A World Worth Fighting For

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

This morning, I left my house for my daily 5-mile walk. Our neighbor was in his driveway and we smiled and waved to each other. A finer man than him has never been born, and today — on the eve of the election, and after such a hard year — it feels like the right time to tell a story about the goodness of this Muslim immigrant.

Three years ago, a homeless man came to my door in the dead of winter, asking if he could go through our recycling bin for cans. I felt bad that I hadn't separated the cans ahead of time. I went through the bin with him and helped him get every can. It was very unpleasant and I felt sad that this was his day-to-day life.

His native language was Spanish and he didn’t speak much English, but he was able to convey that he’d lost his job in the pandemic and was now living in his car. He asked if he could come again. I said yes, and that next time, I would have the cans separated in advance. I also gave him a little cash.

He waited a full week to come back (my husband was concerned he would come all the time but that did not happen at all). He asked if I could also give him something to eat. I said absolutely -- what did he want? He said some bread and fruit. I gave him a full loaf of bakery bread, a new jar of peanut butter, and all our fruit: around a dozen apples, bananas and pears. I felt bad not to be able to give him anything hot.

The following week, he came when I wasn't home and my son didn't have a garage key so he couldn't get the cans. He said he would come back the next day. This allowed me to buy him a thermos and make a pot of soup in advance. I also put aside a bag with another loaf of bread, more fruit and other things that didn't require refrigeration and were easy to eat in a car, like protein bars and a couple of super bean mix pouches left over from camping the previous summer. Plus a roll of paper towels, a container of disinfectant wipes, some heavy cardboard bowls and compostable cutlery.

He stood on our porch with the snow coming down behind him and guzzled the hot soup in one long swallow. I refilled the thermos and he was so incredibly grateful. Meanwhile, this one occasion of advance notice gave me an idea. I asked if he could come every Thursday, so that each time I could prepare in advance to give him one hot meal as well as a few staples and comfort items like wool socks, hand warmers, lip balm, and/or a bottle of multi-vitamins.

And THEN I wondered if anyone else in my Buy Nothing neighborhood group would be interested in providing hot meals one day a week on a different day and also giving him redeemable recyclables if they had any. I posted this idea in the group and offered to provide their addresses and the day of the week they'd like to help. I added truthfully that he was fastidiously polite, respectful and non-threatening, and it would be nice to think he could get a hot meal more than once a week.

I was overjoyed when several other women said they’d love to join in and picked a day, and still others offered to drop off their cans, donate their extra thermoses (so he could have more than one serving of soup), leave gift cards and contribute other resources.

To relate the rest of the story, which ends with an extraordinary kindness done by our Muslim neighbor, I will copy and paste my Facebook post from 2021:

There was such a stunning outpour of goodwill in response to my post a few days ago, about a homeless man asking for cans. I’ve now learned his first name is Carlos. So I just have to tell you the extraordinary story of what’s happened since. It’s a mixture of almost unbelievable good and bad luck: streaks of bounty and additional hardships running together.

Besides the other women offering to provide a hot meal one day a week, people pledged their cans. They offered to buy him things like a car kettle or hot plate. Some sent electronic funds and others pledged to do so. One person offered a grocery gift card. One Jewish woman in the neighborhood brought over the contents of her full tzedakah box. But the single most incredible break he got was one of the women in my Buy Nothing neighborhood group who -- at that very moment -- desperately needed a considerable amount of physical labor she was willing to pay for.

She had an inspection coming up and a daunting amount she needed done. One white American after the next had committed and then flaked or begun the job and bailed. She was getting frantic. She agreed to give Carlos several days of work. I posted on Facebook for a Spanish speaker who could call and relay this news and her contact information to him. A wonderful man in Arizona offered to do so and reported that Carlos started crying from happiness when he heard the news.

I didn’t mention this when I posted last, but Carlos' vehicle is actually broken. The night of the snowstorm, he showed up on a bicycle, and when he rode away with all I’d given him, he was trying to hold a huge garbage bag full of cans and another bag of groceries with one hand and steer the bike with the other. We would have given him a lift back to his car but our own bike rack just broke a few days ago and for obvious reasons, he needed to have his bike with him.

