At 8.30 on Tuesday night my teenage daughter called me. “Come quick, Tatty, it’s an emergency.”
Ten minutes earlier she had stepped out to go to the local 7-11 with a friend. Of course, I grabbed my keys and ran out the door to find them.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I dashed toward the store.
“There’s a man outside. I’m petrified.” She said.
“Is he hurting you?”
“No, he’s outside,” she explained.
Realizing that she was safe inside the store, I stopped sprinting and started walking, staying on the phone with her until I arrived.
I saw a man outside the 7-11, opening and closing the door for people. I could see why she was scared. He seemed drugged up; probably homeless.
“Why were you afraid?” I asked. I could feel her heart pounding.
“He muttered under his breath, ‘Look at these girls …’ ” she explained.
The episode ended safely and my daughter and her friend both got home without issue.
When the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Chassidus, was just 4 years old, his father was deathly ill. His parting message to his son was, “Fear no one, except G-d. You are never alone; G-d is always with you.”
We all have fears. For my daughter, it was the unstable man outside 7-11, for us it might be the dangerous situation in Israel, unrest here in the US, or the bank collapse.
But what can we do? These are big concerns. How do we allay our fears?
We call our Father in Heaven and say, “Tatty, come, it’s an emergency!” He’s ready to accompany us, He’s just waiting for us to reach out.
A Jew never walks alone, our sages teach. And when better to reach out than as we enter the month of miracles and redemption? “Save us from this exile. Bring us home to Jerusalem. We’ve had enough!”
We hope and pray that He will come dashing through the streets of Manhattan late at night to rescue us, just as I did for my daughter.