Hey, tribe.
Last Thursday, I locked myself out of my house. I was leaving to meet Rebbetzin Tzivie Greenberg for the one-on-one Torah study we convene for every week. I was in a rush, and as I was on the threshold walking out, I thought: something doesn’t feel right — I’m forgetting something. I did a quick scan. I had my purse, my phone, my notebook, my drink. What else was there? Nothing.
I dismissed the feeling and pulled the door shut behind me and as I heard the click of the automatic lock, there was a terrible moment when I knew exactly what was missing.
I’d forgotten my keys.
I stood on the porch between the locked house and the locked garage, wanting to howl in dismay.
I remained paralyzed for several more moments. I walked in a few agitated circles, wondering what to do. Then I sat down on the porch steps and called Tzivie.
“Hey, Elissa. What’s up?”
”Oh my God. I can hardly bear to tell you. I locked myself out of my house and garage and car. I can’t believe I did this!”
“Breathe,” she said.
I paused for a breath and then resumed my tailspin.
”I was up all night. I’m running on empty. I don’t have a brain cell left in my skull. I’ve never done this before but it’s like I can’t even think this morning.”
“Take another deep breath,” she directed.
I took a deep breath.
“So obviously, I’m not going to make it over to you,” I went on after exhaling. “I’m so sorry. I was really looking forward to our conversation.”
“Do you have any way of getting back into your house?”
“Well, I have a friend who lives about a mile away and she often feeds the cat when we’re gone. She might have it. She’s within walking distance.”
“All right, well, see if she has your key and let me know what she says. I could come and get you if need be, and give you a ride somewhere if that can happen within the next hour. But if she’s only a mile away, it might take you longer to wait for me.”
“Okay, I’ll call her right now.”
“And remember — as mistakes go, this is not a big deal. You can use it to practice figuring out how it’s all for the best.”
This insistence by Chabadniks — that whatever happens, it’s all for the best, in ways we can understand and in ways we can’t understand — is a long-time point of contention between myself and them. One of many. And yet, I’ve never been able to fight my love for Chabad, or my attachment to them.
I don’t even try to fight it anymore. I belong to several synagogues. I get something unique and essential from each of them.
We have had the same good-natured argument, over and over, for well over a decade.
“Admit it,” I used to say to the Rabbi. “In your heart of hearts, you don’t really believe in God. You know you don’t. You can’t possibly.”
And without taking the slightest offense, he would answer, with equanimity and an edge of amusement: “You, yourself, already have a very strong faith. You don’t know it, but you do. You really, really do.”
After all these years, I want nothing more than to concede defeat in this argument. I made a strange decision that for at least a year, I was going to live as if I believe in God, as a way of having faith that I can tap into our tradition and trust that it can help me transcend my own limitations, especially as I move into full-time Jewish advocacy.
At any rate, I called the friend who occasionally feeds my cat. She doesn’t usually answer her phone during the workday but this time, she picked up on the first ring.
”I locked myself out of my freaking house,” I told her. “Is there any chance in hell you still have our house key?”
”I do have it!” she said. “But I’m in Chicago.”
I groaned inwardly. “Okay,” I said. “I guess I’m really screwed. My husband has back-to-back meetings all day and there’s no way he can take an hour out of his schedule to get me back in.”
“Well, let me think,” she said. “We do have people who are feeding our own cat. They live about 15 minutes away, but let me see if they’re around and able to help out.”
Those good folks were around, and they were willing to help out, for no other reason than the kindness of their hearts.
I started walking to her house. I was in the wrong shoes — clogs — for a 2-mile walk, but it was a beautiful day. I wouldn’t otherwise have had time in this particular day for a walk. And I was grateful my friend had jumped into finding me a solution, grateful for these strangers who were willing to lose 30 minutes to help me.
I let Tzivie know all was well, and she suggested meeting the next morning since today was now out.
I agonized over that suggestion. Friday mornings were usually bad for her, and this one was really bad for me. In order to meet her, I’d need to keep the car for myself, which meant bringing my kids to school and having to pick them up. It would be hours and hours out of a badly-needed work day. AND we were planning to have two friends over for Shabbat that evening, so I’d also need to devote time to cleaning, cooking, setting the table, etc.
Nevertheless, I agreed. Our Torah study is something I hate to miss. And since it was my fault we were missing it, I felt compelled to do whatever I had to do to restore it.
But by the evening, I was full of dread for the next day. Torah study would take 90 minutes. Picking the kids up from school would take 2 hours with Friday traffic. Getting ready to put a company-worthy dinner on the table would take more hours still. I had so much work! How had I let my day become so drawn and quartered?
That’s when I got a text message from Tzivie. “Tomorrow morning would actually be really hard,” she said. “Why don’t you come with your family for Shabbat dinner instead? We can talk about the parsha at dinner.”
Friends, at that moment, I swear it was like the heavens had opened above my head and I could hear the angels singing.
Now I wouldn't lose my morning. Now the kids could take the car so I wouldn't lose the afternoon. Now I wouldn't have to clean and cook and set a table, so I wouldn't lose nearly as much of the evening. My workday would be entirely restored if we could accept, but what about those two guests?
I texted back that I would LOVE to come but we’d invited two friends to our own dinner, two friends who coincidentally are also part of the Chabad community.
