"I had a home, a wife, all the trappings of success in the frum, Orthodox world. Following my divorce I ended up in a small basement apartment. I was - for the first time in my life - truly alone. I retreated into myself, felt miserable and found it difficult to reach out for help. I had been one whom others reached out to in the past. I was the one who had people over for Shabbosim. I had even given shiurim and started Chessed groups. Suddenly I found myself alone, more alone than I had ever been in my life.

"Fortunately I ended up in a neighborhood where the Rabbi was a personal friend of mine from yeshiva, which we had both attended together 20 years earlier. In one small way I felt that at the very least, this friend of mine, whom I revered for his Torah knowledge and tzidkus, would help me through the trying times.

"Intellectually I was aware of the various stages I would go through. I had helped others through this agony of life, so I felt that my awareness of what was happening to me, and my awareness of what would happen to me, would help me through the rough times. Knowing that withdrawal and reclusiveness are classic symptoms of men who get divorced, I forced myself to keep going to Shul. It sounds like a minor accomplishment, but believe me, this is one of the most difficult things that newly divorced men face. There is an overwhelming feeling of total emptiness, devastation and failure that men feel when they are first divorced. We walk into Shul and feel that everyone sees our shame, our emptiness, and that people see us as less than human. The feeling of isolation is impossible to describe. When one has a home, a wife and children, the adjustment to being a bachelor is not pleasant.

"The first few months that I lived alone, I was happy to go to Shul and leave quietly without conversing with anyone. This being New York, I spoke to no one, and the mispallelim, maintaining the Minhag Hamakom of New York of not talking to strangers, left me alone. At the time it suited my needs. I was in a new neighborhood, and I was left alone. After six months I realized that in all the time I had been to Shul, sometimes with my children and at times without, I was never once, NOT ONCE, invited for a meal by anyone. This was both odd and hurtful.

"As the pain and shock of the divorce wore off, the loneliness of Shabbosim and Yomim Tovim set in. I spent Shabbos after Shabbos alone. Making Kiddush at an empty table where there was once a wife and family is something that to this day I have not gotten used to. Where there was once the sweet sound of my children and I singing zemiros, there was now a desolate emptiness. As I tried to sing zemiros to myself, the echo of my voice in my small apartment soon turned to the muffled sound of my own tears. The expanse of my tiny table seemed endless. I was alone. Where there was once a room full of life, laughter, arguing children, discussions of parsha and bedtimes, there was now a terrible silence. Where there was once a large mess to clean up, there was now no difficulty in cleaning up. I used to dread Friday night cleanup. All those dishes to help my wife with. Now there was one paper plate to be quickly swept off the table. How ironic, I still think to myself. What I wouldn't give for three hours worth of chores on a Friday night, fatigue and all.

"I had no divrei Torah to give over to anyone. I tried to learn to accept the Mishpat of Hashem, but the loneliness was overwhelming. As humiliating as it was, I finally cracked. One day I called up my friend, the Rabbi - the one who went to yeshiva with me, the one who is my mentor, my Rebbe, and I poured my heart out to him about my situation. I told him how lonely it was on Shabbosim and how Shabbos had no meaning to me anymore. He told me that he would see what he could do.

"Another three months went by. Rosh Hashana 5760 (1999) came and went, and I found myself in my basement apartment during Sukkos (1999) with none of my kids and no sukkah. After years of building my own sukkah with my kids, decorating the sukkah, looking forward to seeing the children's excited faces on that first night of eating outside in our beautiful sukkah, I was now alone, in my basement apartment. I had nowhere to go. I spent Sukkos eating alone, no Kiddush, no zemiros, nothing, eating just salad and chicken, and Sukkos came and went. Last November, I broke down to a friend and shared some of my pain. Unbeknownst to me he contacted the Rabbi of my Shul and told him of my plight and pleaded with him to please make sure that 'Sholom should not be alone for Shabbos anymore.'"

This ends one portion of the letter Sholom sent me.

As we are a nation founded on compassion and kindness, it is obvious what the next step in this story is. The Rav, having now received directly from Sholom a plea borne of loneliness and pain as well as a request from an outside source that another Jew was alone Shabbos after Shabbos, felt galvanized to ensure that nothing like this would happen again. He made sure that a Shabbos didn't pass where this man wasn't invited out. He called some of the many Baalei Chessed in the Shul and told them in no uncertain terms that as a kehilla this kind of thing reflected poorly on the entire community. He made sure that the entire congregation's moral conscience was raised to this issue, not just with public declarations, but with true personal work. He did not rest. He made dozens of calls. He acted like a true Ben Torah, like a true friend indeed, like a true Gadol Biyisroel. The stories we read of all our gedolim were the light by which he led his life.

