Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody!

Recently, JCURE submitted a proposal for our first grant. If I were religious, I'd invite you to pray that we succeed. Since I'm not, I'll be hoping in my plain, old, secular way, and you guys can hope or pray or both. Dr. Failer, Aliza, Ayala, Michelle, and everyone else that helped, thanks! Whether we get approved or not, we're one step closer to our goals.

Now, I'd like to start of the New Year by announcing my resolution via a story. (I love stories, in case you guys haven't noticed).

A few days ago, I delivered a couple of the Loving Baskets JCURE was putting together so that people in need could enjoy a sweet Rosh Hashana. My sister and I sang, laughed, and chatted for more than four hours as I drove around in search of a Kosher chicken and the intended house. After we had finally delivered my Basket One on Day One, my sister asked me, "How do we know that she actually needed that?"

"JCURE has got it covered," I replied.

About ten minutes later, we were back at home, and my mom asked me the same question. How did I know that these people weren't taking advantage of our kindness?

"Well.....um.....you see...." I mumbled, my brain taking forever to start moving. In my defense, I've never been good at thinking on the spot. Asking me to think and speak simultaneously is like asking someone to rub their tummy, pat their nose, and brush their hair at the same time. Finally, I came to a conclusion, but it was a different one this time. "If I help ten people," I said, "and nine out of those ten people are taking advantage of me, then I'll still do it for that one person that really needed help."

People have told me my whole life to be skeptical of what I see.

A classmate might smile and congratulate me on a good grade, but I'll feel guilty and upset because I'm not sure s/he really means it. I have a friend whose eyes water whenever she gets the highest grade in the class (which is often) because she just isn't sure that we mean what we say.

A man could make an egg appear out of thin air, and everyone in the world could agree that the trick was impossible to pull off: it had to have been magic. But I would doubt. As much as I yearn for magic to be a real thing -- for fairies to fly, mermaids to swim, and balls of light to skip off my fingertips -- it wouldn't matter how much evidence was presented to me, I would doubt.

Most importantly, an old woman could be standing in rags in the rain with a cardboard sign that says "Starving. Homeless. Need money for food," but she might be a drug addict who really only wants her next fix. For that reason, I ought not to give her money. But I never have a random sandwich on hand. So I've gone my whole life ducking away from those people in the rain because of the mere chance that they were something other than what they seemed. Even if only one-in-ten of the people I saw like this were actually in need, I could've already helped hundreds that were actually starving.

Skepticism comes in handy a lot of the time, but I'm tired of being too skeptical to help people. JCURE will be vetting our clients with psychologists, drug tests, and the like. I don't have to worry about skepticism here. But in my life in general, I've decided that if ten people ask me for help, I'm going to help all of them, just for the one, two, three, or even ten, that actually need my help.