I took a job selling insurance. I was making about half what I’d made at my last job, but at least I was making something.

Before I knew it, May was here, and the credit card interest increased to 24 percent. I was barely staying on top of the new bills I had coming in, let alone making payments on my debt.

I took an interest-free loan for $12,000 from a local gemach that helps people in my situation. But it was a spurt of water tossed onto a raging fire. It wasn’t enough to cover our debt — and the expenses kept piling up.

Six months down the line, I was forced to confront the harsh reality: We had no more options. We had no choice. With a bitter taste in our mouths, we realized that we needed to file for bankruptcy.

“At least we have each other,” Leora said. “We have our children. We have our health. We even got to keep our house. We have so many blessings to be grateful for.”

But I felt like a failure. What kind of man couldn’t support his family? True, the bankruptcy would dissolve all of our debts, but what kind of man reneged on all his obligations? It was the lowest point of my life.

I hired a bankruptcy lawyer whom I saw advertised in a local paper. He was reasonable enough to work with, I thought — until he made a significant mistake. He missed an important filing deadline, which meant I was still legally obligated to pay certain debts, including the $12,000 we owed the gemach.

“I should have been out of this mess,” I fumed to Leora. “What was the point of ruining our credit for the next ten years if I was going to have to pay these bills anyway? That clown should be disbarred.”

I filed a lawsuit against the lawyer. I shouldn’t have to pay money I didn’t have due to his incompetence, I reasoned.

“So many things have been going wrong for us lately,” Leora said. “Maybe we should talk to the rav? I wonder if there’s some message we’re missing or something we’re doing wrong.”

We met with our rav in his office at our shul.

He sat behind the desk, Leora and I on the other side.

“We’ve really had a run of bad luck,” Leora summed up, after she’d finished relaying our whole sorry story. “Do you think there’s something deeper going wrong? Like, maybe it’s an ayin hara?”

The rav waved a hand dismissively. “The Rambam says if you don’t believe in it, it won’t hurt you. The real issue to be concerned about is to make sure all your affairs are being conducted according to the Choshen Mishpat.”

“Well, we declared bankruptcy, and we’re going through the court system, so everything we do is completely legal. That should be fine, right?” I asked.

The rav stroked his beard. “Not necessarily. Halachah often differs from secular law in legal matters. If you owe a Jewish creditor, for example, you still have to pay back the money, even if a secular court says you don’t.”

I thought of the gemach loan. “Wait… does that apply to Jewish organizations as well? Like a gemach? Or does it only refer to people?”

“Certainly,” the rav said. “If you took a loan, of course you have to pay it back. No secular bankruptcy proceeding can free you from that obligation.”

The force of what he was saying hit me like a ton of bricks. I could declare bankruptcy in the secular courts — but if there was money I owed a Jew, then I was still in debt in the eyes of Hashem.

We thanked the rav and left. “This is such Hashgachah pratis,” Leora marveled on the way out.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“We would have completely ignored the debt from the gemach,” Leora said, “but then our lawyer missed the deadline, so we still had to pay it back. And it turns out we were still on the hook for it according to halachah. Hashem didn’t want us to commit an aveirah. That’s why the lawyer messed up.”

I nodded. “You might be right.”

We decided to withdraw our suit against the lawyer, and we worked out a payment plan with the gemach.

Slowly, we got back on our feet financially. Eventually, we were able to pay back all of the money we owed to the gemach. I still struggle with feelings of failure — going from being a CPO to declaring bankruptcy was quite the blow to my ego. And not only did this ruin our family’s credit, which still impacts us today, we were left with significant debt to repay. But whenever I tell Leora this, she reminds me that it’s better to be called a fool your entire life than for Hashem to regard you as evil for even an hour. Paying back the gemach loan was an unexpected hurdle, but I’m grateful that we learned the halachah and acted in accordance with it. That, at least, is something I can be proud of.

Renovation Disaster

“Whew, boy, oh boy, what a mess.” The plumber shook his head as he sloshed in rainboots through our basement, currently flooded with an inch of water. “This is gonna be a job.”

“So can you fix it?”

“The water is coming in from outside. The melted snow is just coming right up through the concrete. What you need is basement waterproofing. Call a contractor.”

And with that he turned and left.

My husband, Shalom, and I found Moshe, a frum contractor, and signed a contract to totally redo the basement. We took out a home improvement loan for ten thousand dollars, and sealed off the basement with plastic sheets to keep the dust from coming up.

Moshe’s guys had to jackhammer the concrete, add drains around the edges, put down a waterproof membrane, add a sump pump, close the old window wells, and what’s called grading the dirt on the outside of the house to slope the water away from the house.

It seemed like every day the guys found a new problem that added to the cost. We needed to add in the cost of an electrician because the circuit breakers were dangerous and outdated. And they found an old, broken sump pump that needed to be ripped out. Soon we were five thousand dollars over the loan we had taken out.

