Behind the Bunk Bed

If you take a trip into my house, you will find that each piece of furniture has a story. That’s because, for me, walking in to the store to buy a piece of furniture is so, well.. boring. (And expensive!). Scoring a second-hand piece that is both good quality and a good value gives you the excitement of the chase and the thrill of the buy. And the stories! Oh, the stories.

Like the time I was looking for a desk for my daughter in her tiny Brooklyn room. The spot we had available was a measly 36 inches wide and scouring the internet did not help me turn up a desk that was smaller than 40 inches. And then! During the blizzard of ’26, lo and behold, I spotted the posting in Scarsdale for a 36-inch desk (with a beautiful hutch to boot!) for the measly price of 30$! I immediately snapped up the posting, figuring a snow day off work was a great day for bargain furniture shopping.

The seller messaged me that her driveway was buried under two feet of snow but she had booked a snow cleaning service. I headed there anyways and whispered a prayer to Hashem that the snow should be cleared by the time I get there. Driving there was another story. If NYC streets are typically like playing Frogger (or whatever the kids play nowadays) this was NYC Driving Frogger: Blizzard Edition and it consisted of highway driving at 65mph only to turn the corner and find that oops this lane was no longer plowed and smashing straight into the next lane. Luckily the highway was empty. I finally arrived and low and behold, I pulled in right as the snow service was leaving. Thank you, Hashem! The look on my daughter’s face when I brought it home was priceless and made it all worth it.

Or how about the time I was bringing home a sefarim shafah/desk for my boys. I drove out to Long Island for this one, to be met by a suburban mom and her daughter. Of course, I asked if they were Jewish, but looking at their cold, hard faces, I instinctively knew the answer was no, even before they shook their heads. Mom was very pleasant and helped me get it all into my car, telling me she was cleaning out her son’s room. I thought nothing of it as it is very common for moms to sell their kids barely used furniture when said kids head off to college or get married. When I got home and started putting it all back together, I noticed a paper stuck between the drawers. It was a hockey certificate with the kid’s name on it. Curious, I googled the name… only to discover the “kid” had been sentenced to 40 years in prison for a cold-blooded murder…. But that’s not all! I told my boys the story and that there must be something special about this desk that was stuck in that house for so long and waiting all these years to be used by a Yiddishe child to learn from a sefer on it. It was a moment of reflection for us.

But my favorite story is the one with Zev. It was COVID and also time for my kids to get a new bunkbed. I was pretty picky about this one. I wanted one that would be good quality and stand up to years of climbing and jumping on but also, I didn’t want to pay that much for it. I had been searching for a year and a half already (good things come to those who wait!) and I was almost considering giving up and going with IKEA. And then I saw it! Some guy in Manhattan had posted a beautiful, hardwood bunk bed. Just what I was looking for. I looked up the original. A top of the line, brand-name bed. Worth 1850 pre-tax. He was selling it for 300. Did I want it? Is that even a question?

I emailed him to enquire about the listing. 30 seconds later, I got an email back from Zev, wanting to know if I was Libs of TikTok.

“Sorry,” I replied, “I’m not. Can I still get the bed?”

Luckily, he said yes and before long my husband was off to Manhattan. Naturally, my husband asked if he would like to put on Tefillin. As they got to talking, Zev let it all out. He was fed up with all the COVID restrictions and he was O.U.T. of NY. He was taking his kids and moving it down to Florida. As they talked some more, they discovered that Zev’s dad was a Holocaust survivor who lived not too far from my in-laws down in Maryland and Zev would be stopping by on the way to Florida. Zev was planning to get to Maryland late Friday afternoon. Of course, we notified my in-laws right away and my father-in-law headed right over to bring them some Challah so they could have a Shabbos meal.

We found out that Zev’s dad, Joseph, had never had a Bar Mitzvah and had never put on Tefillin. Of course, this was soon rectified. He was not interested in anything to do with religion but was happy to talk to my father-in-law, Rabbi Raichik. Rabbi Raichik came to visit him every few months, slowly building up a steady relationship, sharing L’chaims and talking about life. At one point, before Pesach, Rabbi Raichik informed him that he would need to sell his chometz if he wanted to continue sharing L’chaim with the Rabbi after Pesach. He agreed and slowly but surely became more interested.

One time, my father-in-law showed up for a visit, to find a very emotional Joseph. He had decided to purchase a pair of Tefillin and was waiting for Rabbi Raichik to come show him how to put them on. His birth father had died during the war and he had been raised by an uncle and cousin who survived. He had managed to purchase the pair from his cousin and he was excited to wear them every day. It was an emotional moment for all involved.

But the story does not end there, nor does it ever end. Although it is six years later, every few months we are notified about a new development, most recently changing his last will and testament from being cremated to being buried. Every time, I look at our bunk bed, I have the satisfaction of knowing it helped bring a Yid closer to Hashem.

So, the moral really is, anything can happen if you speak up! All it takes is one question or comment and you can change someone's life forever.