Meir squeezed his shoulder consolingly. “It is not forever, my friend. A time will come when your children are grown, and you will have more time to devote to the things you love.”

Yaakov thought of the years ahead: the older children’s weddings; raising Chasya and baby Mordechai Shalom to adulthood and then their marriages. Perhaps more babies with his young wife … He would be an old man by then, his mind grown dull and inefficient. As the sage Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya wrote: He who studies the Torah in his youth, is like writing on clean paper, while he who studies in his old age is like writing on used paper. It tore at his heart.

“I hope you get your own yeshiva one day soon, Meir. You deserve it.”

“You have always been the greater scholar, Yaakov. It isn’t fair. Twenty years of your life!”

Yaakov shrugged. It might not be fair, but it was God’s will. Who was he to question it? “God has blessed me in other ways, my friend.”

“You’re happy in your new life?”

Yaakov brightened. “I feel as if I have been given a second chance.”

“Did you ever speak to Leah about your learning?”

“Of course! She wanted me to continue. She told me she could manage to support us for now, that I should continue if that is what I really wanted.”

Meir could not hide his surprise. All along, he thought Yaakov’s working had been one of the conditions of their marriage; that Leah, coming from the secular world, must have insisted upon it. “So then, why?”

“Why? Because this is my chance to be a better husband than I was the first time, Meir. Maybe if Zissele had had less to do, if she hadn’t had to work along with giving birth and taking care of the house and so many children all by herself, maybe…”

Meir lowered his arm and stepped back, shaking his head slowly. “Yaakov, you know that wasn’t the reason. Zissel had a sickness.”

“Yes, but maybe she wouldn’t have gotten sick if she hadn’t worked so hard all those years. I was blind to it. I am not going to do that to Leah. Never.” He shook his head vociferously.

“All the women in our world work hard. They wouldn’t want it any other way!” Unspoken between them was the assumption that a woman’s portion in the World to Come depended upon her husband’s victories in the study hall. When a woman supported the family financially, leaving the man free to learn, she did it not only for him but for herself. They were partners, sharing in the reward.

“So we were taught. So we believed,” Yaakov answered, his jaw suddenly clenching, his lips white.

Meir was shocked. “And now, my friend, you no longer believe?”