5th paragraph: does mother close to tears get a "soft shock" of compassion and wonder (great sentence, embodying emotion beautifully) from an image of herself as a young girl crying (this girl weeps the "incurable" boy's mother's tears for her) and being comforted by her own mother? Are the Soloveichiks loners? Has mother married a loner and birthed a loner? Mother is so far from her own mother, her mother's comfort is not in the picture, no one takes care of mother in this story. I have no clues for "Rebecca Borisovna." Rebecca is a Jewish name?
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