“N

aama? I think there’s someone at the front door.”

“Oh?”

I got up reluctantly, wondering who would be coming by so late on a Friday night. All the sheva brachos invitees were here already.

There was a woman I didn’t know at the door, and next to her was a little boy of four or five.

My heart sank.

Of course. She was here for the doctor.

“Hi, is this Dr. Greenfeld’s house?” The woman asked, a little hesitantly. “My son broke out in this rash and I’m just not sure — would the doctor be able to take a quick look and just let me know if it’s something to be concerned about or….”

We went through iterations of this all the time, but usually, I took a deep breath and tried to be gracious about it. Danny always said he was happy to help, and you never knew, it could be a real emergency and this was a chance to help someone in need, right?

But now… we were in the middle of hosting a sheva brachos. Danny was going to speak during the main course. We had the Zemiros Choir and the waiters and the entire family here, and Danny was the host. Was he going to take this kid into the den and start a full examination now?

I knew Danny, he did things properly. It wouldn’t be a two-minute look, it would take at least ten, if not longer.

I pressed my lips together a moment. “Do you live far?” I asked the woman. “Just — we’re in the middle of a sheva brachos here, it’s not a great time….”

Her face fell. “We walked about 15 minutes,” she said.

I wavered. “I guess… come through to the den and I’ll see if my husband can come out for a minute,” I said.

Of course, Danny agreed — he has a heart of gold, and he’s the most amazing, caring family doctor. No wonder the entire neighborhood wants to get into his practice.

He excused himself while I went to oversee the waiters serving the main course, and the sheva brachos went on, without the host.

“Chicken pox,” Danny said, coming up behind me as I headed from the kitchen to the dining room. “I told the mother to give him Tylenol for the fever, the poor kid is really droopy. Do we have some so she can give him a dose before they walk home?”

Chicken pox! Seriously? I felt another flash of irritation. I know it isn’t pleasant, but this wasn’t, like, life or death. Did they really have to come over on Friday night to disturb a doctor at home for this?

“I’ll see in a minute,” I said.

Once in the dining room, I got distracted. One of the centerpieces had tipped over and landed in someone’s soup. The waiters were struggling to fit all the platters onto the tables and my sisters-in-law were maneuvering things around to try to help. Meanwhile, some of the kids were refusing to eat the kiddie portions and some of the adults were sneaking chicken nuggets, the kallah was laughing hysterically over something else, and from the men’s side, my father-in-law wanted to know if it was possible to refill the ice water, please, if it’s not too much trouble?

In all the frenzy, the Tylenol totally slipped my mind, until one of the kids said to me, “Ma, that lady in the den asked if you have medicine.”

Oh, my goodness!

Wait. The kids were in the den?

“Who’s in there? The kid who came over has chicken pox. I think we should all stay away from that room until he’s gone.”

“Chicken pox?” my sister-in-law Shani jumped up. “I have a newborn! It’s so unsafe. And my kids are for sure all over this other child… I sent them to play in the den ages ago….”

Oh, boy.

I marched off to find the Tylenol. One dose and this kid could go home, everyone would wash their hands, we’d open a window or something and hope for the best.

Only when I finally made it to the den, Tylenol in hand, the kid was sleeping. Across our couch.

The mother looked at me apologetically. “I can’t believe he’s sleeping. He was up half the night last night because he hasn’t been well. And he wouldn’t nap today. And now he’s out like a light.”

I literally didn’t know what to say.

“Do you mind if I wait until he wakes up? I tried waking him before, but he’s just too tired. And I can’t carry him home. He has to be awake enough to walk the whole way.”

I shrugged. What choice did I have? At least he wasn’t going to be playing with the other kids now.

On my way out of the room, I realized that the mother must be hungry. I told one of the waiters to bring her some food and went back to enjoy the rest of the sheva brachos.

I’d missed Danny’s speech, and the main course was pretty much over. Arrghh. Oh, well, it was a chesed, right?

