We used to joke that my dad and my stepmom owed me shadchanus for their marriage of close to 25 years. After being introduced through a mutual friend in the 1990s, my dad and stepmom, Sara Leah, corresponded over the phone and via fax. (Remember those days?) After a few months, they met in a pizza shop in Boro Park. For some reason, he brought us children along with him. Perhaps it was because he didn’t know better, or maybe it was because he wanted her to view him as a package deal with the kids.
At first she thought he was crazy for bringing his kids on a date
intended for two, but then I – being a lactose-intolerant Jewish kid – got a
stomachache, and we went to her home to use the restroom. Sara Leah was so
impressed with how my father took care of me that she decided to give him
another shot, and that’s when their life as a couple began.
I can’t say that it was easy to have a stepmother. There is always
something tugging at you that this person isn’t your mother, and that is a
natural feeling. I remember the first time she came for Shabbos, carrying bags
and bags of homemade Shabbos food clearly labeled and beautifully prepared in
Tupperware containers. I thought she did this to impress us and that perhaps
she thought she could come in and take over. But after a while, I discovered
that it was all genuine, that she wanted to make a better life for my dad and
his kids, taking them on as her own children.
Sara Leah passed away suddenly at the age of 69 on Shmini Atzeres/Simchas Torah.
I think her passing on this day really exemplified who she was as a person as
she personified simcha and loved Torah. Chazal explain that Shmini
Atzeres was created by Hashem as an additional holiday to connect to Him.
Hashem said, “Kasha alay preidaschem” – It is hard for Me to
separate from you, so let’s have one more holiday together. I suppose this was
Hashem’s way of saying that it was Sara Leah’s time to return to Shamayim
as G-d wanted to be closer to her.
As shiva concludes, I want to take the opportunity to think
about some of Sara Leah’s middos and how we can learn from her life. I
am hoping that we can all come away from reading this with some attribute of
hers to incorporate into our own lives.
Simchas Hachaim: Sara Leah was a person who
could have had a lot to complain about. She was born deaf and struggled to
navigate a hearing person’s world, particularly in a time when DEI
(diversity, equity and inclusion) were not in our vernacular. She learned to
read lips as a young child and was an oral speaker. Later, she learned sign
language so that she could communicate with those who are part of the Deaf
community and culture. Over the last 20 or so years, she began to lose her
vision and navigated the world with a cane and taught herself to read
Braille.
Sara Leah always saw life as on opportunity for growth and
persevered. She never complained and never expected less of herself because of
her challenges. Sara Leah always had a smile on her face and approached people besever
panim yafos, with a pleasant countenance; she was delighted to see them and
took an interest in their lives. She was a genuinely happy individual, who
radiated goodness and happiness to everyone who surrounded her, and her warmth
was felt by all.
Torah: Sara Leah grew up in Berkley,
California, where her father was a prominent astrophysicist at the University
of California at Berkley. As a teenager, she chose to move to Los Angeles to
pursue a higher level of learning at Bais Yaakov of L.A. She then moved across
the country to Boro Park to finish her high school education while being
surrounded by family and friends in a Jewish environment.
Sara Leah personified a life of Torah. She constantly learned
Torah, studied halachos, said tehillim, and was dignified in the way
that she presented herself. She appreciated the outside world as she read the Wall
Street Journal and always looked at current events through a Torah lens.
She was always careful about her time off from work – accounting for each
minute she took for lunch – so that she was honest in business. The only time
she would ever take vacation was on Chol Hamoed so that she would not do
additional melacha over the chag.
She supported my father in his Torah learning when he retired from
his professorship, and he learned in kollel for close to 20 years. Many people
who were menachem avel (consoled) my father described Sara Leah as a tzadekes
– and I would say that this accurately depicted who she was with no
exaggeration.
Sara Leah also focused on sharing Torah with others. She saw the
dearth of Torah opportunities for those from the DeafBlind community, and
sought to ameliorate this issue. Many deaf and blind individuals never get a
formal Torah education and are often approached by missionaries with spirituality
and warmth. To combat this, she partnered with Our Way, a division of the
Orthodox Union, to create the International DeafBlind Shabbaton at the
Pearlstone Retreat. She gave formal shiurim
there and shared Torah with many people who had never been exposed to it
before. She connected with many of those individuals after the Shabbaton and
communicated with them often. She showed others that a life of Torah was
thoughtful, real, meaningful, and happy. During shiva, we received countless calls from people who are part of the
DeafBlind community and were influenced by her.
Avodah: Sara Leah had a prominent
position at Social Security Administration (SSA) but always viewed herself as
merely a player on the team. She went to work at 4:30 a.m. each morning so that
she could finish in the early afternoon to take care of all household
responsibilities. As an expert software developer, she was one of the few
people who knew the language of the old systems used in the 1970s. She was
called on at all hours of the day and night to be there in case the system
crashed. She didn’t view her position just as a job; she saw her job as chesed.
When I asked her why she worked so hard and stayed up so late or got up so
early, she explained to me that she was doing it so the low-income widow or the
disabled man could access their social security benefits and pay their bills in
order to survive. Sara Leah also viewed her parnassah
as a vehicle to give tzedakah. She
was extremely generous with her checkbook when asked for contributions to a
capital campaign or a meshulach who
came to the door.
One of the people who gave a hesped at her funeral was a
sign language interpreter at SSA. The woman explained that Sara Leah saw each
person as a soul, not just another employee and acknowledged them as such. She
asked about each person’s family and gave them brachos in her emphatic
way of pouring them on!
As I cleaned out fridge this past week, I noticed the perfectly
prepared Yom Tov food in Tupperware, just as I had seen it 25 years ago. I look
back at the time Sara Leah dedicated to our family – close to 26 years – and I
am forever grateful for her and her impact on my life. May Sara Leah’s neshama
have an aliyah, and may my father receive koach from Hashem to
move forward with his life as she would have wanted.