Jews being Jews, and the basis of our religion being Chessed, most people responded that they had no idea such a situation existed in their kehilla, and of course they opened up their homes with open arms. When one family couldn't have Sholom over, calls were made to another family, and in the blink of an eye this problem went away. Never let it be said that putting a single man up for a few meals is a difficult thing for a community committed to Chessed. A few women laughed at the very notion that it was even difficult. A few well-placed calls - "Chaya, it's Miriam. I have someone who needs a meal tonight" "Sure, Miriam. No problem. I'll have him tonight. I'll call Leah to see if she can have him for a meal tomorrow, and we will talk on Tuesday to see where we will place him next week."

And so it goes. The kehilla as a whole "adopted" Sholom and his children. The warmth that he felt gave him such chizuk that Sholom was able to heal faster, get on with his life and be a better person in every facet. And the "tircha" to the tzibur was non-existent. It is - as we all know - part and parcel of our lives as Jews.

The above is what you might imagine would happen. Unfortunately it didn't. Here is what really happened.

Sholom continues his narrative:

"Six months later I was talking to my Rabbi, my friend, my mentor, about my life in general. I was seeking direction and chizuk. I had still not received any invitations, not from him or from any members of the Shul, and I had totally given up any hope of things changing. It had reached a point of curious observation for me, and I was beyond being hurt anymore. I would go to Shul and study the Rabbi and congregants like a scientist would study rats in a maze. The behavior was such an aberration of everything Jewish, yet there they were the "cream of the crop" products of the finest yeshivos this past century has produced.

"During the conversation the Rabbi indicated that he was disappointed in me for something. He told me he was hurt that I had talked lashon hara about him. Puzzled, I asked him to explain. He then revealed to me that he had received a letter from a friend of mine who had appealed to him to please help me, and it was clear from this letter that I had spoken ill of the Rabbi.

"My friend, my mentor, my Rebbe, my Rabbi said, 'I want you to know I felt manipulated by that letter. I won't do something when someone tries to manipulate me.' I apologized, told him I knew nothing about it (which I didn't) and left.

"As I spoke to more and more men who have become divorced, I found that I was not the only one who went to a Shul for YEARS and never received an invitation.

"Initially I took it personally: How could it be that two years pass in a Shul of over 200 families and not one person extends an invitation? You might think this is a Shul that is full of poor kollel families. No, this Shul is in one of the most affluent, yeshivish (translation - Borsalino hats) neighborhoods in New York. Houses are in the $300- 400,000 range. You might think that this is a Shul that is somewhat disorganized. No, this is a Shul that has a Chessed Committee, and the Chessed Committee is run by a "chashuv" Ben Torah, a paragon of Chessed in the community. The head of the Chessed Committee prepares lavish lunches and dinners for visiting gedolim from around the world. He makes sure that Torah is given its proper respect, and he displays his love of Torah by having his picture taken with all visiting Gedolim. The head of the Chessed Committee has NEVER said one word to me, not even 'Good Shabbos.'

"My spirits kept going down, not only from the loneliness, but from what has become of Klal Yisroel. I know that when I had a home, I had my door open to singles all the time. I regularly invited people over and made them feel worthy."

Thus ends the second portion of Sholom's letter.

To all of you reading this letter, I ask you: Imagine Moshiach entering the Rabbi's home. There are his wonderful children surrounding a large table. The divrei Torah pour forth from their mouths. Zemiros are sung with hislahavus. The Oneg Shabbosim are frequent and full of warmth. And one block away, Sholom, his friend from yeshiva, a member of Klal Yisroel, sits alone, a person who was so down that he actually had to lower himself to "beg" for an invitation, a person who gave up any semblance of the charade of a Shabbos meal. Alone in a community surrounded by affluence, by people who decry selfishness, by a Rav who speaks from the pulpit regularly about Chessed. What is one to make of this, sociologically? What would Moshiach do, witnessing this scene? I suspect he would go back to the Ribono Shel Olam and say, "Our people are not ready. In spite of the explosion of Torah, dial-a-dafs, learning projects, and coliseums of Jews celebrating the completion of Shas, we are nowhere near ready. We have totally lost our direction and our moral compass."

I can't help but wonder - how? How do frum Jews listen to another person express clearly such loneliness and pain, and continue to do nothing? Are we Bnei Yisroel, or are we Bnei Sedom? Are our Congregations called K'hal Ahavas Chessed, K'hal Ahavas Torah, K'hal Ahavas Yisroel and K'hal Ahavas Mitzvos, or are we Anshei Sedom? I am shaken to the core by the sheer cruelty of our people.

