This was Akiva’s territory. “I teach stuff like this, I would love to hear some of your best ideas, it’s so relevant to what I do. Tell me a chiddush”
If Shaindy Brucker had looked out of her window at 10:30 a.m., the sight would likely have ruined her morning. Fortunately, she had just finished davening and gotten busy making order with the siddurim, going on a sheimos tear and checking each
one for missing pages.
Nothing had been planned. It was a beautiful morning, and Akiva Putterman had gone for a walk to prepare a lecture and he happened to meet Reuven Stagler. Akiva knew that he needed to be more neighborly. The Staglers had invited the Bruckers for Shabbos, and they, the Puttermans, had been left out — not that he minded, but Rina had been a bit miffed about it. She had watched the Bruckers come, and then leave at 2:15, and said, “Wow, that’s a long meal, I guess they all enjoyed.”
They had plenty of Shabbos invitations too, but Rina said she needed friends who weren’t after Akiva’s brilliant chinuch insights or Shea Helberg’s money, and her two immediate neighbors seemed not to care about any of those things.
Akiva didn’t like stopping while sorting out ideas for a speech, but for Rina’s sake, he would make sure the relationship worked.
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