On one night of Chanukah, we held a wonderful family Chanukah party. Everyone in the family who was living in the area showed up, and while there, we decided to make a family phone book for the entire extended family. I am zocheh to be part of a large family – aunts and uncles, married cousins, and their sons who are also married, and even their grandchildren. Making such a phone book would mean putting together a list of several generations of the family – truly a complex project.
When we started discussing the details of the phone book, we reached the conclusion that the work was not as complex as I’d initially thought. I needed to simply call each person and wait for him to pick up, to ask him if he had another number and if the address we had was correct. Although this is time-consuming, we didn’t have to call everyone in one day. We could do it calmly, speaking to the older adults at their own pace and the younger ones at a different pace. The task was not running away, and the lists would wait patiently for me from one day to the next, from one evening to the next.
I started to call, and everyone answered me happily that they wanted to be part of the family phone book.
Thus I moved down the list, from one name to the next – uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters, and...Mendy. Mendy is my brother. He hadn’t come to the party – not to this last party and not to the previous one. We never see him, and we have no idea exactly where he is and what he’s doing. If there is anyone who knows what Mendy’s been up to, apparently he feels it’s better that we not know at all.
Now, I was sitting with the phone numbers of the entire family and thinking to myself, should I call Mendy or not? How would he react to seeing my phone number on his screen? Would he pick up, or would he slam down the phone? Would he be happy, or would he grit his teeth? My experience from previous attempts was not very positive, but perhaps, nevertheless, he deserved to feel a part of the family...
I decided to call the number I had for him, in the slight hope that it had not changed over the years. I finished dialing, and then, after a few rings, Mendy answered! “Hello, how are you?” I said with brotherly love and affection. He answered appropriately, in a calm, friendly voice. He told me a few nice things, and I also shared some things with him. If someone were listening in, he could have thought that we speak to each other every Monday and Thursday.
In the end, I told him about the family phone book and asked him if he wanted us to put his phone number in it. “I’m not interested,” he told me. “Don’t put my number in. I don’t want it.”
No problem. Not terrible. At least we’d spoken, and that was a lot. It seemed it was worth it to do this more often, so he’d remember his family and his roots, so he would know that he had a place to return to.
The day after that conversation, I went to visit my mother, and then, with a smile, I told her, “Best regards from Mendy!”
My mother heard this, and her faced turned colors. She became pale and almost fell over and fainted. I had not expected such an intense reaction; I had not even planned in advance to tell her about this totally natural, almost casual conversation. It came out spontaneously, without a lot of thought.
I went on to tell my mother the background of our conversation and about the phone book we wanted to put together, but the storm did not abate. Ima succeeded in saying only one sentence, “Are you serious? Is it true what you’re saying?”
I could not understand what was happening here. What was so exciting about this dry news I had brought her? What happened?
And this is what my dear mother told me:
“For so many years I’ve been davening for him and investing so many kochos in him. Not a day passes that I don’t shed tears for him. I go to mekomos kedoshim; I plead for him; whatever could possibly be done, I do.
My mother wasn’t telling me news. We knew about the countless tefillos and all the tears she shed. She had called us all to the task as well. From time to time she would organize all sorts of good kabbalos that everyone would take upon themselves, and she’d divide sefer Tehillim among the family members.
She went on to tell me that recently she’d started going to the kever of one of the tzaddikim, with the goal of completing forty consecutive days at his kever. She did this with mesirus nefesh, in heat and in cold.
Today she felt she was falling apart. She’d been davening so much. A mother’s heart only wanted to see her son coming home, at least just to see him. Her heart was broken and shattered. Today she was sitting at home with her Sefer Tehillim, and she cried, “Ribbono shel Olam, I am davening so much and crying so much. Please send me a sign that You hear, that You are listening, that all the tefillos are not getting lost, that the tears are not being spilled for nothing, but that they are coming to You and that You are gathering them.”
This is what my mother told me, revealing her broken-heartedness and the tefillos that were pouring forth from the depths of her neshamah.
In the end she said, “I had just finished davening, and then you came in and gave me regards from Shamayim!”
