Shimshona remembers well when the boy was born. It was a warm summer day, and all the women of the family were hot, practically dripping in pools of their own sweat. That’s how the sisters were back then: whatever one of them experienced the others experienced as if it was happening to them. When Shimshona’s sister, Diane, screamed in labor, her sisters all clutched their stomachs. When Diane’s baby arrived, the women’s shouts filled the corridors of every house in their family, of every room in the synagogue. But the women’s celebration was nothing compared to the men’s. The sisters’ father, who had been waiting a whole generation for a boy, was pouring schnapps at his morning minyan.
“Baruch hashem, we did it,” he said. Finally, after four daughters, he could make a bris, even if it was for a grandson. The boy was given the name Daniel.
The sisters did what aunts do. They brought cakes and balloons and blue outfits and witch hazel; they commented on how beautiful he was, how smart he would be, how perfect the world was now. When the boy Daniel slept in the house, everyone removed their shoes and spoke only in whispers. When the boy Daniel recited his divrei Torah homework at the Passover Seder, everyone listened in complete silence. When he received his first A, the test was framed and hung in the vestibule. Although Daniel’s mother would deliver six girls after him, none would ever be greeted with quite the same fanfare.
On the day he was born, Shimshona closed her eyes and took a breath before she blessed her nephew. What will become of you, little Daniel? she wondered. She summoned all the angels, asking them to bestow special protections on the boy. He was, after all, a special gift to her father and to the other males of the family, who, she reasoned, were right to welcome one of their own. It was an opportunity for...
Subscribe now to keep reading
Please enter your email to log in or create a new account.