Merubim Tzarchei Amcha seems to have taken on a new meaning. It used to mean, "Ribono Shel Olam, we need safety; we need security; we need parnassa; we need health." Now it seems it means, "Ribono Shel Olam, we need a conscience, a heart; we need to regain our humanity; we are so immersed in our gashmius that we have lost sight of what is right." Merubim Tzarchei Amcha! Please, Ribono Shel Olam! Restore us to when we were Rachmonim Bnei Rachmonim! Restore us to when we had a moral compass; restore us to when a Ben Toirah (sic) meant a person shakua - immersed - in the Chessed of Avraham Avinu, not a person who has a home surrounded by other homes with six and seven bedrooms. Not a person with black hats in his designer closets and Lincoln Navigators in his three-car garage - and whose children go to only the most elitist yeshivos.

What has happened to us as a people when Rabbanim are "too busy" to help those in need because they are so busy preparing their Internet shiur or are a scholar in residence at a remote, exotic locale, or addressing national symposiums on the "dangers facing the contemporary yeshiva mon (sic) today"?

If you think you have heard the worst, you haven't. Read on.

Here is the end of Sholom's narrative:

"Month after month went by, and I thought to myself, What more can I do? I had asked the Rav directly for help, a friend had appealed on my behalf, and still I was left alone. Is there something wrong with me? I used to think so. But in my professional career, I am liked and very successful, with many friends. As I said, I am not alone. Dozens of divorced men have told me their experiences are similar.

"My brother lives hundreds of miles from the New York area, and as he and I were discussing this one day he said, 'You know, Christians would treat you better,' and then I had a frightening thought. If I called a priest and told him of my loneliness, would he treat me any better? For weeks I agonized over this, and I finally called the local Roman Catholic priest and asked for a visit. He welcomed me into his office. He wasn't too busy. He didn't push me off for weeks. He returned my call within three hours. After a few discussions we struck up a friendship. He was puzzled as to why an Orthodox Jewish man would seek solace with a priest in my neighborhood, where, according to the priest, there was 'the highest concentration of clergy in the world,' but I explained that I felt too ashamed to speak to my own people because of my being alone. I said just needed someone to talk to. I did not reveal to him the rejection I felt by my own people; I did not speak lashon hara of any individual or group. I explained that my turning to him was because of my own shame of being divorced and it was something I had to come to terms with.

"One evening, unannounced, he knocked at my door. He did not stay long - only three or four minutes - but he wanted to check on me to make sure I knew someone cared and was thinking of me. He didn't want me to go to bed lonely. The night he knocked on my door was Yom Kippur night (October 8, 2000).

"I was so shocked and moved by his display of concern and my own people's lack of concern that I spoke to a number of 'average people' to get their take on this. I stayed away from Rabbanim and 'askanim,' because I wanted a gut reaction from the man on the street. The universal reaction that I got was that I had to write this down and let someone know; thus, I have been writing you my story."

Thus ends the narrative. I ask every Rav, every Yid, every Manhig, every Rebbe, anyone with a glimmer of a neshama ... HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN IN THE YEAR 2000 IN THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA? How can this happen? We are a nation of Chessed. We have thousands of people whose lives are devoted to Chessed. This isn't an indictment on one person or one Shul. Please let us not think that this is an aberration. IT IS NOT. This kind of thing is all-too common today. If a renowned Rav can have something like this happen to him, then what does that say about us as a people? How does Hashem judge us when a priest shows more Chessed than one of our Manhigim?

I was sickened by this story and ashamed, for the first time in my life, to be a Jew. To "Mach avek mit de hant - Wave away with the hand" and say it's not a true reflection of what we are, would be to lose the lessons taught. While we are doing more Chessed than ever before, that is all on an institutional, organized level. What are we doing as individuals, for the plain person? How much Chessed do we do that gets no recognition, that will get no accolades, that no one will know about? Do we really care about Chessed, about helping another human being? Or do we only care about being known as baalei Chessed?

Do we see this story - WHICH IS A TRUE STORY - as something that will change our lives, or is it just good material for drashos, books and Torah videos?