“What on earth is going on in there?” My sister-in-law Sarah asked, jerking her chin in the direction of the den.

“Nothing. Just a mother worried that her kid wasn’t well. And now he’s fallen asleep.”

Sarah’s eyes were round. “Oh, my. A doctor really doesn’t get time off.”

I shrugged. He was supposed to. It wasn’t like he signed up for Hatzolah or something. Danny worked crazy long days all week; why couldn’t people respect his privacy over Shabbos, at least?

When the sheva brachos was over, I went to check in on the mother and child. He was still sleeping, sprawled peacefully over the couch.

“I feel like he’s out for the night,” the mother said. “I’m not sure what to do.”

“Maybe someone could carry him home for you?” I suggested. “We have a lot of guests….”

The mother looked doubtful. “It’s far.”

In the end, the chassan and kallah themselves offered to knock on the woman’s door and update her husband. Then they babysat the other children so the father could walk over, pick up his wife and child, and help them get home.

By the time we were all done, it was even later than I’d expected.

“It’s a doctor’s life,” Danny said, shrugging.

“But it shouldn’t be,” I argued. “Aren’t you entitled to a little time off, a little personal space for your family? And it’s not okay to bring a contagious kid into a simchah.”

“Well, she didn’t know, did she?” Danny asked.

True. The mother couldn’t have known she was gate-crashing a sheva brachos.

But she could have known that a doctor has a personal life, too.

And that bringing over a child with a contagious sickness, letting him sleep on our couch half the night, and passing the germs on to half the family — four of the cousins came down with chicken pox afterward — just wasn’t okay.

IT

wasn’t the first story, not by a long shot.

Every Shabbos, and often during the evenings as well, we’d end up with someone or other knocking on the door. “Just a quick question, is the doctor around?”

There was the young mother panicking because her ten-month-old baby had eaten a honey nut cheerio, and what should she do.

There was the little boy with the swollen eye on a Yom Tov afternoon.

There were several iterations of “Does this cut need stitches?” and, “He fell and hurt his arm, is it a sprain or a break?”

Yes, there’s Hatzolah, but a lot of the questions didn’t feel like enough of an emergency to warrant an actual phone call on Shabbos. So why not knock on the door of the friendly neighborhood doctor?

Except I had a very good reason why not. It was called family.

My kids got annoyed at these frequent interruptions. They didn’t see their father much as it was; he worked crazy hours. Why should their Shabbos and Yom Tov meals, and any other family time be constantly interrupted?

I didn’t like it much, either. We’d have strangers in our dining room, in our den. It was never just five minutes — Danny’s too responsible for that, he always gave a full examination — or as comprehensive as he could without his equipment.

And while Danny is a tzaddik with a heart of gold, I knew this was too much for him.

I could see. I could see the strain on his face, the way he collapsed into a chair after a long day at work. He needed a break, just like anyone else. He put his heart and soul into his work, and home — Shabbos, Yom Tov, his few precious hours off each evening — had to be a haven.

Not a local walk-in clinic, staffed by him.

IT

was time, I knew, to set some boundaries.

And so I did.

There would be no more home visits, I decided. If someone had a health concern out of hours, there was always urgent care, the ER, an out-of-hours clinic, whatever. If it was an emergency, they could call Hatzolah. We were done with seeing patients at all hours of the day and night, Shabbos and all.

Yes, it would be hard to turn people away at the door. But I knew how these things worked. You did it once, twice, three times, stuck to your guns, and then people started to catch on. The women in the park would stop sharing how it was “so useful to know Dr. Greenfeld’s address, if you’re worried about anything you can just knock on his door and he’ll see you, no problem.”

The word would get around that he didn’t see patients out of hours. And the hordes would stop coming.

Danny was a little nervous about the idea. “I went into this field to help people,” he protested. “How can I turn them away when they come?”

