I’ve written here before about how strange it is to write a weekly column like this one. This magazine is read by tens of thousands of good Jews each week and yet as I sit in my study tapping out the words of my weekly offering I can easily delude myself into thinking I’m simply making yet another entry into a private diary never to be seen by another pair of human eyes.

Recently the metaphor that formed in my mind to capture this reality gap was that of someone who’s on a building ledge dozens of stories off the ground — but he’s asleep. His situation is beyond precarious the stakes of his every slight move and thus his responsibility to be super cautious immense. But deep in slumber he’s blissfully unaware of all this until he begins to stir and awaken to the rather overwhelming reality in which he finds himself.

Writing about serious topics of great relevance to lots of fellow Jews opining not infrequently about individuals and institutions events and trends in our community and beyond places a really heavy burden on a writer’s shoulders. He’s got to make sure he has the facts straight his reasoning is impeccable (easily defensible that is albeit not necessarily unassailable) and above all that his words are aligned with the teachings of our Torah as refracted through the minds of the chachmei hamesorah of past and present. A tall order this.

Although I profess to try as best I can to fill that order I must also confess that much of the time I’m asleep here on my little ledge. Perhaps not out cold but certainly dozing oblivious to the full implications of what I’m engaged in. I don’t think I could do this if I were fully aware of those implications each time I sat down at the computer to write.

But now and then I’m roused by something that brings home the achrayus inherent in what my fellow writers and I do. I strive to absorb that lesson and then to be honest I go back to sleep so that I can carry on.

One such wakeup call a very positive and inspiring one came two months ago in a letter from a reader which I excerpt here:

This letter comes many years after it is due and I apologize for the delay. Every year before Rosh Hashanah I tell myself that I must write to you but words escape me; or do severe injustice to the chizuk you provided me with your article of long ago…

You brought a mashal of Rav Simcha Zissel of Kelm about a customer in an extremely high-class restaurant or hotel who after paying through the roof for his meal notices the waiter eating the very same food gratis. After irately complaining to the manager he is told that the waiter gets a free meal because he works there.

The nimshal was that those who are Hashem’s waiters in this world accrue merits merely by being the waiters. I don’t remember whether you actually mentioned parents of special-needs children as among those who are granted a “free meal” by dint of their serving their children or if I simply inferred this from your article.

As the mother of a special-needs child I was stuck at home that Rosh Hashanah barely able to make it to tekias shofar. I also could not even open a machzor to daven as I was busy watching my child. Feeling awful and full of despair I opened up the Mishpacha magazine instead… and read your article.

It was so powerful that I just read it over and over again. The words spoke directly to me — my job at that time was to be a waiter! I was Hashem’s waiter on a specific job to cater to His child. And if I would fulfill my task as the job description specified I could also enjoy a “free” kesivah v’chasimah tovah.

You must know that your article accompanied me through many a dark time — when I was unable to daven or fulfill other obligations because of time constraints or simply because I couldn’t muster up the energy it demanded of me.

Her letter reminded me of something I had heard years earlier in the name of a great rosh yeshivah in Yerushalayim a renowned maggid shiur and the father too of a developmentally disabled youngster. He shared that at times a call would come in to the yeshivah summoning him home to attend to his son’s personal needs and as he rushed home he experienced a feeling that he imagined the Kohein Gadol must have felt as he readied himself to do the avodah on Yom Hakippurim.

There wasn’t another living soul on earth other than this noble descendant of Aharon who was fit to perform that exalted service in the Kodesh Hakodoshim. And the rosh yeshivah had been chosen by Hashem to be the one person in the world able to properly attend to his child.

The truth is that in my column I hadn’t mentioned anything about parents of special-needs children although they are undoubtedly among the greatest of the “waiters” of whom Rav Simcha Zissel spoke. There was simply no way I could have imagined the impact my words would have in the life of this mother but there it was.

A few words in a long-forgotten column had given greatly needed chizuk at just the right moment and had continued to bear fruit. But with the feelings of elation and thanksgiving upon reading this letter came the dawning awareness of just how far-reaching an effect a few words can have for better or for worse intended or not. The ledge had suddenly become a very small uncomfortable place to be.