She may not have been a psychiatrist but she sure knew the right thing to say
I’d been working with Leiba for close to three yearsand thank G-d, she was stabilized and functioning after a roller coaster of hospitalizations and meds.
Leiba, the oldest in the family and the only girl among six younger brothers, comes from a well-respected chassidic family in Bnei Brak, where she went through the local Bais Yaakov system and was always the center of fun and creativity, weaving stories for her friends that never failed to entertain. Her father, Shneur, provided solidly for his family as a senior kashrus administrator, and once Leiba turned 18, the family began to consider shidduch suggestions for their sparkly, talented daughter.
Until the day she returned early from seminary and something in her personality shifted.
“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Shneur told me as he recalled the catastrophic feeling, “but immediately I knew that things weren’t good.” Leiba came into the house talking about how the Mossad had come to her seminary and planted a number of cameras in the rooms to help recruit new spies. Rather than “join up with the agency,” Leiba had rushed home.
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