissele. It was what her daughter had wanted also. This she believed with all her heart.

But tragedy tested a man, and challenged him. There was always a tension in their world between the spiritual and the material, a conflict between sacrificing all for the sake of learning the Torah and working to provide a better life materially for one’s family. While their world theoretically lauded scholars and looked down on wage earners, the wealthy among religious Jews were viewed with respect bordering on craven approbation, and young Talmud scholars vied with each other in seeking out the well-to-do daughters of wealthy businessmen, ignoring the poor offspring of fellow Talmud scholars. Still, a scholar who left the study house to work full-time was a rarity, and not a welcome one. It was a situation that invited hostility and criticism among religious Jews (which she would have preferred to believe came out of conviction rather than envy), which would fall not only on Yaakov but on herself and her grandchildren as well.

She had hoped that with Leah’s computer business doing so well, that the girl might suggest—of her own accord of course—that Yaakov surrender the burden of parnosa to her completely. But this, she saw, was not to be. Yaakov had made it clear that he felt he owed it to his new wife to do his share. It was, he insisted, a matter of self-respect as much as necessity.