When you take I-90’s Exit 5 to Everett Road in Albany, in either direction you will, almost every day, encounter hungry, marginalized people seeking help. The exit ramps are real-time stages for these indigent and unhoused Americans – mostly but not exclusively men - who stand along the ramps, hoping for the attention of a motorist stopped at the light who might hand them a charitable dollar or two. This troupe of rootless human beings, reduced to the humiliation of begging, shifts in number and visibility as the weather changes and the hours of sunlight wax and wane. These are people who have been forced into the very real and shameful drama of American poverty.
One morning, as I approached the top of the exit ramp, on my impatient way to a meeting, one of the men waved to me slightly while I waited at the red light. I usually carry a bag of food with me in my car to offer to people in need on the streets. That day, with no food in my basket, a five-dollar bill would suffice.
I rolled down my window, attempting to engage in the pretense of looking at him while remaining attentive to the light changing.
“How are you today?” I asked him in a voice betraying a polite cluelessness, for how else should he be?
Rail thin and wearing a dirty white shirt, he answered me in a voice subdued by struggle, “Oh, I suppose I’m alright.”
“Here you go, I heard myself chirp somewhat stupidly as I handed him the money.
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” he responded, as he took it from my hands.
My Jewish faith obligates me within reason to attend to the poor; I’ve bought and distributed food, fished in my pockets for coins, and shared small grocery portions with needy people in nearly every city where I have been. I’ve been a minor player in this destitution-and-deliverance drama many times. I know the script by heart, the cardboard signs that each person holds, compressing tales of devastation into a few crudely lettered words such as, “Homeless vet, lost my house during COVID.” I know my role in this play: lower the car door window, utter a cursory hello, avoid eye contact, hand over the handout, roll up the window and drive away. I’ve always assumed the role of the person receiving the help to be carefully defined as well: don’t get too close to the giver’s car, stick out your sign, take the handout, and above all, don’t look at the motorist. He doesn’t want to hear your story and you don’t want the embarrassment of telling it to him.”
The light lazily remained red. With the few seconds I had before turning my head back to the road, I noticed the man’s eyes fixing on mine, and I was increasingly unnerved by them. He wasn’t signaling dangerousness so much as a defiant refusal to play by our unwritten but agreed-upon text. His gaze, delicate yet demanding, made his message clear: “I might be taking your help, but I’m not your charity project. Look at me.”
I locked eyes with him to appreciate briefly the face of the human being standing inside the filthy clothes and behind the depressing statistics.
“What your name, man?” I asked him.
“It’s John, brother,” he replied in a near whisper.
Eyes, a face and a name pulled John out of the realm of a bit part in my busy, self-absorbed story and pulled me into his story, if only so very briefly. With no prurient interest, I genuinely wanted to get to know who he was, as we looked at each other in that disappearing moment.
“My man, how did you get here? What happened?”
“You know, brother, things just didn’t go my way. But I’ll tell you, at least it wasn’t because of drugs.”
“Things suck in America right now,” I responded sadly, shaking my head.
“Well,” he drawled and chuckled slightly, “At least we’re not being attacked by Russia.”
“Not yet,” I tacked onto his sentence, as we shared a bitter laugh.
The light was changing.
“God bless you, man… I mean, brother,” I stuttered slightly.
“Thank you,” he said again, as I rolled up the window and drove away.
It took me some time to comprehend why looking into John’s eyes was so difficult. When I stared at him, I think I imagined myself, reflected in his gaze, staring back. Every one of us risks the terrifying possibility of becoming like John. Some of us avoid this terror by ignoring the poor altogether. Most of us confront the poverty without engaging the people it afflicts. That morning I learned once again what my religion has always tried to remind me: in this most difficult drama of human uncertainty, our roles as givers and recipients can so easily be reversed; that’s why it’s imperative for us to extend ourselves in mutual compassion, as we move through the rise and fall of our respective fortunes. Each of us needs more than the other’s handouts. We need each other’s full and caring hearts.
Dan Ornstein is the rabbi at Congregation Ohav Shalom in Albany, NY. He is the author of Cain v. Abel: A Jewish Courtroom Drama. (Jewish Publication Society, 2020)
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