Once in the town of Leonia there lived a simple, righteous man named Manny and his not-so-simple righteous wife Rivka. Manny and Rivka had been married for many years. He was a telephone repairman for Verizon, and she stayed home and took care of their seven children.

Every day, before Manny left his house to tend to the telecommunications needs of northern New Jersey, after he had davened and had breakfast, he would weigh himself on the bathroom scale. This may seem like a strange daily tradition, but Manny spent all day going up and down on a small, one man cherry picker attached to a Verizon service truck, and the device had a 200 pound weight limit. If your job depended on being thin, your weight would be important to you, too. Every day he was between 170-175 pounds. Satisfied with this number, Manny would leave for his task of keeping the Garden State connected.

One Monday in early Tishrei, just a few days after Rosh Hashana, Manny attended a retirement party for his coworker Irving. It was a big bash at Fress Express, a local deli, and in the spirit of the party, Manny indulged himself just a bit. He ate a big bowl of mushroom barley soup, a hefty pastrami sandwich with liverwurst, and a generous helping of mashed potatoes with gravy. It had all been delicious, but after partaking of so much of Rivka’s delicious food on Rosh Hashana just a few days earlier and now splurging at the party, Manny worried that maybe he had overdone it a bit.

When he got home from work, Manny went straight to the bathroom and stood on the scale. Much to his surprise, he was 192 pounds. He was flabbergasted. How could he have gained so much so quickly?

Manny rushed out to Rivka in the living room and told her his predicament. Clearly he was perplexed.

Rivka scrutinized her husband and saw the problem immediately. Every day when Manny weighed himself before he left for work, he was wearing his Verizon uniform, but his heavy utility belt, filled with all his telephone gear, was still hanging on a peg by the front door. But when he weighed himself now, just after returning from work, he was still wearing all his tools around his waist.

“Manny, my love, father of my children, I suspect your weight problem has nothing to do with what you ate today, or even what you ate on Yom Tov,” Rivka said.

“Really?” Manny asked, “Then what could it possibly be?”

“To be honest with you, I think it’s a teshuva issue,” Rivka said. “You know how aveirot, sins, can weigh heavily on your soul, and how on the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur you are judged by Hashem as if your good deeds and bad deeds from the year are balanced on a scale?”

“Yes, yes?” Manny said.

“Well maybe this is Hashem’s way of telling you that your sins are weighing you down. Maybe you need to do better teshuva, repentance, before the Book of Life is closed on Yom Kippur.”

Manny thought about what Rivka said and realized that of course she was right. His weight gain was clearly from bad spiritual baggage that he was carrying around. He decided to work on bettering his repentance immediately. Rivka convinced him that until Yom Kippur, instead of weighing himself each morning, Manny would work on his teshuva all day, and then in the evening, upon returning from his job, he would get on the scale in front of Rivka to gauge his success.

On Tuesday morning Manny woke up determined to work on the mitzvah of tzedakah. While he was at morning minyan, Rivka went to his Verizon utility belt, removed his handset amplifier, and hid it in the garage, behind the bicycle helmets. Manny returned from davening, had breakfast with Rivka and the kids, and left for work. The whole day he tried to be charitable. He mailed a check to the local foodbank. He bought a homeless man in Hackensack some lunch. He paid his Kol Nidrei appeal to his shul. He couldn’t find his handset amplifier on his belt when he needed it, but he assumed he had left it in a different Verizon truck the day before.

When he returned home he got on the scale, and much to his great pleasure, he was down to one 189 pounds.

“You see?” Rivka said, “Your load is lighter already.”

On Wednesday, Manny chose to work on loshon hara, not speaking badly of others. Rivka pulled the telephone line simulator from his belt while he was in the shower. All day Manny tried to guard his tongue, and of course it paid off. When he returned from work he was down to 186.

Thursday was honoring your parents day for Manny. He had lunch with his folks and helped them with chores around their house. That was a big mitzvah, so Rivka removed Manny’s radio frequency eliminator filter, which was rather heavy. By nightfall he had reached 182 pounds.

Friday was Erev Yom Kippur. Feeling the need for teshuva strongly, Manny pulled out all the stops. He asked for mechila, forgiveness, from everyone he knew. He asked Rivka, his children, his friends, and all his coworkers–especially for borrowing their tools the whole week. Rivka knew this was very important to her husband, so while he was shaving she removed from his belt his long loop adapter, his modulator exclusion privacy adapter, and his TKM-6 transfer switches. When Manny returned from work early, allowing himself enough time to go to the mikveh before yom tov, he got on the scale, and much to his surprise he was down to 177 pounds.

Rivka thought Manny would be elated, but he only offered a half-smile.

“What’s wrong, bubbe?” Rivka asked.

“I’ve tried so hard,” Manny said, “and I’m still a few pounds above my regular weight. There must still be sins I haven’t atoned for. What more can I do?”

Rivka smiled at her husband. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Go to the mikveh, and when you come back, I can almost guarantee you’ll be back to your usual weight.”

“How can you be so sure?” Manny asked.

“You have a pure and beautiful neshama, Manny. Trust me.”

Manny took off his work clothes, hung his belt on the peg by the front door, and went off to the mikveh. Rivka placed all his tools back on his belt and waited for his return.

Sure enough, when he got back to his house, Manny stepped onto the scale and he weighed 169, even less than usual. Manny was elated.

“Baruch Hashem,” he said.

“What did I tell you?” Rivka said.

“Now I really need to make my teshuva complete on Yom Kippur,” Manny said.

“Why’s that, honey?”

“I’ve always wanted to get back to 160,” Manny said, “like the day we were married.”

“Manny,” Rivka said, “I think you’re perfect just the way you are.”

Larry Stiefel is a pediatrician at Tenafly Pediatrics. He is also author of the parsha story blog maggidofbergenfield.com.

By Larry Stiefel