Chap­ter 6: Chal­lah opens with Chona’s slow but steady recov­ery from a fever that had kept her bedrid­den for over a week. Her con­di­tion grad­u­al­ly improved, and with Addie’s assis­tance, she began to regain strength. Even­tu­al­ly, Chona expressed her eager­ness to return to the gro­cery store, a sign of her grow­ing resilience. Moshe, thrilled by her recov­ery, attrib­uted much of her heal­ing to Malachi, a bak­er from the the­ater who had been deliv­er­ing fresh chal­lah dai­ly. Although Moshe wasn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of chal­lah, pre­fer­ring tra­di­tion­al white bread and sand­wich­es, he felt a deep sense of grat­i­tude towards Malachi, believ­ing that the bread played a key role in Chona’s improve­ment.

Malachi’s usu­al appear­ance was disheveled, and his worn clothes were a stark con­trast to the pris­tine bak­ery image Moshe had envi­sioned. Nev­er­the­less, Malachi deliv­ered his chal­lah with pride, and Moshe, despite his dis­taste for the bread, accept­ed it out of respect. His first attempt to taste it end­ed in dis­gust, but he knew he had to main­tain polite­ness, so he com­pli­ment­ed Malachi on the bread. Want­i­ng to avoid offend­ing him, Moshe dis­creet­ly gave the bread to a dog that had been a nui­sance to him in the past. To Moshe’s sur­prise, the dog stopped both­er­ing him after that day, and he couldn’t help but find a strange sat­is­fac­tion in the out­come of his qui­et action.

Despite Malachi’s lack of bak­ing skills and his chaot­ic lifestyle, Moshe found him­self drawn to the baker’s charm and infec­tious enthu­si­asm. The more time they spent togeth­er, the more Moshe real­ized that they shared a com­mon bond, hav­ing both expe­ri­enced the chal­lenges of being immi­grants in Amer­i­ca. Malachi’s sim­ple and unre­fined approach to life con­trast­ed sharply with Moshe’s more struc­tured and cau­tious nature, but this only added to the appeal of their unlike­ly friend­ship. Moshe found that he appre­ci­at­ed the unique­ness of Malachi’s per­spec­tive, even though it often dif­fered from his own. Their rela­tion­ship grew into a source of com­fort for Moshe, par­tic­u­lar­ly as his social cir­cle in Chick­en Hill had dwin­dled over time.

The friend­ship Moshe had with Malachi felt dif­fer­ent from his rela­tion­ship with Nate, a Black man in Chick­en Hill. While Nate’s friend­ship was impor­tant to Moshe, the soci­etal bar­ri­ers between them were always present, and Moshe couldn’t shake the feel­ing that their bond was lim­it­ed by race. In con­trast, his bond with Malachi felt more open and unre­strict­ed, even though their dif­fer­ing back­grounds some­times caused fric­tion in their con­ver­sa­tions. Moshe took pride in being an Amer­i­can, but this iden­ti­ty was also com­pli­cat­ed by the chal­lenges minori­ties faced in find­ing full accep­tance in their new coun­try. His deci­sion to gift Malachi a mezuzah pendant—a sym­bol of wel­come and Jew­ish identity—was a ges­ture of good­will. How­ev­er, Malachi insist­ed the pen­dant be giv­en to Chona, empha­siz­ing his own con­nec­tion to Jew­ish tra­di­tions while show­ing an unex­pect­ed rev­er­ence for Moshe’s cul­tur­al prac­tices.

Their con­ver­sa­tions often cen­tered around the dif­fer­ences in their views on tra­di­tion and mod­ern Amer­i­can life. Malachi, while proud of his past, often expressed frus­tra­tion with the Amer­i­can way of life, crit­i­ciz­ing it for its lack of authen­tic­i­ty. He empha­sized that the inten­tion behind one’s actions was far more impor­tant than the for­mal­i­ties and rit­u­als that often dom­i­nat­ed soci­etal expec­ta­tions. Yet, despite his open crit­i­cism, Malachi failed to reveal much about his per­son­al life, keep­ing cer­tain aspects of his jour­ney in Amer­i­ca hid­den from Moshe. This caused some ten­sion in their friend­ship, as Moshe was intrigued by Malachi’s reluc­tance to share but also frus­trat­ed by the lack of clar­i­ty in their dis­cus­sions. These con­ver­sa­tions allowed Moshe to fur­ther explore the com­plex­i­ties of iden­ti­ty and the immi­grant expe­ri­ence, even as the two men strug­gled to under­stand each oth­er ful­ly.

Mean­while, Malachi’s bak­ery, despite his best efforts, was fal­ter­ing. His self-taught approach to bak­ing did not yield the desired results, and the qual­i­ty of his prod­ucts was sub­par. This real­i­ty led Moshe to con­front the fail­ure of Malachi’s busi­ness, an out­come that weighed heav­i­ly on both of them. Their dis­cus­sions about the bakery’s strug­gles brought into focus the broad­er dif­fi­cul­ties faced by many immi­grants try­ing to make a liv­ing in a for­eign land. As Malachi came to the deci­sion to close his bak­ery, he acknowl­edged that change was nec­es­sary, both for his own future and for the evolv­ing dynam­ics of his life in Amer­i­ca. This deci­sion, while dif­fi­cult, marked the end of a chap­ter in Malachi’s jour­ney, leav­ing Moshe with lin­ger­ing thoughts about the com­plex­i­ties of his friend’s path. The inter­ac­tions between Moshe and Malachi high­light­ed the uni­ver­sal chal­lenges of immi­gra­tion, cul­tur­al adap­ta­tion, and the ongo­ing search for iden­ti­ty in a rapid­ly chang­ing world.

Through their friend­ship, Moshe was remind­ed of the ties that bind indi­vid­u­als togeth­er, even across cul­tur­al divides. The shared expe­ri­ences of being out­siders in Amer­i­ca allowed them to con­nect in a way that tran­scend­ed their dif­fer­ences. Malachi’s strug­gles with his bak­ery mir­rored Moshe’s own inner con­flicts about his place in the world, fur­ther deep­en­ing their bond. In the end, this chap­ter serves as a reflec­tion on the chal­lenges and resilience of immi­grants, illus­trat­ing the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of their jour­ney as they nav­i­gate their new lives.