The Friend Who Helped Me Find My Place at Home

My late-teen years were marked by stormy waves of emotions I hadn’t really known before. Until then, I was a somewhat colorless kid, maybe even invisible. I didn’t feel important, like anyone really remembered me at all. I was one of the youngest at home; all my older brothers and sisters were already married. The attention was on them and on my nieces and nephews, some of them practically my age. Next to them, I didn’t see myself as attractive—or really, next to anyone. And when my own journey into the adult world started picking up speed, I discovered strengths in myself I hadn’t known how to feel before, a flood of emotions whose names I didn’t even know. They scared me. Suddenly I was being driven by a different force, and along with all the fear and confusion, I felt myself enjoying the fact that there was something alive and real inside me, something I was meeting for the first time. With that force, I started breaking conventions. All of a sudden, people noticed me. I was no longer the quiet, nice, monotone one, the kid everything about was taken for granted. I started projecting a presence that, before long, also frightened certain people. That alone intoxicated me. The attention that landed on me was so intense, I didn’t want it to stop.

But as time went on, I understood that everything has a price, this too. I was losing other important things along the way. The scoldings and hints were hurtful, and the worried looks from my parents did not do much for me either. I understood that I was slipping for nothing, and that I’d better calculate my moves a little differently.

Ever since I discovered the people who live where the margins are constantly rubbing against you, I felt worthwhile, on equal footing. My friendship with them was inviting and down-to-earth, which gave me a lot. And the truth is, I knew—and they knew too—that I was a little beyond them, in almost every area, and that alone added a lot of value and respect for me. I couldn’t leave them. I decided to take a “sit and do nothing” approach, neither here nor there. A decent student, as expected, but still keeping close ties with the circle closest to me.

And it wasn’t superficial. I knew every soul there, every heart. I knew what troubled each one, their weaknesses and their strengths. And that was exactly why I knew that if I didn’t learn ten minutes a day of guarding one’s speech with Dudu, he wouldn’t learn anything at all—he simply wouldn’t still be here. If Roni didn’t get support and encouragement for his efforts to attend classes in his new yeshiva, he wouldn’t keep going. If Arik didn’t have a listening ear for all his anger at his parents and family, who were “making a whole mess over nothing and making my life miserable,” in his words, things would only keep deteriorating, and in the end there’d be no one left to reach. You could say I took responsibility for them. But people on the outside didn’t see any of that. It was between me and myself. They saw the style, the crowd that supposedly didn’t fit me, and they started up again—asking, hinting, nudging. It weighed on me, especially my parents.

I didn’t really feel that there was anyone who understood me. I went back to the familiar gray, disconnecting from my family in bitterness. I walked around with a sour expression, trying whenever I could to slip away to the people around whom I felt valued—Dudu, Roni, Arik, and all the rest.

One night I met Dudu after our learning session, and I saw that he wasn’t really here, that something was going on with him. I asked him casually how things were, trying to pull even the smallest piece of information out of him. He stayed pensive; the heaviness sat on him. “I started working,” he told me. I looked at him in surprise. “Work is supposed to be a good thing, no? So why are you sad?” He was silent, then sighed. After a few seconds he told me about a difficult job, on the edge of the gray zone—criminal, to put it politely. But the truth was that he had stepped into the lion’s mouth, and another moment and he’d be sliding deeper inside. I was shaken. How had this happened? Were there really no jobs for young guys like him?

He sighed again. He told me about a failed deal he had tried to push forward; he got tangled up in it and ended up in debt. Out of pride, he decided to repay the debt himself, without needing outside help. Someone who heard about his distress offered him an attractive proposal—an immediate loan, on convenient terms. Naive Dudu agreed on the spot. He didn’t stop for a second to think about what he was signing; all that mattered was getting the money and paying off the debt. A proper loan, or so he thought, would be much easier to deal with. But there was one thing he didn’t know: he had signed with the gray market. Since then he had known no day and no night. Murderous interest rates were jumping before his eyes, and it had reached a sum he couldn’t even think of asking his parents for, who were already struggling to get through the month. In his desperation, he decided to look for work that would bring in as much money as possible. It turns out there are plenty of “good” souls who know how to spot an opportunity, and here too the angel appeared and offered him a lucrative job.

