Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Ba-Zeh...

but do we act like it?

More on the saga of the down-on-his-luck fellow yid that the community doesn't seem to care about. Quick recap... eight months ago, he broke his back. He has been out of work for nine months and recently kicked out of his apartment. Some nights, he resorted to sleeping in his car. Others, he has been depending on the couches of strangers and friends.

Well, cool yiddish papa (cyp) came through with his own appeal letter. He made his own contacts in our community. Tomorrow, "broke"-in-back-not-"broke"-in-spirit (bibnis) has lined up a potential interview with a local kosher caterer, an appointment with a social worker from a chesed organization, and at some point, he may be getting space in the Jewish shelter. Before all this, people avoided bibnis due to his inability to "fit in" (we live in a generally black-hat neighborhood and he is a kipa-s'ruga wearing, rock music-listening MO type). bibnis is not seeking handouts, he wants a steady job and a clean, reasonable place to live. cyp made a point to not mention specific names, not even his own.

It reminds me of RaMBaM's levels of tzedakah: the highest being that one should help one so that they are able to help themselves. (For the flip side of "give a man a fish/teach him to fish", go to Esther's blog, Life and Debt in Ohio.) Eventually, I will learn how to insert links with the space-saving "click here" I see on other people's blogs.