For C.B.

If you are interested in learning mishnayot in memory of Chaya Bracha ("C.B.") Weichsel z"l (nee Bruchofsky), send me an email and I'll put you in touch with the person who is organizing the endeavor.

I didn't know C.B. very well. She was a friend of one of my former roommates, so I had several Shabbat meals with her when we were both on the Upper West Side. I knew her before she met her husband, and there was a period when both of us were having a hard time when it came to dating, and agreed that "we really need a drink." The trouble was, neither of us really were in the mood to go to a bar or get drunk. We liked the idea of drowning our sorrows, but didn't really want to do it. I don't even like alcohol. So she went out and bought us two fruit slurpies, and we went to her apartment and spiked them with vodka, and pretended we were being bad. It was such a comical combination of feeling genuinely stressed and laughing at ourselves. It was nice to be "out for a drink" with a girlfriend. Sharing troubles with someone else made them a little less.

A few weeks later she met her husband and got engaged quickly thereafter. And then I made aliyah, and we weren't in touch. I'm sorry about that now, even though I know I can't be equally in touch with everyone.

I'll miss you, C.B. In my mind I'm holding a strawberry slurpy, laced with Absolut, and raising it to you. To C.B. Whereever you are.