Mitzvot Are The Antidote

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

I have very wonderful things I’m waiting until tomorrow to tell you.

But in the meantime, let’s talk for a moment about emotional well-being, because I know we are all strung out, maddened and exhausted by the way things are.

I’ll be real: I’m angry every day. Incredulous, yet not. Bitter, scornful, enraged. And so fucking tired.

I know all too well that I’m not alone in this. So I want to share the single most helpful thing for me when I go through times like these.

MITZVOT ARE THE ANTIDOTE.

I have to love the vulnerable community under siege twice as hard as I hate the haters. It’s what helps me stay connected to my sanity, my humanity, and whatever sense of well-being I can muster.

I know we all do what we can. Some can offer material support without stress and some absolutely, legitimately can’t, and I get that. So if that’s you, please know my ask here is not of you.

Last year, I started a tzedakah fund for Jews who were sure to be in dire straits during the SNAP freeze.

I hate asking for money more than anything, but I also hate not being to help people on the true edge of privation.

You gave so generously. My ask was $5 a month so that as many people could participate as possible without financial stress. It worked wonderfully and we were able to make a genuine difference for several people, keeping them afloat when they might well have gone under.

There was a lull in the desperate need some time after SNAP was restored. Several weeks went by and I checked in with several people we had helped. You’d think people would keep the assistance coming in at any cost, whether it was truly an emergency or not, BUT THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN! Most of them told me they were okay for the time being.

I felt uncomfortable letting the money continue to come in with no immediate place to send it. I committed at the outset to fastidiously providing proof of where the money had gone, and it made me deeply uneasy to let weeks go by without accounting for it.

I’m also generally overwhelmed with all the Jewish advocacy I am now committed to. I write an in-depth newsletter several times a week, I’m running two magazines, serving as poetry co-editor for one of them, mounting events, running a book club (and now running a secret group where there is a ton of daily maintenance required).

So I halted payments and refunded what had not been spent. Dozens of you asked why your money had been returned. I didn’t have the time or bandwidth to explain at the time and I apologize for that.

I’ve regretted doing that many times but never more so than during the past several weeks. During this time, I have heard about:

1) A Jewish healthcare provider in Uganda who is earning a nursing degree while caring for three different Jewish Ugandan communities in severe need. She can’t pay this semester’s tuition. She needs around $600 more. Every clinician represents thousands of hours of desperately needed care for these Jewish communities. It’s certainly not that vast an amount of money, but I can’t single-handedly give it to her. She will drop out of school if she can’t raise the money;

2) A Jewish martial artist who has taught self-defense to thousands of women. She is staggeringly ill and all alone. Her husband died in the last year. She’s skeletal, in agony, and has no help and no money;

3) A Jewish woman who needs a liver transplant;

4) A Jewish man who paid for health insurance all his life and now that he is in congestive heart failure, they won’t pay for his fucking oxygen;

5) A very debilitated single Jewish mother of kids with special needs, who suffers from a severe autoimmune disorder and who works as hard as she can in spite of all this, who was crying last night because she can’t give her kids even the smallest things they want and has to hustle for every roll of toilet paper, every meal, every item of clothing;

6) A Jew whose mother needs eye surgery and they can’t afford the deductible;

...and honestly so many others.

My heart is breaking every day not to be able to help them all. They ask me to at least share their fundraisers and that paralyzes me because I know I can’t ask people for money constantly and I don’t want to pick one at the expense of the others.

ALL THIS IS TO SAY: I want to revive the tzedakah fund. I want to put good, loving energy into our community during this time of universal hatred toward us. I want a channel for love and not just anger.

Please, if you were part of the fund before and are in a position to re-engage, I would be so grateful.

As before, my ask is $5 a month.

Some people gave more, some gave $10 or $18, and that was wildly appreciated.

**BUT THE OFFICIAL ASK IS $5.**

If $5 a month would be a hardship for you, PLEASE IGNORE THIS. I don’t want anyone to do anything stressful or uncomfortable.

I will divide the money among the people described above. I will provide receipts to you all, with the recipient’s privacy protected unless they explicitly tell me it’s fine to name them. Many times they want to thank the community directly; I always tell them this is a Jewish community effort, and I always share their notes of gratitude if they ask for that.

The link is HERE.

Thank you so very much in advance to all who resume participation or join for the first time.

Again, I’ll be back with you tomorrow with only good things to share.

Much love and solidarity in the meantime.

Am Yisrael Chai.