As the years go by, this story seems far-fetched to me too. But, it happened in reality. And I was a part of it.
The story was born, in fact, because of my mother's determination and her pursuit of kindness. In this specific act, my mother saw a duty that must not be evaded, even though dealing with the matter was impossible in the face of reality and logic.
At that time, my sister and I were in the middle grades of elementary school. A persistent rumor reached us that Naomi, the daughter of our former neighbor, was in a boarding school in the French Carmel, and at this boarding school they were being educated in the Christian faith!
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We knew Naomi well. She was our age. We would see her often, before we moved from Kiryat Haim to a nearby village.
My mother was horrified by the terrible fact. A young Israeli girl in a Christian school!
She was not lazy and walked to the house of Nettie, Naomi's mother. As her close friend, she allowed herself to question Nettie about the reason for the move. Nettie felt embarrassed and tried to explain herself: Her work as a doctor at Rothschild Hospital requires her to be away from home for many hours. The shifts are not regular and she is there for whole days, and she has no solution for her child. That's what she said.
Her father's work also kept him busy for many hours of the day. So she was open to an offer made to her by Mary, one of the nursing staff in her ward.
Mary was a volunteer from Scandinavia who wanted to donate a year of her life to the Jewish people, and came to the hospital as an auxiliary. Mary praised the school on Mount Carmel and managed to get Nettie excited.
""You don't have to pay a single penny. Just send the girl. The clothing, the food, the housing and the education, everything is abundant and all at their expense," promised Mary Lenti.
The adoption
The trade in souls is more than just a monetary equivalent in the Christian religion. However, Naomi's mother did not pause to think about this "marginal" detail. She was busy in the endless race against the clock and this proposal seemed to her an ideal solution.
Lanti had nothing to do with religion, although she would light candles on Shabbat evening, a mitzvah for learned people. That's how she saw it with her mother. But even she seemed embarrassed after the conversation with my mother. What is called in slang: the token fell to her. But she didn't see any conceivable solution on the horizon.
That day, my mother returned from visiting Nettie, sad and thoughtful. She turned her head over the issue and looked for a creative solution. After two days of pondering, she decided, with great courage, to ask Nettie for her child. That is, to take her to our home to live with us.
When my mother appeared at her house again, she found Nettie attentive and willing with all her heart to right the wrong. She was surprised by my mother's offer and accepted it with open arms. She could not find the words to thank my mother. I accompanied my mother that day to Kiryat Haim and was present at the moving event. I saw with my own eyes how the respected and tough doctor shed a tear.
""You saved me," she said to my mother and hugged her.
After that she added in a low voice: "I really hope that no damage has been done to her young soul." Then she added shyly: "I don't understand how I was so closed-minded and blind." She tormented herself.
Big, piercing eyes
The end of winter knocked on our window. It was the end of Adar when Naomi arrived at our house, embarrassed and hesitant. She had a suitcase in her hand that contained her clothes. My sister and I tried very hard to bring her closer and make her feel comfortable.
But there was a deep sadness in her eyes. She didn't even smile. The abysmal sadness only deepened. We felt that her heart was still in the place from which it had been so suddenly pulled. It is no small thing to move a young child from place to place, as if he were a tool or a piece of furniture.
Every evening, before we went to sleep, we noticed how she followed us curiously as we recited the Shema aloud on the bed. Her large eyes then burned with a kind of burning fire. I saw her following every action we did with her eyes. She would observe us and remain silent.
In general, she was silent most of the time. She would go out with us in the morning to school. She was in the same class as my sister, who also helped her with her homework. Naomi turned out to be a good student. Her answers (in writing) were eloquently formulated.
After Passover, she seemed to be adjusting more to her new surroundings. One evening she asked to be taught to say the Shema before going to bed. Naomi even managed to say a few long sentences, something she had never done before. She told us that at the boarding school where she stayed, they were taught a form of prayer. This was, she said, a prayer they said when they had to walk in the dark hallway in the evening, which led from the bathrooms to the bedrooms. There in the hallway they would stand next to the statue of "the Mother" and mumble the prayer.
We, as innocent children, immediately exclaimed and blurted out without thinking, "This is real idolatry." But then we saw that she was deeply hurt and we fell silent.
Then, among ourselves, we formulated a course of action. We decided that we would not help the situation by whining and getting angry. We must take gentle steps that would make her love prayer and the mitzvot. We taught her to recite the Shema. And from that evening on, she would pray before going to bed with great devotion, as if embracing an immense longing.
This prayer seemed to fill a void in her young heart. She prayed with us before and after the meals. She did so with great willingness.
But we still couldn't get a single smile out of her. There was still a trace of sadness covering her large eyes, the color of the sky. Even when her mother, Nettie, would come to visit her, we didn't see a smile on her lips, even though she assured her mother that she was very happy here and that we were her devoted friends.
The smiling cake
Before Shavuot, we talked among ourselves - my sister and I - about preparing a dairy dish with smiles in her honor.
We took advantage of a time when she was engrossed in reading a book and not paying attention to what was happening in the kitchen. It was the eve of Shavuot. We approached the craft with energy and seriousness. We rolled out a slice of yellow cheese to serve as our face. Thin sprouts served as hair for our head. Black olive halves quickly became a pair of eyes. For a nose, we used a triangular piece of carrot. From thin strips of gamba we created a smiling mouth. It was a truly beautiful creation.
We continued to make a neck and arms spread out to the sides from strips of cucumber. Finally, we stuck a toothpick into the end of one of the arms and placed a flag on the toothpick. On the flag we wrote: We will do and we will listen.
My mother helped us carefully wrap the "creation" and store it in the depths of the refrigerator. We only took out the smiling tray just before setting the table for the dairy feast.
We called Naomi and told her simply and with the genuine innocence of little girls who don't know how to fake it: "We made this for you. We would really like to see you laugh too.".
Naomi looked at the tray and the suits, and something crashed into the envelope that enveloped her heart.
She sobbed loudly and I felt the wall crack. After the crying, the smile would come, I realized despite my young age. And it happened faster than I thought. We suddenly saw her crying and laughing alternately. And in the process, trying to tell us how good friends we were. They could barely understand her words, but something along the lines of: "Thanks to you, I belong again where I should belong," was included in the crying and laughter.
After that, everything was much easier. She no longer missed "there." She learned quickly and became a homogeneous part of the household. Nettie was happy.
At the end of the month, Naomi's parents planned to move to the center of the country and Nati accepted a transfer to a hospital in the center. Naomi was already a girl who didn't need a babysitter.
We knew that one day she would go her own way, but that didn't make the separation any easier. We said goodbye to Naomi, who was like a sister to us. Despite all the difficulty, the separation was accompanied by a wonderful feeling. It's the feeling you get when you make a wish come true or when you successfully complete a project.
And this is another right that is listed among the other rights that my mother, may she rest in peace, has earned.
