This month, our book club from JWOW!, read the memoir entitled “Rachel Calof’s Story,” which was originally written in Yiddish in the early 1900s. Rachel Calof, a Jewish woman, was born in Russia in 1894 and when she was four years old, her mother died. Rachel suffered greatly at the hands of her father, and grandfather who treated her poorly.

As Rachel grew up, she requested to live with an aunt who was kinder to her and gave her a job helping in the house. Rachel eventually was set up to get married with a man from America whom she never met, and only met him after traveling across the world to meet him. This man turned out to be a kind man, but still Rachel had a lot of troubles throughout her life.

When she arrived in America, she got to know her future husband a bit and later married him. She was young and innocent. They moved to North Dakota and settled in the homestead land over there. The land was given to them by the government for very cheap and they had to build up the line. For years and years, Rachel suffered poverty, and lived in subhuman conditions. She lived in a shack that barely had a roof and was very small. Her in-laws lived nearby in similar surroundings and a brother-in-law also did. However, there was a lot of mocking of Rachel, and as she gave birth to child after child, she faced much adversity.

Throughout all the troubles, she kept her faith intact. She took each challenge in front of her and dealt with it. One day at a time. By the end of the book, she and her husband have built up the land, have built themselves a decent home, and have even decorated the home sweetly. Through all this, she remained more or less steadfast in her observance of basic Jewish laws such as keeping kosher. In fact, they didn’t have a slaughterer (butcher) to slaughter meat properly, so they went without meat for years.

I highly recommend this book as it gets us to think and ponder things that we take for granted. Here are some lessons I gleaned from the book. Incidentally, if you’d like to become a member of JWOW! and participate in future book club sessions (our last one was April 26 on Zoom), head to the website and become a member. Membership entitles you to watch the video recording on the website if you’ve missed the event.

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Lessons from Rachel Calof’s story (Translated from Yiddish to English by her son, Jacob Calof)

1. Appreciate each small sign of progress. Rachel and her husband embraced every step towards building their homes. Even if they lived under terrible conditions in North Dakota, they appreciated the smallest sign of good things.

2.This too shall pass. All along the way, they knew in their bones, in spite of everything, that they’d see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Meaning this shall pass. New stages and times will happen.

3. Writing down her story was likely therapeutic for her, and even more so, it was a way to document the story of what happened to her and her family. Later her family found it and translated it into English and turned it into a book. Rachel had foresight.

4. Perseverance. Rachel never gave up. She just kept on going, no matter how many setbacks there were.

5. Rachel is a lesson in facing adversity, and how to take each challenge that’s right in front of us and deal with it. Instead of looking far into the distance and giving up, she dealt with each problem as it came about. She made curtains, prepared a flame for cooking, cooked food, made herself beds, helped her children get better when they will ill or burned. And so much more.

How do we face adversity today? How can we learn from Rachel’s story. Let us know in the comments.

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