Day  5
Discuss a time in your life when you helped someone or saved someone's life.

I suspect that I don’t really know this, not really.  There are friends who extended a hand to me by simple actions.  Some called when I needed a call.  Some went out to the movies with me when I didn’t want to be alone. Some shared a meal. One grabbed me and held on when I was told that my father was dying. It meant little to them and was heaven to me.  So I can only give you two times when I helped someone.  And those times may have meant nothing. 

The older that I get, the more that I am amazed how significant are small acts of kindness, and how insignificant are large acts of kindness.   I complained that 30 million was too little earlier.  Maybe, I should think like Gideon.  30 million was too much.


•    A child is crying in her front yard.  I am waiting at the bus stop and a teen-ager is waiting with me.  I’m there because I can’t drive for six months—health problems.  He’s there probably for the same reason that I took the bus at that age.  No car or limited access to a car.  The child is a block away, but who doesn’t notice a child wailing in her front yard?  She goes inside, exits again and finally makes her way to us at the bus stop.  “My mother is lying on the floor””, she says.  “I can’t wake her up.”  The teenager whips out his phone and dials 911.  (Bless him!)  I follow the girl to her house and yes, her mother is spilled out on the floor and a shake does not wake her.  She is breathing.  I try to calm the girl.  The teen hands me his phone and I describe the situation.  I promise to remain and tell the young man that he can go.  Eventually, the police show up and later an ambulance shows up.  While I wait for the next bus, the girl’s father shows up.  I still don’t know what happened.

•    Eleven pm, three weeks after the storm.  Someone knocks at the door.  Someone knocks at the door at this time?!  I peer out, but I only know 2 of the neighboring families.  I open the door.  “Can I borrow some money?” the man says.  I need to get to work tomorrow.  “Oh sure,” I think.  This is a drug addict or some other type of crook.  But I have the example of my Catholic brother-in-law, who never refuses a cry for monetary help.  And I have the example of one of the Orthodox Rabbis who lived here before the storm.  He also stressed the requirement that Jews provide charity to the poor.  It’s not charity in the sense that I grew up with; it is not  extra-credit.  It is the credit.  So I give him what I have--$10.  (I never carry a lot of money because of the fear of robbery.)  I assume that I will never see the man again.  And, for months, I don’t.  Then he re-appears to give me $20 back.  “Because,” he says, “I was the only one to open my door that night. “  And he says that he was a (New Orleans)  city worker who was living on a ship in the river.  He had come over to the west bank to check on his property and gotten stuck with no way back to the ship.  As background, understand that immediately after the storm, bus service stopped at 8 pm---curfew hour.  And cab service is approximately $30 one way.  I know, having been stuck in that situation myself later.   So there I was,  pleased to know to that I had given the money to someone who needed it, but aware that I had been certain that he was some type of criminal that particular night.  Just the right balance of moral ambiguity. 

See, I warned you that these tales were small.  I hope you read the grander tales of others tomorrow. 

As always, check out the originator of the week’s theme at
http://hochmaumusar.blogspot.com/