You may be the reason a lost soul comes home

Dear Kindhearted Stranger,

I know how you feel when you see those girls. I know that familiar twist in your heart, the pang in your gut, that aching sense of helplessness. Your heart yearns to share its comfort and show its love, but you don’t know how to make the words cross your lips.

I was once like you. I also didn’t know what to say when I saw those girls on the street, or caught glimpses at the pizza shop on Motzaei Shabbos. Some of them were old acquaintances. Some were strangers. But it seemed as though they were all crying out in pain. I thought about how their parents must have worried about them. I visualized them back in the day, bedecked in tzniyus finery. I wondered what brought them to this place.

Today, I work with the girls who once tore my heart out. I know what to say to show them I care. And I want you to know that you don’t have to open your home and invite them for a meal, or even work with them in other settings to make a difference.

I know because they’ve told me.

There was the girl raised in a prominent chassidus, now looking anything but. Once, she told me, when she was raising money for a campaign, she called a ninth-grade teacher who had been supportive of her during her Bais Yaakov days. The teacher was emotional when she heard the girl’s voice. “I’ve been davening for you every day!” she said. “Please tell me how you’re doing.” The girl’s heart was so warmed by this encounter that her mindset toward her community shifted. There were people there who had hurt her tremendously, but she now felt love emanating from the community as well.

I think of the girls who told me about the time they were walking down the street on a Friday, when a stranger called, “Have a good Shabbos!” from a car window. Others recounted an incident in which they were smoking and playing Israeli music outside one Shabbos morning and found themselves invited to a neighbor’s Shabbos meal. These encounters struck a chord deep within the girls, creating a ripple effect that compounded over time.

Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that when a girl who feels abandoned and lost encounters love and encouragement from people within the community, she assumes those people are an anomaly. But it’s people like you, who say hello and offer a warm smile, who can open doors, who can make it clear that there’s a family waiting for her on the other side. She knows she can come back. And she will.

Whether or not you say hello to the girl standing on the corner, she will hear from her detractors. She will overhear conversations, conducted in Yiddish in which a child asks his mother why a goy was walking out of their neighbor’s house. Girls have shared stories of being bombarded by frum peers who challenged them, “So… are you happier now?” Comments like those slam the door shut with a disapproving echo, a taunting sound that lingers in the mind of a broken girl for a long, long time.

So to you, whose heart aches but whose lips do not cooperate, I say: You are more important than you think. Act on your loving instincts. You may be the reason a lost soul comes home.

Thank you for being an irreplaceable member of our holy nation.

Love,

Someone on the Front Lines

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 957)