Something Nice In Trader Joe’s

By Rabbi Shimon Posner

Yesterday was my eldest daughter’s first day on Shlichus. Monday night Musie and her husband Leibel Kesselman took the red-eye with their one-year-old Chana and newborn Mendel from California– where she had been spending her kimpatorin since before Pesach – and arrived in Greenville, SC, early yesterday morning.

They drove to the home they had rented (amazing what you can do these days from 3000 miles away by tapping a keyboard) and they were glad to find the home was as comfortable as it had seemed from the pictures and online descriptions. They were met shortly after by the moving truck with the (relatively) few items they had moved from their East New York Avenue apartment in Crown Heights.

Following the shviger’s advice (as I occasionally refer to my wife these days) they made their beds (do that first, so if you decide to platz you can do so; you’ll feel better to keep working just knowing you have a bed waiting for you) and then were ready for her second piece of advice: fill the fridge.

My daughters are California-raised, and grocery shopping means Trader Joe’s – even in Brooklyn they could never fully adapt to avenue market shopping and whenever they could, they got a hold of a car and filled up at Trader’s.

But this Trader’s was different. It didn’t feel like the one back home, Musie said, no one felt familiar. It was foreign. Is it possible there are Jews here, she wondered?

“Hi! Shalom!” exclaimed a woman obviously delighted and stunned to see them. “My name is Rachel; are you new here?”

Turns out Rachel is Israeli, her husband is an American Jew and they have two lovely children. “Oh my gosh!” gushed Rachel, and started rattling off the names of all her friends that were going to be so excited to meet this new couple in town. They traded cell numbers and emails and continued to the next aisle.

Another woman, equally astounded and grateful to meet the Kesselman’s. At checkout they met a third family – friends of Rachel’s it turned out.

There are moments in a chosid’s life you feel are making an impact, or at least they should be. Menorah lightings. Seminars. High Holidays. But Trader’s?

How gratifying to know that your children have chosen a lifestyle that between picking out the green peppers and tomatoes, between finding the apple cider vinegar and frozen spinach they are fulfilling their destiny. To paraphrase; it is not through teaching maamorim that you leave your mark, but from tying your shoelaces.

How fortunate I am to see this, how blessed and grateful I am to hear this. Still, I miss them.