“As long as you’re doing all this, you might as well get insulation,” Moshe told us.

“I don’t know,” Shalom said. “We’re over budget already.”

“What was the point of this if you can’t use your basement from fall to spring?”

“How much is it going to cost?” I asked.

“Well for a basement this size, it would be six thousand dollars, but I’ll do it for you for half the price if you recommend us to your friends.”

“That is quite a discount — half the price just for recommending him,” I whispered to my husband. “And after all this, we want to actually use the basement.”

“Yeah, all right, all right,” my husband said in an irritated tone. I knew he was thinking about the bills piling up.

Moshe presented us with a contract for the insulation, and I signed it without bothering to read it.

I was as good as my word, and I recommended Moshe to anyone who would listen. Once I was online at Bingo, and I overheard a woman on her cell phone complaining about her contractor, and I cut in, “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but hear what you were saying, and you should use my guy, Moshe….”

After two months, the basement was finally done. No more noise, no more dust, and we had a beautiful, finished basement. It even had a bathroom so we could put our married kids down there when they came for Shabbos.

But when the bills came Shalom shook his head. “Now that’s not right. I’d expect better from a frum contractor.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“He charged six thousand for the insulation. He specifically promised us that he’d charge half the price if we recommended him.”

“I’ll call him,” I promised. “Maybe it was just an oversight.”

But when I called Moshe he wouldn’t budge. “Ma’am, it says specifically in your contract that it’s only if the referrals sign up.”

“That’s not what you said!” I cried, outraged. “You said if I recommended you, and I recommended you to everyone I know!”

I could practically hear Moshe rolling his eyes over the phone. “Sorry, I’ve got to stick to the contract.”

Maybe in the course of this whole basement project three thousand dollars doesn’t sound like a lot, but we were budgeting every cent, and it was a lot of money to us.

“Maybe we should take him to beis din,” I suggested to my husband.

“First let’s speak to our rav and see if we even have a case,” Shalom suggested.

We went to the rav’s house. I told him what had happened, and Shalom showed him the contract. The rav read it over carefully. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing a beis din could do for you. The contract says that you get the discount if someone you recommend signs with him.”

“But that’s not what he said when he was selling! He said if I recommended him, which I did. Shouldn’t his word mean something?”

The rav shook his head. “In halachah, a written contract overrides a verbal agreement.”

Shalom sighed. “So I guess we chalk this up as a learning experience?”

We paid what the contractor said we owed and never mentioned it again.

We do have a beautiful basement, and our married children and their kids sleep over occasionally on Shabbos and Yom Tov. Yes, we spent much longer paying it off then we would have liked, but a contract is a contract.

A Loan Repaid

Since we were kids, my friend Miri always shone at everything she did in life. She was the type of kid who at six years old could eat an ice-cream cone and look pristine afterward. If you gave me the same ice-cream cone, my skirt would get half of it. In school, she’d get all As if she studied for ten minutes, while I could study for hours and only get Bs and Cs. Her parents seemed as though they were characters in a children’s book, setting proper boundaries while always staying warm and loving, while my homelife was chaotic, with my parents always yelling — either at each other or at us. Miri’s folder and binder were always as perfect as her clothes, while my book bag was filled with crumpled worksheets, and I could never remember my homework.

Despite our differences, Miri was a great friend. She would try to help me study for tests or call  to remind me to do my homework and put it in my book bag. She would invite me over for dinner when my mom didn’t have the energy to cook. I loved spending time in her warm, welcoming family.

After high school, I moved across the country to get married. None of my friends or family liked the guy. Looking back, I should have seen the red flags, but I was so eager to get out of my house and start my own family that I overlooked them. After five years of instability and emotional abuse, I was left divorced and alone with four children and no child support. I opened a day care in my house to support myself, but covering my bills was a stretch even with the help of Tomchei Shabbos and other organizations.

Of course, Miri continued to make all the right choices. She went to law school, and married a learner-earner who spent half the day learning and half the day working in his family’s successful business. Since I lived a six-hour plane ride away, we kept in touch by phone. Miri had four children, a happy marriage, and never struggled for money. I’m not going to lie — sometimes I’d feel the slightest twinge of jealousy, but I would remind myself that Hashem runs the world. He’d given Miri and me exactly the nisayon that each of our neshamos needed, no more, no less.

The first time Miri gave me a loan was right after my divorce, when my landlord was threatening to evict me if I didn’t make the rent.

“Miri,” I called her crying, “if I don’t come up with five hundred dollars by next week the landlord is going to put us on the streets. I don’t know where to turn to.”

“I’ll give you the five hundred dollars,” she said. “It’ll be my maaser money.”

I felt the blood rush to my face at the thought of my best friend giving me tzedakah. How far had I fallen!

“A loan,” I said quickly. “I’ll pay you back.”

“All right,” she said. “Whenever you’re able to.”