RETURN TO TOP

He claimed to have invested heavily in real estate, making a fast buck flipping large apartment buildings. He had also made quite a bit of money in the stock market, buying and selling the right stocks at the right time. Anyone who invested with him received a good return on his money, and word soon got around that he was a hotshot who had the Midas touch. People begged him to take their money and invest it in some of his real estate ventures. He was very straightforward with them and always warned them that while the chances of making a quick buck were very good, every investment has its risks - even though he hastened to assure them that the risk was very small indeed. People were so convinced that they'd double or triple their money that they barely listened to his warnings, which he gave them in a simple, matter-of-fact way. Everyone knew that the stock market had its risks, but with Ari's great record, they felt the risk was minimal, and they were willing to chance it.

It wasn't until the real estate market suddenly took a turn for the worse and the stock market tumbled that Ari realized he was in deep trouble and couldn't make good on his promises. Too ashamed to tell even his wife about the sudden turn of events, he kept it to himself. Luckily people still had the greatest trust in him and kept on bringing him money to invest. While he was very careful to tell them that he couldn't guarantee any big returns, he certainly didn't inform them of the terrible crisis he was facing. Instead of investing the new money, he used it to pay off his previous investors, whose money he had lost. Not only did he pay them back, but he also gave them a handsome profit so that people should continue having confidence in him and bring him more money. This technique is known as robbing Peter to pay Paul. To the unsuspecting, it still seemed that he was making big profits. He was hoping for a miracle. He certainly had no intention of stealing anyone's money, and he hoped and trusted that Hashem would once again give back his fortune so that he could repay his investors. Much of the money belonged to widows or represented people's life savings. Some were retirement funds on which people relied for their later years.

But try as he did, not only did things not get better, they went from bad to worse. He tried the best he could to conceal everything from his family and friends, but inside the matter was eating him up alive. He realized he couldn't tell a single person of the terrible straits he was now in, since it would just make things worse.

When he woke up one morning with strong pains in his chest, he quickly called Hatzolah, which rushed him to the hospital. After some tests, the doctor told him that his blood pressure was much too high and that he was probably stressed out because of his heavy work load. The doctor gave him medication to bring down his blood pressure and advised him to take life a bit easier, slow down, do more exercise and watch his diet. He had gained far too much weight in recent months. Little did the doctor know that he was just eating his troubles away. He was now suffering from deep depression but dared not tell even his closest friends his real problem. While his wife and friends noticed his change of mood - he wasn't as cheerful as before - they blamed it on overwork. They tried to convince him to keep shorter hours and relax more. Little did they realize the real source of his personality change.

It was only when checks from his account started coming back unpaid and he stopped making good on the payments he owed that people became suspicious. At first he told them it was a bank oversight or that someone had bounced a large check to him. It was excuse after excuse, until he ran out of excuses. He stopped answering the telephone and told his wife to say he wasn't home and would return the call later. But when later came and went and nobody heard from him, it was cause for great concern. Rumors began to circulate around the neighborhood that he was in deep financial trouble, but he denied them all. By now his family realized that something was amiss but didn't have the faintest idea of what to do to help.

He was sinking deep into the quicksand. The more he tried to pull himself out, the deeper he sank, and he was taking lots of people along with him. While originally he had absolutely no intention of ever cheating anyone or taking a penny that didn't belong to him, he realized that things had gotten out of control. He even contemplated suicide! He just couldn't face his many friends and neighbors who had invested their life savings with him.

When the banks finally noticed what was happening and decided to close his accounts, there was no way he could cover things up. Nosy reporters were beginning to ask questions, and soon the news hit the headlines of the local papers, spreading to the others with great speed.

People read it with incredulous surprise. It just couldn't be true, they said. There must be some mistake. People were ruined, devastated, their hopes shattered. Their life savings were wiped out. Some had even borrowed lots of money and had no idea how they would pay it back. The domino effect was devastating. Some would have to sell their homes, which they had built with lots of sweat, blood and tears. The shock waves would continue on for years to come. Some wounds would never fully heal. Lawyers were hired to see what they could salvage, but the prospect of seeing any of their money back was as likely as the discovery of oil in one's backyard.

Would the public learn a lesson from this horrendous disaster? Perhaps some would, but for the most part, time would soon erase these bitter memories, and the story would soon repeat itself, unfortunately. There will always be people who are too anxious to believe promises that are too good to be true. When? Where? Who? Just make sure it's not YOU!

NOTE: While the above Ponzi started out as a legitimate business investment, the original "Ponzi Scheme" is named after an Italian immigrant named Charles Ponzi (1899), who cheated people out of their hard-earned money by playing the "make believe" investment game. He did jail time for grand larceny and then got himself deported back to Italy in 1934. Since then, there have been many others who have played this game and cheated thousands of people out of their hard-earned money. One can still spot such swindles in pie in the sky advertisements placed in some Yiddish papers that unfortunately and disgracefully print them. For shame!