“Should I continue helping this older woman who is all alone?” my friend asks me. “She needs to move and won’t let me help her move because she doesn’t want anyone to know where she is because she thinks everyone is against her. She won’t let me cook for her because she thinks everyone is trying to poison her. And she won’t let me clean with soap because she’s afraid of what chemicals are inside the soap. But still she trusts only me.”

I want to tell my friend “You’re having enough trouble trying not to fall apart yourself right now.” But I don’t. I say I’ll ask my husband that he’s better at these things than I am.

“It’s not worth her giving up such a big mitzvah” my husband says “but she should help for just an hour and a half. She can’t possibly take on moving her.”

So as I’m davening this morning I’m thinking how 90 minutes are just a drop in a big bucket for this older woman who needs everything. But on the other hand this help could be like a small snap so little but holding together an entire outfit making it wearable. And in this case it could help this woman be the small touch that lets her know someone in the world cares.

A snap could be the small part holding the whole thing together. Or the opposite. When they say “he just snapped.”

The old saying “the straw that broke the camel’s back” works both ways.

I always learned the last straw was the thing that brings it down but no one ever talks about the last snap that fixes a person’s will for life.

One of my dreams was to bring chicken soup to hospitals or to people who don’t feel good because I know what it means to have a bowl of soup when you can’t swallow anything else. But then I’d think “What’s one bowl of soup going to do?”

Many times I have this dilemma like if I can only give one slice when someone wants or needs a whole pie I am inadequate.

But it’s not true. It could be the other person’s request or need is simply too big for me alone.

But here I see that’s not true.

The other night I was walking in the night and I passed an older woman I know well standing waiting for the bus to the Kosel. She said it was hard for her to stand that the neighbors usually brought her a chair to sit on while she waited but they must be out.

I didn’t have a chair with me and I felt so bad but I had an ear and a good word so I gave those. And as I was leaving she said “Don’t be afraid. Only those without emunah are afraid.”

And it wasn’t connected to anything we spoke about but the message hit home and I applied it all over the place including in giving.

Sometimes we’re afraid to start giving because what if the other person needs more and we’re not ready or capable for that?

It happens often both at home and outside. You’ll see a family that’s so poor you’re afraid to approach them to help because you know their needs are like quicksand. If you help with some food they need clothes and then a pair of shoes and with the shoes socks and then a sweater and a coat. So you run to help the one who just needs a small loan to get them through a tight spot because there the giving is defined. It has a beginning middle and end.

But the poor man’s needs are endless. So it’s scary.

I go through the same process with cleaning. Like what’s it going to help just to clean the cabinets now when the floors and the ceilings need to be washed as well?

I work on not letting those voices win. I answer them “Well I if clean a little corner I make a tiny place on earth a little nicer.”

Then all of a sudden I find myself washing the floors wiping the counters the table.

This applies to people as well.

That’s how it is. Sometimes it all pulls together like that in a snap.