As time went on, I continued to ask Miri for money on occasion. When I couldn’t make the rent. When I had an emergency root canal. When my kids’ yeshivah threatened to throw us out if we didn’t pay something in tuition. I knew it probably added up to a few thousand dollars over the years, but I wasn’t keeping track. I had other things going on.

Miri and I always called it a loan, but I thought we both knew that was just a euphemism — a cover to spare my dignity. I was a single mother with four children running a day care in my home to pay the bills. It would be a long, long time before I could improve my situation. It had been years, and Miri never once asked for any of the money back. It didn’t occur to me that she ever would.

Then one day, out of the blue, she called me. “I have some big news!” she said. “I’m having twins!”

“B’shaah tovah!” I squealed. “I’m so happy for you.”

“The thing is,” she continued, sounding tense, “Chaim and I are a little nervous about the finances. I don’t know how we’re going to make this work.”

“Uh-huh…” I said sympathetically. “I get it. You’re going to be a family of eight now, but you know what — the more children, the more parnassah. Everything’s all going to work out. You’ll see.”

At this point, I still thought Miri was just calling me for a listening ear. I didn’t expect what was coming next: “The doctor says I should be on bed rest, and I’ll have to stop working. Do you think you could start repaying back the money I lent you?” The words tumbled out quickly, as if she couldn’t wait to be rid of them. “Not all at once,” she laughed nervously, “but anything would help. If you just paid me back two fifty a month until you’ve paid back the four thousand I lent you, that would be great.”

I was shocked. And frightened. I’d always thought she was giving me tzedakah, calling it a loan to protect my dignity. Where would I find the money  to pay her back? “Miri, how could you ask me that?” I managed to choke out. “You know I have no money. Do you want me to take food out of my kids’ mouth?”

“I’m also in a difficult position,” she countered, “I’m the main breadwinner, and now I have to be on bed rest and can’t work. I need that money back.”

There was no way this was happening. I was using every cent I earned to pay rent, bills, and tuition. She had no idea what she was doing to me. “You’ll find a way,” I said desperately. “Your parents could help. Your in-laws could help. You know I have absolutely nobody. We’re not in the same situation at all. You’re worried about making your car payments or your mortgage, you’re not worried that your kids literally won’t have anything to eat.”

“I’m not asking you,” she said, her voice getting shrill. “I’m telling you — I loaned you money and you have to repay it.”

Phew! I knew that wasn’t the case. “You’re wrong,” I explained. “I was at a shiur the other day and the rabbi said that in halachah, it’s assur to give a loan verbally. I have no obligation to pay you back.”

“So all this time you never had any intention of repaying me?”

“I thought you understood my situation. I thought you were using your maaser money to help me.”

“Let’s take it to a rav and see what he says. Whatever the rav says, we’ll abide by.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “Okay,” I said. “But how are we going to do it? We live on other sides of the country.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Miri said before hanging up the phone.

Miri found a rav renowned for his knowledge of the laws of Choshen Mishpat, and we made a three-way Zoom meeting with him so we could each tell him our side of the story and hear his ruling.

I saw Miri for the first time in a decade over the computer screen. All our talks had taken place over the phone since she got married. She looked perfect as always in her sheitel and diamond earrings. I wondered what she thought of me as I smoothed down my ratty tichel.

The rav listened carefully to the full story and asked us both a lot of questions.

“Do you admit that you said it was a loan?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “But as a way of letting me keep my dignity. I never thought Miri would want the money back because she never asked for it in the past. Also, isn’t it true that giving an oral loan is forbidden in halachah?”

“Yes, but if you admit that you owe the money, you have to pay it back. You owe Miri the money.”

How would I be able to pay it? Maybe I could put off some of the dental work I needed. That was a couple of thousands of dollars. “If that’s the halachah, I accept it. Thank you for your time, Rabbi,” I squeaked out.

The rav exited, and it was just me and Miri on the Zoom call.

“I’ll start paying you back one fifty a month, okay?” I asked.

“Okay,” she said, but she looked uneasy. Was her conscience weighing on her, with the contrast between my poverty and her comfortable life so clearly on display on this Zoom call?

Even thought it was difficult for me, I had no choice — the rav had spoken, and it would never have occurred to me to go against daas Torah. Whatever hardships I’ve endured, I’m a Jewish woman first and foremost, and I abide by the Torah’s rulings.

I sent Miri 150 dollars a month for a full year, but then she called me to let me know that things had settled down for her, as I knew they would eventually: Her husband had gotten a raise at work, and with her twins almost a year old, she was able to work part-time. She told me she could forgive the rest of my debt.

I noticed a cooling of our friendship after that. We still spoke on the phone occasionally, but far less often, and our conversations were more superficial. We didn’t share as much of what was going on in our personal lives. Miri never lent me money again, and I never asked. I understand why Miri was taken aback that I was hesitant to return her money when she needed it, but Miri will never truly understand what it is to struggle the way I have.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 923)