“A bigger baal kishron than you? I’m sure you’re exaggerating!” she said, but he insisted he wasn’t
Rebbetzin Yehudit Kleiner didn’t know why these old memories were haunting her now. Maybe it was because her neighbor Tilla had brought up the subject during Succos, or because she’d met Esther Poiker on Simchas Torah. Whatever the reason, the memories gave her no rest. One by one, they kept invading her consciousness, vivid as if they’d happened only yesterday.
“I don’t know what to do,” her husband had told her one winter day, 20 years ago. “I have this terrible conflict between my responsibility to the yeshivah and what I feel is best for Yerachmiel himself.”
She knew Yerachmiel. He came to their house every Motzaei Shabbos to learn with her husband. Sometimes as late as 2 a.m. she would hear them in the next room, in lively debate over the Gemara. “He’s a much bigger baal kishron than I am,” Rav Reuven Chaim told her. “I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed learning with anyone so much before.”
“A bigger baal kishron than you? I’m sure you’re exaggerating!” she said, but he insisted he wasn’t.
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