“You can help them in your clinic, in work hours,” I reminded him. “And you do plenty of chesed, squeezing in extra appointments, staying late. It’s too much for you, the constant harassment at all hours. It needs to stop, or you won’t be able to help anyone.”

He inclined his head. “You’re probably right. Even a doctor needs someone looking out for their health, huh?”

I chuckled, but it was more true than funny.

T

he changes didn’t stop with ending our open-door policy.

Danny got a second phone, with a phone number we kept just for family and friends. His old number, which half the community had on speed dial, became a work phone, which he put away when he came home each night.

If someone called my cell phone, or our landline, I gave them the same answer as I gave those who knocked at the door: “The doctor isn’t available now. You can call the clinic during working hours.” I’ll admit it didn’t feel great to keep turning people down. But eventually, people got the message.

The phone calls dwindled. The knocks on the door became less and less frequent.

And our family began to breathe again.

The kids were grateful. “Finally, we can have a Shabbos meal without any interruptions,” my 12-year-old said smiling.

Danny looked better. He was getting a real break each evening, every weekend, and he needed it.

And I… well, this wasn’t really about me. But I couldn’t say I wasn’t relieved, too.

We worked so hard all week to accommodate Danny’s career. Didn’t we deserve to have him to ourselves off-hours?

IT

was Purim when Ella knocked on the door with her baby.

Ella was an old neighbor… we’d lived in a different neighborhood years back, when Danny was training, and then starting out.

We’d been good friends and still kept in touch sporadically, but I was surprised when she came by on Purim.

“We’re eating the seudah in your neighborhood, so we thought we’d drop by with mishloach manos,” she explained.

I was touched. “That’s so nice! Such a treat to see you.” We schmoozed for a few minutes, and then I headed back inside.

Purim was a busy day. Besides for the usual deliveries, we got a lot from random families in the community — I assume Danny’s patients, though he never said a word about them for privacy reasons. We’d be hosting a seudah for several families, and by late Purim afternoon, the house was hopping and hectic, and I couldn’t have been happier.

Last Purim, I remembered, Danny had barely sat down at the seudah. It had been one thing after the next, worried mothers with little kids who’d been throwing up from too much sugar, someone had fallen off a unicycle and wasn’t sure if they’d sprained their ankle or worse, a woman who needed a prescription and couldn’t wait until the next morning….

This year, finally, Danny had the chance to be with the family, celebrating Purim like a regular guy. He needed it; Taanis Esther had been intense, and I knew he had a young patient who’d been hospitalized after an infection turned dangerous. It was weighing on him; he grew connected to his patients, and this day off — a day to connect to joy, miracles, family — was exactly what he needed.

And then Ella came back, right in the middle of the seudah.

She had her youngest with her, a baby who looked around a year, or maybe a little younger.

“Such Hashgachah we’re right nearby,” she said. “My baby’s been coughing, and it’s getting worse. I think he needs medication. Is Danny home? Could he maybe have a quick look at the baby and tell me what he needs?”

I peeked at the baby. He looked sleepy, but he seemed to be breathing well enough. This didn’t seem to be an emergency. And I knew Ella — we’d been neighbors for years. She was the anxious-mother sort, often bringing her kids over at the slightest hint of a raised temperature or possible rash.

And if I’d let her in now… we had a full house, and all the families at the table knew about our new out-of-hours policy. And Danny was finally looking calmer, more relaxed than I’d seen him in ages. How could I call him out to do yet another impromptu doctor consultation, after all our work to stop this trend?

“I know it’s Purim. You’re probably in the middle of your seudah, right? But it’ll just take a minute. And without a doctor’s prescription, I can’t get him any medication…” Ella looked at me, pleadingly.

They all said that: It’ll just be a minute. But it never was. By the time Danny examined the baby, asked the questions, wrote a prescription… this wasn’t just a tiny, fleeting favor.

I swallowed. It was hard to turn people away, and harder still when it was a friend. But I knew the drill, and I knew what I had to do.

