“Wait for me” shouted Dov as Gavriel brushed passed him on
the way home from Yeshiva.
“Can’t stop,” said Gavriel urgently as he fingered the
crumpled paper in his hand and checked his watch.
Dov watched in hurt amazement as his usually friendly
classmate and neighbour strode passed him with quick purposeful steps and half
ran half walked across the busy main road.
Gavriel, panting with exertion did not slow his pace until
he arrived home.
Gavriel put the key into the lock and smiled with pleasure
as the door opened immediately.
Since they had had a new lock put in, he still hadn’t
forgotten his previous struggles with the front door key! He remembered having to say Tehilim and
beseeching HaShem to help him get the key into the correct position just this
once.
The door closed with a bang and the echo reverberated in the
silent house.
Again Gavriel had reason to smile, the silence was unusual -
his mother had gone out with the family, for a day trip. That suited Gavriel just fine.
Once again he took out the carefully folded paper from his
pocket and checked the schedule he had written out for the day. With a pen Gavriel carefully ticked off his
accomplishments.
·
Up at six for shacharis
– tick
·
Revise two Blatt Gemorah - tick
(Gavriel still had five Blatt to complete before Yom Tov)
·
Learn two Halachos of shemiras
haloshon - tick
Gavriel eyed the wall clock nervously. He had only one hour in which to eat and
since it was Chodesh Elul he had taken upon himself to learn an extra perek
of mishnayos a day.
Before that he still wanted to complete the Tehilim for the
day.
By the time Gavriel had finished saying Tehilim there was
hardly any time left for eating since he davened with great kavonoh and
had added a special two extra kapitlach for his uncle who needed a Refuah
Sheleimah.
The clock chimed twice. Gavriel knew without checking that it was 2
o'clock. He was out of the house in a
flash taking his precious schedule with him.
The house was empty once more. It braced itself for the siege that was soon
to come. The family would be home soon.
Shifra felt bad for Gavriel. As the train sped smoothly towards home she
watched dreamily from the window as the scenic mountainous view of Wales gave
way to flat land. “Ma,” she said, “we've
had such a fabulous time today, thank you so very much. Too bad Gavriel wasn’t with us I’m sure he’ll
be sorry.“. “Oh no he won’t” said Shua. You
know Gavriel, he’d be upset to waste precious studying time for something as
mundane as climbing the Great Orme.“. Esther didn't say anything whilst Shifra
kept up her repeated comments about poor Gavriel missing the tram ride up the
mountain, missing the exhilarating walk down to the bottom and having to forego
the delicious food mummy had packed for the long three-hour train journey.
Deep down she decided that probably Gavriel was only
pretending to love his learning.
Who in his right m Zind she thought to herself would want to
give up such a wonderful opportunity.
She sighed contentedly as she sipped her drink, whilst
trying to concentrate on the word search she had brought with especially for
the long trip.
The front door obliged smoothly as once again Gavriel put
his key in the lock.
At least that part of his coming home would go without a
hitch....
“Gavriel” yelled Shifra “you can’t imagine how wonderful it
was today. It was better than Switzerland ‑ ten times better.”. “It was yummy“ added Esther. We were right on
top of the mountain and there were real sheep there right next to us and we
could see the sea and Subject: Article for Mishpacah Junior - Continued Page 2 of
2 mummy had to wear a rain hat cos it was so windy and Zev.....”.
“Okay, okay” Gavriel smiled distractedly at their
excitement. He had far more important
things on his mind. “Where’s the
calendar?”, he asked.
Moments later he was heavily engrossed calculating how many
days ‘til Yom Kippur and whether his daily Halachos of Shemiras Haloshon was
running on schedule.
As if in a dream he heard his mother asking if he was
hungry, and watched in a detached manner as his family chatted happily amongst
themselves.
He wanted to be in bed early tonight; he was tired. After all he had been up since five thirty -
besides which, tomorrow he wanted another early start.
Gavriel had no recollection of eating, although he did
bentch with great kavonoh - after all it was Chodesh Elul!
He mumbled a word of thanks to his mother and tried to look
interested as Esther showed him the Victorian coin they had brought him for his
coin collection.
“Look’”, he pointed out to her, “it’s not even authentic - it
says ‘replica’ at the bottom, which means it’s fake – it’s just a copy of what
a shilling once looked like.”.
With that Gavriel yawned, turned around and headed for bed.
The light in his room reflected dramatically on the poster
of Perek Shira hanging opposite his bed.
The animals beckoned to him realistically as Gavriel chanted
the familiar words of Krias Shema, Suddenly Gavriel felt a cold shiver travel
down his spine. He felt his body go
tense as a horrible feeling overcame him. He was doing something terribly wrong.
Standing there in front of the poster a sickening feeling of
understanding overtook him.
There it was, the stork Chassidoh. As in a dream, he --- He heard his Rebbe's
voice as he had expounded on it. “Why?”
the Rabbi had asked, is the Chassidoh not a kosher bird? Because as Rashi
explains is called she does Chessed only with her species. “You understand”, the ^Rabbi had thundered, “a
Yid cannot pick and choose who he wants to do Chessed with. A yid cannot decide this mitzvah is important
to me this though isn’t....“.
Gavriel sat down with a thud as he thought over his day. In his mind’s eye he saw Dov’s sad face as he
had left him walk home from Yeshivah on his own without any explanation. He hadn’t even thanked his mother for supper
or even complimented her on having managed to put a meal on the table after a
strenuous day out. Esther’s disappointed
face loomed before him. She had tried so
hard to make him happy by bringing him a souvenir from Wales and he had been so
quick to rebuff her.
Gavriel put his hands to his face and groaned loudly. He was trying so hard to be a better boy and
look how many people he had neglected in the process! He felt a piece of paper
crackle in his pocket.
It was that a day’s schedule - torn and scruffy by now, but
Gavriel could easily make out that every single item had been proudly ticked
off by him.
“Thank you Chassidoh”, he murmured to the big stork on the
poster, “thank you for warning me before it was too late. I still have time to do Teshuvah”.
With pen in hand Gavriel set about preparing the next day’s
schedule.
·
Get up at six.
·
Ask mummy if she needs
anything on the way home from Yeshivah.
·
Walk home with Dov ask him
if he wants to learn with me in our spare time.
·
Apologise for yesterday and
explain….
·
Play with Zev.
·
Ask Esther, Shua and Shifra
about their day out.
·
Thank them for the coin.
·
Say Tehilim.
·
Divide it amongst the
family.
Gavriel thought for a while. He eyed the bird on the wall one more time and
looked again at the colourful display of all those animals.
Then in capital letters at the bottom of his schedule he wrote “BE A MENTCH!”.
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