Yom Kippur.... the day of covering.... a time in which a quilt maker discovered an important lesson.
Rivqah Yahsepha bana Shalom (Rebekah Josepha Coover)
07-10-5767 (Yom Kippur)
Gretchen laid aside her sewing materials and stiffly rose to her feet. She was a Jewish widow, all alone, with much time on her hands. This time she filled with making quilts.... quilt after quilt. Some were draped over the bed and love sofa, others she hung on the walls of her little cottage, and still others were laid quietly aside in chests.
It was growing late in the day. “I guess I’ll fix myself a little bite to eat,” she murmured to herself. And so saying, she set about to prepare a little bread and butter and reheated vegetables. When she was finished her meal, she washed up the dishes and put away her quilt scraps and spools of thread.
“Iss time for rest,” Gretchen decided aloud, and sank onto the sofa. Directly in front of her seat was a large window through which she could see the orange ball of the sun growing ever nearer to the horizon. “In eight days ‘twill be Yom Kippur,” she sighed, “the day of affliction. It makes me wonder. HaShem made so many Feast days of rejoicing, and this one He makes of affliction. I can’t really see what good can come out of afflicting oneself. And what is the purpose of a day with that sole meaning?” She sat in deep thought for some time. “Yom Kippur,” she finally mused aloud. “What does Kippur mean? Affliction?” Moved by curiosity, she rose and crossed the room, bending to pull a large book from the bottom of the cherry wood bookshelf that stood against the wall. It was an old Hebrew dictionary which her father had given her many years before, but which she had scarcely ever looked at. Returning to her seat, she began now to slowly page through the book, looking for the word “kippur”. After some searching, she found it, and read the definition, “atonement; covering over; forgiveness”. She did not know why, but for some reason someone, perhaps her father, had highlighted and underlined the phrase “covering over”. “Covering over. Forgiveness,” Gretchen mused. “Not affliction? It doesn’t say “the day of affliction”. It is a day to afflict ourselves.... but it is the day of covering over.”
Gretchen was puzzled to say the least, and returned the book to its shelf. “I can’t say that my question has been answered,” she murmured. “Very interesting.... but what does it have to do with affliction?”
Brilliant streaks of red and orange were painted across the sky. Gretchen stood momentarily before the window, and then turned away. “Iss time for me to retire.”
Going to her room, she prepared for bed. Before lying down though, she raised her arms and recited the Sh’ma ~ “Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad” ~ just as her father had taught her to do when she was a little girl. She repeated it every night. For the most part, that was the extent of her prayers. Usually she felt a sense of peace and satisfaction as she repeated the age old line delivered to Israel so long ago. But tonight there was a spirit of unrest within her. The phrase “covered over” kept going through her mind, and she kept wondering, “Who covers us over? Adonai? How does He cover us over? And what does it have to do with affliction?”
Gretchen was awakened early by an insistent knocking on the front door. Rising, she hastily pulled on a dress and head scarf and shuffled to the livingroom. Peeking out the window, she saw a shabbily dressed woman holding a baby who wasn’t dressed hardly any better than his mother. Gretchen opened the door and motioned for the young woman to come in.
“Please pardon me,” the woman said. “I hope I’m not bothering you. I heard that you make wonderful quilts, and I am in need of some. How much will you sell me a quilt for?” Gretchen held her finger up as a signal to wait, and without a word padded quietly into her bedroom. From a chest she withdrew two warm quilts. She placed them in a large bag and returned to the livingroom. “Just take them, for the sake of Adonai,” she said, holding out the bag.
Tears filled the woman’s eyes. “Do you mean it? No one has showed me such kindness in.... in a long time? Thank-you over and over again.”
After the woman had left, Gretchen toasted some bread and sat down to eat. “It was a mitzvah, a good deed for HaShem,” she said to herself. “Now her and her baby shall be covered...” She stopped abruptly at the familiar word over which she had puzzled so greatly the night before. “It was kindness. It was help in time of need. It was doing something which none other would do for her.”