“I’m so sorry. But it’s Danny’s day off, he’s not working. I know when we lived near you, he used to do this kind of thing as a chesed, but these days we’re very makpid on this. He works crazy hours and he needs to reserve his time off for the family.”

Ella didn’t let up. “I’m desperate,” she said. “My husband is out of action, my kids are at my sister-in-law, and it’s kind of an emergency….”

Kind of?

I was fed up.

“Look, Ella, I always tell people, if it’s an emergency, that’s what Hatzolah is there for. They’ll be there in seconds, and they can check if you need urgent medical care or not. And there’s the ER, it’s not like anyone is stranded with nowhere to go. If it’s not an emergency, usually it can wait until the clinic is open.”

I looked at the baby again. He was coughing, but babies can do that. I gave her a few suggestions and reminded her that if she was really frightened about an emergency, she should take the baby to an urgent care.

Ella looked stricken. And I felt terrible that she was hurt.

But I didn’t think I should have done any differently, either. My job was to be there for my husband, my family — and not to take care of the whole world, at our own expense.

If I could tell Ella one thing, it would be: The demands on a doctor’s time are endless — and what feels like just one thing to you would be one of hundreds for him.

Ella

“SO,will you join us for the Purim seudah?”

It was my sister-in-law Rivki. We usually get together with my husband’s siblings for the seudah, taking turns to host, but it’s not set in stone. So while technically we should have been hosting this year, I was happy that Rivki was offering; I’d had an intense winter at work, was pretty overwhelmed with my family of little and not-so-little ones, and didn’t particularly feel like hosting the seudah. Yes, of course, we’d divide the work, but the hostess has to deal with the setup and decor and cleanup, plus the headache of coordinating, so if Rivki was up for it, I was going to gratefully accept.

The kids were excited at the thought of going to their cousins. Rivki’s family lives in the next neighborhood over, so we don’t see them that much.

“We can visit the Greenfelds!” one of my girls said.

“True, they live around the corner from Rivki, no?”

The Greenfelds had been our next-door neighbors for several years, before they moved. We’d been good friends — my husband, Ezriel, and Danny Greenfeld, and me and Naama. The kids had flitted in and out of each other’s houses all the time, and we’d been really disappointed when they moved away.

We had great neighbors now, too. And I wasn’t in touch with Naama Greenfeld that much. But every so often, when we bump into each other or have a reason to get on the phone, we have a great time catching up.

I wouldn’t have driven over just to deliver them mishloach manos — we weren’t close enough for that. But if we were going to be in the area anyway, I figured, of course we’d pop by. Just like they came over to visit every so often when they spent Shabbos at his parents, who lived in our area.

IT

was funny to see how things changed over the years. When they’d been our neighbors, Danny was just finishing med school. It had actually been super helpful having a next-door neighbor who was becoming a doctor; any of those baby rashes or ear infections or worries about bumps or bruises had an easy address.

Now, so the reid went, he was a fantastically popular family doctor with his own clinic. They lived in a nice house, and it looked like they were doing well.

I remembered those crazy days of med school and interning, the years when Naama had been pretty much on her own dealing with a baby and a couple of toddlers and working to bring in an income. I was so happy for her that it had been worth it.

It would be nice to see them on Purim. I went over to my mishloach manos master list and made a note to add a nice package for the Greenfelds.

P

urim morning is always the same. Things start off beautifully organized, so I fool myself into thinking that this year, I have it all together.

Then, approximately ten minutes in, someone starts to cry, a costume rips, the doorbell rings, the sugar starts flowing, and all the organization very rapidly disintegrates.

This year, it was the baby who started. He’d been cranky all night, a runny nose and a cough, taking time to settle. Now he was overtired and a little under the weather, and he did not want to wear the adorable little costume I’d gotten for him to match his older siblings.

Fine. Fine. I dressed him in a regular outfit and settled him in the highchair with Cheerios, while urging the bigger kids to have a healthy breakfast before they started on the Mike and Ikes.