“Bring them,” she said. “I’ll expect all six of you.”
I was so overcome with gratitude that I couldn’t help gushing. “You have no idea how many problems you just solved for me in one fell swoop,” I told her. “I can’t believe how perfect this is.”
”And guess what?” she said. “None of it would have happened if you hadn’t locked yourself out of your house this morning. I told you it was all for the best.”
*
When I first created Never Alone, I imagined I would devote one day a week to the parsha. Like so many other plans, this went out the window very quickly. On the “I/P conflict and related issues” front, things are happening at warp speed. Even writing every second day, I often feel late to the party when I talk about this or that latest development.
But I do want to work it in from time to time. Being Jewish isn’t, and shouldn’t be, one long oppression story. We can’t fall into the trap of defining ourselves only in opposition to others, of cherishing our identity and tradition only in response to adversity.
So this week’s parsha is Kedoshim, which means holy ones. And it sets forth dozens of mitzvot through which we keep our lives holy, including one I want to make the focus of today’s newsletter: tzedakah.
I study Torah with Tzivie not only individually on Thursdays, but within a women’s group once a month. And there I recently learned that when Jews consulted the Chasidic Rebbe of blessed memory, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, about the proper age to retire, his response was likely a disappointment to all of them. Because he always answered, “Never.”
And he added, in explanation, “We work all our lives so that we’re able to give tzedakah all our lives.”
I resolved, when I started a substack, that I would give 10% of my net income to tzedakah, as Torah asks of us, as a way of sanctifying this undertaking. It was already frightening to turn away from my ghostwriting income to focus on this form of work instead, and more frightening yet to put 10% of the proceeds — which I knew would be meager for at least some time — toward tzedakah, and yet it felt so right that I couldn’t do otherwise.
The Jewish emphasis on tzedakah has always been something I cherish about our culture. Jewish children are taught to keep tzedakah boxes in their rooms and to add to them continually. To drive home how special this is, I offer you a snapshot from the Twitter account of Jew Who Has It All.
This woman is brilliant and hilarious. Her entire Twitter persona is based on the satirical premise that Judaism is the dominant culture, and she continually offers educational tidbits about the Christian minority from the dominant Jewish perspective.
She does not explain here — because the dominant culture has no need to explain anything — that tzedakah boxes are charity boxes, often given out by synagogues to children, who are encouraged to put all their spare change into them until they're full and then donate them to charity.
This parody reveals so much: how the dominant culture's customs are assumed to be the obvious and intuitive ones, how the practices of others are seen as strange, how much the dominant culture gets wrong (of course it's piggy banks, not swinebanks), and how demeaning it can feel to be exoticized and othered on a perpetual basis.
But it also reveals how diametrically opposed our ethos often is to that of the rest of society. I cherish the Jewish imperative to give more than just about anything else.
Which brings me to a personal plea.
I just created a link to raise medical funds for a true warrior and Jewish sister, Melissa Soalt.
She made quite a name for herself back in the day as a pioneer in women’s self-defense. A true feminist, she has spent her life teaching women how to protect themselves against predators. In her prime, she was known as Dr. Ruthless.
And yet — in spite of her fierce fighting persona — when she was healthy and strong, she took care of others who were sick, which is just one of a hundred reasons she deserves to be cared for herself in her hour of need.
She has been suffering from multiple terrible ailments for years and she has been in so much agony.
Her body has gone from radiating health and strength to painfully skeletal. One day not long ago, her bathroom scale registered her weight as 78.4 pounds.
Her struggles are made infinitely worse by the fact that she has so little money right now, and so much that could make things better -- medication, surgeries, comfort items -- are totally out of reach. I don't know how a country as rich as the U.S. can consign its citizens to torture and death for lack of the astronomical costs incurred by medical emergencies.
It's like an ice pick in my heart to see another Jew suffer so. I feel that as a community and tight-knit family, we can't possibly turn away.
I try very hard not to post fundraisers more than once or twice a year. My last one was in August, when my incredible community raised the funds for one of my longest-time friends to get top surgery. So it's been almost a year and I hope at least a few people will be moved to help Melissa.
I'll be so grateful for any contribution of any size. Thank you so much in advance for anything you might be moved to donate.
The link is here:
Melissa is a fiery advocate for our people and she loves Israel. She signed up for this newsletter when I created it, and then a month or so ago, she unsubscribed. I knew I had not written anything to put her off, because she continued to show up on my Facebook page from time to time, and her comments were always supportive.
I chalked it up to her very understandable need — stated elsewhere in another context — to pull back from all the electronic input coming at us daily, at a time when she needs to focus all her energy on staying alive.
Still, I felt a little twinge when she unsubscribed.
Now I realize it was absolutely for the best. Because I don’t want her to know about this fundraiser until after I’m able to send whatever we’re able to raise. If you happen to know her, please keep this under wraps until then.
Please know that if any one of you were struggling with terrible illness and isolation, I would do the same for you in a New York minute.
My heartfelt love to you all. Chazak v’ematz.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Ha! I’ve been saying the same thing about you for decades. You SO believe and you’re too stubborn to admit it. 😝
I'm sorry. I can't upgrade to founding at this time. I still support you and love you and the writing you do. You are a blessing in this world.