Two days passed. One afternoon a cool wind was blowing about the cottage, and Gretchen went out to retrieve some firewood. She was struggling with the large chunks of wood when a boy suddenly stepped onto her porch. “Let me help you, ma’am,” he said, and reaching out his strong arms, he heaved up one of the heavy pieces. Gretchen stood watching him as he took in one load after another until the stove was going nicely and there was a neat pile of wood stacked by it in the same manner that her husband had stacked it years ago. “There, now you’re needs are covered for a while,” he smiled, putting his hands in his pockets. “When the pile is small, I hope I’ll be around to help you stock it up again.”
“Thank-you,” said Gretchen. “Can I give you a warm cup of milk to repay your kindness?” “No thank-you. I must hurry home. My father is waiting for me.” And the cheery boy went on his way.
Gretchen went in to stand by her fire. There was a warm feeling in her heart. “So, my mitzvah has been repayed,” she smiled. “Thank-you, Adonai.” Just then, she remembered the boy’s words. “Now you’re needs are covered for a while.” What did it mean? “It means that when my strength was not sufficient, he stepped in instead. It means that where it was cold, now a fire burns.”
Three days later, Gretchen put her sewing supplies aside and gathered up her market bag to go and get some supplies. On the way to town, she passed Hank Stottler’s house. She could hear a baby crying loudly inside. She paused. Hank was a loner, a very quiet and withdrawn man. He had no relatives or friends. His wife had died after giving birth to a baby seven months ago, and Hank’s acquaintanceship consisted only of a middle-aged woman who came to care for his child and house every day while he was at work. Now Gretchen felt moved with pity by the crying baby, and stepped toward the house. “Maybe the child is sick,” she murmured. “I’ll ask Della if there’s anything I can buy to help him.”
Knock, knock, knock. Gretchen waited. Then the door opened and Della stood there, her face troubled. “I arrived this morning, and Hank is dead,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do..... with the baby. Hank has no relatives that you know of, does he?”
“No,” replied Gretchen. Then, looking around the room, she suddenly said, “Me. Della, I’m going to town. When I come back..... if you trust me..... have the baby and his belongings ready for me.”
“Gretchen, you don’t mean it!” exclaimed Della. “You don’t have the means to care for baby Emil.”
“The quilts,” said Gretchen with resolution. “The quilts will cover the expenses.”
“Do you think?” asked Della doubtfully.
Gretchen nodded and then turned away. On her way to town, she mentally repeated what she had said. “The quilts will cover.... they will cover the expenses. Everyone knows that I make quilts, but that I don’t sell. I’ve had more than one good offer. They will go well. I know they will. And there will be money for goats’ milk, for shoes as he grows, for books, and all the things he needs. Yes, cover. They will make a way where there is no way. They will pay a price that I could not pay otherwise.”
When Gretchen arrived to pick up Emil, his belongings were in a couple satchels by the door. Della lent her a hand in carrying the things over to the cottage. “You have no bed for him,” she said. “I didn’t think. I will go and get his cradle.”
“No,” objected Gretchen. “He will soon be too big for his cradle anyway. He will share my bed.”
And that evening, after she had given the child milk which she had warmed on the stove, they went to bed together. As she covered them both with thick quilts, she mused. “We are covered together. There is a closeness and a oneness. But what does it all mean? And what does it have to do with affliction?” And she held the baby close to her and went to sleep.
~~~~~~~
The sun was setting, and the sky was once again streaked with colors. Gretchen’s small meal had been cleared a way. It was now time for the Day of Affliction. “No,” she corrected herself, “The day of covering.” But she still did not understand.
Gretchen sang softly to Emil, something which she had not done for many years. “I used to sing when I was a girl,” she thought. “Why have I stopped? Why have I neglected to sing? Jeannie and I used to sing together.” And her thoughts traveled backwards to the days of girlhood. She and Jeannie had been friends. They had quickly sensed their differences. Jeannie believed in the Messiah. Gretchen didn’t. But for some reason the two were drawn together. They didn’t speak of their differences, but sang and played and worked, and even made their first quilt together.