It was filthy work, the kind that wounds the soul and the mind. You can’t survive it without being damaged, but Dudu couldn’t afford to think too much. He needed money, and he wanted it over with.

I was stunned. What this guy had been going through—and he was only telling me now...

I spoke to his heart, urging him to leave that workplace. A livelihood would come another way. But he was stubborn, unwilling to let go, shaking with fear of several threatening figures at the top.

I thought about it again and again, and then I asked him how much he needed in order to get out of that workplace and permanently cut ties with those people. At first he laughed, but when he saw I was serious, he named a figure.

It was a high sum, but a reasonable one. He had already managed to cover most of the debt. And then came my offer.

“I’ll get you the money, and you leave them for good. Including changing your phone and whatever else it takes to say goodbye. It also means involving a responsible adult to help you actually do this.” He laughed. He said I was kindhearted, but too naive. “Where are you going to get the money?” he asked. The truth was, I didn’t have an answer. But I decided to try. I don’t know where it came from. “Leave that to me,” I told him. He turned me down again and again, and I got so deeply into it that I couldn’t let go.

“You want to ruin your whole life over pride,” I shot back at him. He looked at me, half hurt. “That’s how you see me?” he said. “Let me try—what do you care?” I called out. He thought for a moment and said, “Okay, I won’t stop you. But I know the chances of your managing to raise a sum like that are absurd.” “So we have a deal? I take care of the money, and you involve a third party and cut yourself off from all those bad people?” I held out my hand to shake. Dudu, hesitant, put out his hand. He looked away. I knew why. There were tears there.

A moment later, I realized the mess I had gotten myself into. Where was I going to get that kind of money?! I don’t work, and I don’t have rich parents. I prayed to Hashem, the Father of us all, asking Him to help me—I was only a messenger. At home I decided to take a first step. I wrote in our family email thread: “Who has ma’aser money?” meaning that first I would try to gather *ma’aser* from whoever could help, and then figure out how to move forward from there.

I sent the message and went to sleep. In the morning, bleary-eyed, I ran to yeshiva. Prayer, learning—and then I saw more than twenty missed calls, all from my family. Brothers, sisters, even older nieces and nephews, all of them showing up on my screen. I panicked. What could make them all call me like that? I ran through scenarios in my head, but I didn’t get far, because another call came in. My oldest brother was on the screen. “Avi, what’s going on?” he asked, sounding tense. “*Baruch Hashem*,” I answered, puzzled. What had happened to him in the middle of the day? He’s not the kind of person who calls me just like that... “I saw that you’re looking for *ma’aser* money. Is everything okay? Do you need help or something? Don’t worry—we’ll help with whatever is needed,” he said. I was stunned, unable to believe what I had set in motion with one sentence. “N...o,” I stammered, trying to get the right words into my mouth. What was I supposed to tell him? “It’s for a friend,” I finally said. He didn’t let it go; he asked for an explanation. For the first time in my life, I shared my social life with my oldest brother. And he responded with a great deal of empathy.

But he wasn’t the only one. A flood of calls came in. I told all of them the same thing, explaining about a friend who had fallen into distress. And they stepped up. All of them. All my brothers and the older nieces and nephews joined forces and helped me reach my goal. Suddenly I felt a warmth I hadn’t noticed before. I had probably been too focused on myself to understand how important I was in the family fabric, how important I was simply by being me. Their sincere concern for me warmed my heart. I understood that I had been reading reality through a different lens, a distorted one. Maybe it could have been otherwise. Hashem sent me Dudu so I could learn to appreciate what I have.

I reached the goal and handed Dudu the full amount. He was stunned. “Now it’s your turn to keep your promise,” I told him. Here too, family solidarity revealed itself. My brothers wrapped themselves around Dudu, connecting him to where and to whom he needed. Thanks to them, he was able to breathe again, to be a human being again, and I was proud of this gift called family, of the color that had entered my life.

It lifted me up so much that all the friends I had gone with just to feel good were no longer missing from my life. I grew up, I developed a backbone, I reconnected to my roots, planted deep and strong. No wind can move me anymore.