When Ezriel came home, I ran out to hear Megillah with the girls. Ezriel was manning the fort, and I’d enjoy it while it lasted. He usually passes out after having something to drink at the seudah. My husband doesn’t really do alcohol, he gets knocked out every year from a cup or two, and ends up fulfilling ad d’lo yada by sleeping on the couch.

I came home from Megillah — a blissful half hour of peace — to find the boys warring over which hat belonged to which costume, and three-year-old Mimi in tears because her costume got wet. Goldy’s teacher had asked the girls to come within a very specific half-hour time slot, which incidentally was the same time slot given by Dovid’s rebbi, who lived on the other side of town.

I ushered the kids into the car with my husband, frantically consulting my list to make sure we had everybody covered. Then I went back in with the baby, who was still looking a little red and puffy.

Poor kid. Purim is the wrong day for this.

I rearranged the rest of the packages while the kids were out, trying to get organized so that we could deliver them all and get to Rivki’s seudah on time. It was Purim, and traffic was at a crawl; it took half an hour to get to my sister-in-law at the best of times. We’d have to really leave promptly if we wanted to make it before dessert.

Eventually, my husband and kids got back, and there were only three tantrums about teachers and friends and he touched my box of mishloach manos, Maaaaaaa!

I had everyone wash up and then get back into the car, leaving a huge mess of assorted gift bags and boxes and clear containers behind us. Never mind, we’d clean up later.

I grabbed the huge bowl of fruit salad and the franks ’n’ blanks that were my contribution to the seudah, and we were off.

The baby was sleepy, I noticed. Funny — he’d napped for a while this morning. Maybe he just needed more sleep to recover from his cold.

WE

made it to Rivki’s area only a half hour late, which by Purim standards could be called pretty early. Just before we went over to her house, we stopped at the Greenfelds, piling out of the car so everyone could say hello.

Naama opened the door. “Ella! And co! What a surprise. So nice to see you!”

“We have a seudah in the area, how could we not come by?” I replied, laughing.

We chatted for a few minutes, then I handed over our mishloach manos offering — cookies and grape juice and lots of ribbon. I don’t do very fancy — and received an elegant, clear container in return, filled with wrapped candies and a small wine bottle. Classy.

We waved goodbye and headed over to Rivki’s.

“I’m glad we got to say hello. The Greenfelds have always been good friends,” I told my husband.

R

ivki’s seudah was everything a Purim seudah is meant to be: noisy, hectic, fun, full of finger food and colorful disposable dishes. My siblings-in-law milled around, the kids chased each other around the house eating whatever junk food they could get their hands on, and I let myself feel the relief of having arrived at our last stop for the day, with everyone more or less in one piece.

But the baby. He sat in a highchair near me, and he was looking… pale. And his cough — was it getting worse? I wasn’t sure. Was he starting to wheeze, maybe? Or was it just the noise and the crowd and the out-of-routine thing that was making me think he was doing worse?

My sisters-in-law noticed, too.

“Ella, what’s with Ushi? Everything okay?”

“That sounds like a bad cough. Is he on medication for it?”

“It kind of just started,” I said, casting a sidelong worried glance at the baby. He didn’t look good. Although it could’ve just been tiredness, the lack of a schedule, and his being under the weather on a day when there was so much else going on.

“Maybe you want to call Hatzolah, check his breathing?” Debbie suggested. She was my husband’s oldest sister and a chronic worrier.

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” I told her, but then Ushi started to cough again. He really was coughing a lot.

“Maybe it’s pneumonia. Or croup. It gets much worse at night. You really need to get him started on medication.”

I glanced over at Ezriel. He was nodding off, bleary-eyed. Oh boy.

The kids were screeching and crazy and sugar-high and I was pretty much on my own until Ezriel would wake up again.

“Hatzolah will probably tell me to go to the ER. And I can’t, it’s not enough of an emergency to get seen immediately — we’ll be waiting hours. I don’t need the ER, I just need a doctor to prescribe something….”