Gretchen walked slowly into the bedroom. Setting Emil down, she opened a drawer which had only been opened once before. It had been when she and her husband moved to this cottage, twenty-three years before. She had placed in the drawer a book which Jeannie had given her, but had never opened the drawer since then. Now she drew it out and began paging through it, driven by some irresistible force. Seeing a highlighted verse, she stopped and read, “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from thee....” (Isaiah 54:10) “Kindness. Wasn’t that what it was when I covered that woman and her baby, when I gave them quilts?” Gretchen continued flipping, until her eyes rested on another highlighted phrase: “In the day of salvation have I succored thee.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) “HaShem has succored us. He has helped us,” Gretchen murmured. “But how?” She flipped forward a few pages, and then felt drawn to turn backwards in the book. Her gaze fell on the words, “For scarcely for a wicked man will one die; yet peradventure, for a good man, some would even dare to die. But Elohim commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Messiah died for us.” (Romans 5:7-8) Gretchen glanced nervously at the picture of her parents hanging on the wall. They had always strictly warned her against this Messiah. She had feared to look at the book. She had feared to see a teaching opposite to what her parents taught her. But now she whispered, “If it is true, then he did something that no one else would do. It is just like when I gave the woman and her baby quilts to cover them. It was a kindness, and a help, and something no one else would do. But I don’t believe in this Messiah..... or do I?” Inwardly she knew that she had always refrained from opening the book because she had been afraid that what she found might be right.
“Should I put it away?” Gretchen asked herself, but began turning pages again, until she noticed a star in the side column of a page, beside the words, “My favor is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) “It is like what the boy did for me,” she said. “But I must not be reading this New Testament.” So she turned back to the book of Jeremiah, and began to read in the middle of chapter 23. “Is not My Word like a fire, saith HaShem?” There was a reference neatly written in the margin, and she read it: John 1:1-2, 14. “The New Testament again?” she sighed, but could not put the book down. She found the reference. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Elohim, and the Word was Elohim. The same was in the beginning with Elohim. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His splendor, the splendor as of the only begotten of the Father, full of favor and truth.” “This Word has to be the Messiah,” reasoned Gretchen, “And He is a fire, a warmth, making a burning glow where it was once cold.” She caught herself. “What am I saying?” Her hand went to her heart, but within her heart was such a glow, such a warmth.
What else did the Book of John have to say? “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” (John 14:6) The words were lightly underlined, and Gretchen read them again. “I am the Way.” Something which she had said the other day came to mind: “making a way where there is no way”. “Is He the Way?” she asked. “Do I really know the Father?” She suddenly felt frightened. “How can I be worthy of the Father?” she asked herself. “What am I? I.... I don’t really know Adonai. And I’m afraid to come into His presence. I have nothing to give Him, except my sinful self.” Her fingers trembled as she turned the pages, and then a verse caught her eye. “For ye are bought with a price....” (1 Corinthians 6:20) “Who bought me? Was it a price that I could not pay? Was it like paying for Emil’s needs, which I could not do if it weren’t for the quilts? Was it something I could not pay? Who paid it?” Then she remembered the verse in Romans 5 ~ “While we were yet sinners, Messiah died for us.” “THAT was how He paid!” she exclaimed. “Is it true? Is it His affliction which has covered us?”
Emil whimpered and Gretchen picked him up. He felt chilly, and she laid a small quilt over him. “That closeness again,” she murmured. Sitting down on the bed, she cuddled him. As he nestled against her, she turned the pages of the book once more. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.” (John 15:4) Gretchen breathed in deeply. “That was one of the meanings of “kippur”: atonement, being at one with Him. If we abide in Him, we are covered. We are close to Him and one with Him. And that is the purpose of the affliction.” The light had dawned. Gretchen turned her face upward, and with awe in her voice she said, “As I have been afflicted, as I have wondered what good could come out of affliction, Adonai has revealed to me the affliction of One who is far greater than I...... and because of that, I am covered.”