In the world to come I shall not be asked, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I shall be asked, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’Rabbi Zusya

With Daily Thanks

In a hidden corner of the construction for a metro rail station not far from where I live, 5 or 6 men have organized their equivalent of a living space. They have pillows and blankets and sit there, laugh, talk and drink I’m not sure what. I try to peek through a hole in the tarp covering the chain link fence around the site and try not to be noticed. In a few weeks they’ll have to move, maybe they realize it, maybe they’ll only deal with it when they have to. At least one is disabled, I see them help each other move around their few feet of space. They have no clean sheets, no clean anything in fact, no hot water, no running toilet. I walk on and I think of the 2.5 billion in the world who have no sanitation, the one billion who is forced to defecate in the open, of the lives blighted and harmed by the illnesses and consequences from the lack of hygiene. Too I think of the 29 million who are trafficked or in servitude of some kind—and once again I remember how fortunate I am.