A lightbulb went off in my head.

“Wait,” I said, my voice clearing. “I have a doctor right here! I’ll just take Ushi over to the Greenfelds, and he can write me a prescription for whatever he thinks Ushi needs. There’ll be a pharmacy open still for a while. And we won’t have to wait hours to see a doctor, either.”

T

he kids barely noticed me leave — they were busy with their cousins. Rivki and Debbie and the others assured me that they’d keep an eye on everyone, and I strapped Ushi into the stroller and raced around the block back to Naama’s.

As I walked, I heard Ushi’s cough get worse. And in between fits, his eyes would close. Was it tiredness, or lethargy? Did I have a real reason to be nervous, or was I being an overanxious mother?

I wasn’t sure, but luckily, Danny Greenfeld was right nearby. Without him, I didn’t know what I’d do. Take a kid to ER on Purim? Drop everything and leave the kids at Rivki’s while I went to check things out at the urgent care? Maybe it was just a virus that would pass on its own….

“Ella! Two visits in one day!” Naama opened the door with a questioning smile.

I showed her the baby. Between panting breaths, I explained the situation. “All I need is a prescription…. Is Danny home? Could he maybe have a quick look at the baby and tell me what he needs?”

Naama’s smile slipped right off her face.

I was surprised. When we’d lived next door to them, we’d done this all the time.

“I know it’s Purim. You’re probably in the middle of your seudah, right? But it’ll just take a minute. And without a doctor’s prescription, I can’t get him any medication….”

I looked down at Ushi. He was pale, and drowsy, and nothing like his bouncy, happy self. I was right to be nervous, I decided.

“Look Ella,” Naama said. Was there a note of awkwardness in her voice, or was I imagining it? “It’s Danny’s day off, and he’s not working…. I know when we lived near you, he used to do this kind of thing as a chesed but these days we’re very makpid on this. He works crazy hours and he needs his time off to be for the family. Otherwise, we have a stream of people coming at all hours. You know what I mean?”

I could hear what she was saying. But this—

“I know. But I’m a little desperate,” I said. “My husband is — well, he’s kinda out of action, I left the kids at my sister-in-law, and it’s really an emergency….”

I was begging, but for good reason.

Naama didn’t look convinced. “Look, Ella, I always tell people, if it’s an emergency, that’s what Hatzolah is there for. They’ll come in seconds, and they can check if you need urgent medical care or not. And there’s the ER, it’s not like anyone is stranded with nowhere to go. If it’s not an emergency, usually it can wait until the clinic hours.” She peered over at Ushi. “Give him Tylenol, maybe some steam would help — have the hot shower running and hold him in the room for a little while. There’s also an out-of-hours clinic in the neighborhood if you need.”

I clenched my fists in desperation. I could hear the men inside singing Layehudim. We were so close to a doctor, and that was all I needed — not Naama’s helpful tips on clearing Ushi’s congestion.

“Can I just come in for a minute?” I tried one more time. “Danny doesn’t have to leave the table.”

Naama bit her lip. “I’m so sorry, Ella, but we have a policy — he just doesn’t do this out of hours anymore.”

And then she wished me a freilechen Purim and closed the door.

I

looked at the closed door unbelievingly.

I had to do something… Ushi wasn’t okay. But the ER… I would be there for hours. I had nowhere to leave the kids. Nowhere to go.

I briefly considered my options. I’d have to leave Ezriel sleeping and all five other kids by my sister-in-law. That wouldn’t be fair to her. We could be gone for hours. Maybe overnight. And the kids had no pajamas, nowhere to sleep. This was insane.

All I needed was a doctor for a few minutes. And our family friend, a renowned family doctor, was right inside the house. But his wife — who I always considered a friend — had just slammed that door in my face.

If I could tell Naama one thing, it would be: I really need your husband’s help. How can you turn me away when I have nowhere else to turn? 

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1004)