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“How on earth do you work down there?” asked my daughter, who needed to do something on the family computer.   My hole “office” is the tiny vestibule at the bottom of our basement staircase which leads to our airy and spacious guest room, my husband’s spacious office, and our spacious garage. My desk is wedged into the not-so-spacious area between the bottom of our stairs and the wall.  As opposed to other rooms in the vicinity which have bookcases, large desks, and proper lighting, my office has a garbage pail and convenient access to our collection of dusty suitcases, usually located under the staircase but which were temporarily removed due to a recent flood. 

I love taking long walks down Memory Lane, and have done so often on these very pages. But having done so recently in heavy doses has made me reflect on one of my favorite pastimes.

I was always a major sports fan. In between participating in a variety of extreme sports, I would go running from stadium to stadium, cheering on my favorite teams.  If you believe that, have I got a bridge to sell you!  I can’t think of anything further than the truth.  But back in the day, I did attend a Knicks game with a friend.  My friend was somewhat of a sports fan and I had always wondered what the big fuss was about, with men running around and throwing balls into baskets.  When we left the stadium a few hours later, my friend was on a high and I was filled with the same questions I’d always had. 

Yael* had had enough!  At the age of 27, she had been living in Yerushalayim and felt she had gone out with every potential boy who had ever stepped foot in the city.  She needed a change desperately, and moved to a mixed moshav up north where religious and secular live together.  Yael had studied Chinese medicine and found a job in Tzfat.  She also registered for classes at Yeshivat Ohr Haganuz, located near Meron.

“As you exit the aircraft, please remember to take all your personal belongings.”  How many times have I heard those words from the stewardess after landing?  My husband and I like to get a lot of bang for our buck, so we often book flights with a stopover when we travel to the United States. It’s an efficient and affordable way to see the world. Our recent trip to New York had a 13-hour layover in London.  The rudimentary itinerary that my husband had prepared did not include major running around.  There would be no “This is beautiful or interesting or fun, but we must move ahead” calls, in order to cover as much ground as humanly possible during every last second available to us.  There would be no “Maybe we can run over to see the English countryside during the four extra minutes we have.”  We would have a relaxing, entertaining, and stress-free day.  Whatever we would manage to see would be perfect. And it was. Pretty much.

An unrecognizable phone number flashes up on my phone screen. That can mean only one thing and one thing only (usually): the Freezer Gemach. In 2017, I opened up a freezer gemach in memory of Rav Aryeh Kupinsky Hy”d, one of the five k’doshim who were murdered in the Har Nof massacre, also an uncle to my daughter-in-law. Rav Aryeh was a big and strong man, legendary for his constant involvement in chesed. When his almost 14-year-old daughter died tragically when she did not wake up one morning a little over two years before Rav Aryeh himself was murdered, he started a freezer gemach in her memory.