"What happened that was so terrible that you’re saying no to a guy you really liked?”
Shani Leiman with Zivia Reischer
I’d known Yehuda since he was a kid. His lifelong dream — I’d first heard about this when he was 11 — was to be an astrophysicist. It was a long road, 12 years of schooling at least, but he was all in.
Yehuda was from a large family. They hadn’t had a lot of money, and he’d had to pave his own way growing up. He was self-made, super responsible, and unspoiled.
He was the kind of guy who would walk into a house on a Friday afternoon, see the chaos, and say, “Give me any job.” And he really meant it; he would change diapers, run errands, wash dishes. He was the take-charge type, and unafraid of hard work.
He was a great catch, and I thought Riki would be perfect for him. Their hashkafos and personalities matched, and I knew she’d appreciate his strengths. As for his career plans, she’d grown up in a family where money had always been a struggle. It was important to her that her future husband have a stable parnassah. She realized it would be tough for a few years until he was fully qualified, but she was okay with that.
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