Saturday, December 25, 2010

On Snow and Chesed

It had to happen sooner or later, although later, waaaay later would have been my preference--yes, a goodly accumulation of snow is on its way to the Metropolitan area. Estimates range, depending on your location, from 10 to 18 inches of snow to fall, beginning tomorrow afternoon and continuing through Monday's morning hours.

If you are running out tomorrow morning to pick up any needed supplies for yourself to get through the nasty weather, please don't forget about any neighbors and friends who might be ill or elderly and who may not be able to do that "running" early.

And when sidewalks and walkways and steps are being shoveled and cleared, please remember those who may not be able to do this work for themselves, or even walk out and grab one of the crews that will be around offering to shovel.

They say that New Yorkers show their best colors in times of adversity--let's make that be true tomorrow and Monday.

Just as an aside, I truly feel for those who have simchas planned for tomorrow. Any of you in that position, or who are attending smachot tomorrow, please, please drive safely and carry a shovel in the trunk of the car.

6 comments:

Abba's Rantings said...

i'm working overtime this week and hoping for a big snowstorm so i don't have to deal with customers.

please, enough of these posts. we want to hear more of your crazy dating stories :)

ProfK said...

Abba,
In case you missed this crazy dating story, go to http://conversationsinklal.blogspot.com/2009/06/dating-is-strange-enough-and-then-it.html

Abba's Rantings said...

hah!
more, more!

Ashamed and Anonymous said...

Sorry Abba'srantings but the message of this is one that everyone should think about. Ashamed to admit it but without the prompting of the post I wouldn't have even given any thought to the older people in our building.

There's one woman who gets to shul only when you can drive. She doesn't make it for Shabbos so I don't really know her well. I stopped by her apartment today to ask if I could buy her something from the store. And then she told me that she is first expecting her check after the first so she can't do any shopping now. I kind of got suspicious that something was wrong so I walked her to the fridge and said she should at least check her milk and she could owe me the money. When she opened the fridge it was almost completely empty.

I said I'd be back and then I ran up to my apartment to call the shul rav and tell him what I saw. Story short, the shul has a fund just for this purpose and there are stores locally that sell at almost cost when the rav calls about someone in real need.

A load of groceries was delivered to this woman today. No one should go hungry because they are waiting for a check--and I'm not so sure that check can be all that much if she was so short on stuff today.

I told the Rav I would check in regularly with this woman to make sure she is okay. Embarrassing that I had to read something on a blog to get me to remember that not everyone is lucky enough to have family to help out.

Thank you for a necessary reminder. After what I saw today I don't think you'll have to remind me again.

leahle said...

Ashamed--what was was. At least you now know what you can do to help and it sounds like you're going to do it.

Good point about that family being around to help. Lots of people who don't have family or have them near. My friend lives in Jersey and her parents in Brooklyn. She hires a snow service every year to go and shovel her parents out because they can't do it themselves and money is short there. Still lots of older people who don't have someone watching out for them this way.

Nice too that your shul recognizes that older people might run into trouble with not having enough money for necessities. A lot of shuls don't think about the older people at all they are so busy with the younger ones.

Abba's Rantings said...

ASHAMED:

i was just kidding around and didn't mean to imply that this wasn't an important post. (but wasn't kidding that i wanted more dating stories)