When people started to send contributions, I began to have a pipe dream of having his car towed to a mechanic and paying to fix it. I asked the people offering to buy him various items if they’d be willing to send the same amount in cash instead, because you can’t even plug a car kettle or hot plate into a dead vehicle. Now that Carlos was assured of getting several hot meals a week, I felt fixing the car should be the priority. As it was, if he was lucky enough to be offered an odd job and it was raining or snowing, he would be forced to show up wet and remain in wet clothes for his entire shift. I felt the most profound difference we could make in his life at this moment was fixing the car.

Meanwhile, Carlos showed up at the neighborhood woman’s house at the appointed minute and began working like a machine: doing back-to-back hours of hard physical labor with uncomplaining thorough efficiency.

Everything was beautiful.

But then.

Like Murphy's Law, midway through this shift, he got a call. The car *I was LITERALLY MINUTES AWAY from having towed to a mechanic* had been impounded. It was in an illegal spot and he was unable to move it because it was broken.

I was beside myself. I called the impound company and said: He’s homeless, he’s broke, he barely speaks English, all his possessions were inside, he couldn't move it because it wouldn't start, I was **just about to have it towed away myself** to a mechanic, will you please please please waive the fee of several hundred dollars?

The woman flatly answered that half the cars they impound these days are owned by homeless people illegally parked somewhere, that she hears stories like this all day long and no mercy would be forthcoming.

This country is so cruel and the deck is so impossibly stacked against the poor.

But here is the greatest miracle of this story. Carlos gets this call a few hours into his shift, and he is overcome with panic. And this angel of a woman, whom I will call S., does one of the most heroic things I have ever seen a person do. She told me: I see how hard he is willing to work, I see how grateful and appreciative he is for every little thing I offer him, and I was going to pay him several hundred dollars for these four days of work anyway. She offered to drive him to the impound lot to get it, lay out the money, and trust him to work it off. She also offered him her sofa to sleep on until his car is fixed.

So here was the most unbelievable bad luck and good luck side by side. It felt so sad to me that Carlos finally gets this break and he is willing to work like a dog to make the most of it, and instead of finally having a decent amount of money in his pocket as a result, it all has to be squandered just returning him to square fucking ZERO.

ON THE OTHER HAND. It is 100% certain that without the neighborhood network set in motion during the last two days, his car would be gone with the wind and he would be sleeping under a bridge.

MEANWHILE. Lionel has a good friend Karim who lives across the street from us. His father is a mechanic. We have enjoyed the most wonderful relationship with their whole family for years. They are also immigrants who are viscerally aware of how murderous the system can be. I told Karim’s father the story and said I would love to pay him to fix Carlos’ car. He said I don’t need to pay him: that not everything is about money.

Angels. Angels.

My beloved Jewish family, on the eve of this election, after so many words posted against Trump, let me conclude with these: this America is the one I want to live in. I’m not naive. Unlike S., I did not invite Carlos to sleep in my home, beneath the roof I share with my children. I’m not for open borders. I think immigrants should be well-vetted and I believe that any non-citizens who demonstrate malice toward America should be deported. I think jihadists and their sympathizers are a clear and present danger who should be taken very seriously and kept off our campuses and out of our workplaces.

But I also believe America is built on the contributions of immigrants and our diversity is our strength and pride. I believe we should give every person we encounter the benefit of the doubt until shown a reason to do otherwise. I believe there are countless wonderful people within every religious and ethnic group and we only hurt ourselves and others beyond measure when we cling to an “us vs. them” mentality. I want hatred, xenophobia and bigotry to lose and I want goodwill, warmth and light to win.

I invited everyone within my social media cirlce who fears a Kamala presidency to message me directly to talk it out and my inbox has quite a few people who fit this description. I’ll be spending the rest of my day in conversation with all such folks.

I hope by the time I hit your inbox next, we will have averted catastrophe.

Until then, my love to you all. Chazak v’ematz.

Am Yisrael Chai.