The Death Of Debt

Shortly after my introduction to The Garden of Emuna we began earnestly striving to pay off our debt. Over the years we’ve learned more about debt and finances from an emuna perspective. We realize, as Noahides, it is important to live our emuna and become free from the debt cycle so common today.  However, I should say right up front, we will never be truly debt free. 
 
As a matter of modern convenience, debt has become an everyday, run of the mill, non-issue. Dare I say non-payment of those debts through bankruptcy or other means has become the norm for people who want out of debt, but don’t want to take the long (and sometimes painful) path to paying the debt off month by month. Unfortunately, often those who do go through bankruptcy get right back into new debt as soon as their credit will allow.
 
Need something? Charge it. Want something? Charge it. Without the means of immediate payment, yet with the entitlement mindset of our modern day, debt has become the norm.
 
We used to be no different and are still paying the price of that mentality. Debt is not only present in our lives, it is a primary determining factor (though thankfully a much smaller factor than it was several years ago!) of where each paycheck goes.
 
We, like many of you, each trade 40+ hours of our weekly time to someone else in exchange for money. However, we are not in control of that money because we traded that freedom of choice to someone else when we decided we wanted things that we did not have the immediate ability to pay for.
 
This is a tragic comedy that, if on the big screen, would leave viewers laughing yet pitying this family who cannot seem to grasp the simple concept of living within their means. That is, the viewers would laugh until they realized that they are most likely living the same sad story.
 
This classic tale ends with the death of debt through emuna…
 
After listening to several of Rabbi Arush’s emuna CDs related to money, given over in English by Rabbi Brody, and reading Debt Free Living, and The Garden of Riches, we began to realize that our debt was so much more than an inconvenience. It was a dark stain in our lives indicating a lack of emuna and it needed to be eradicated.  Becoming “debt free” – which, in the US at least, has become a catchy fad-like phrase to use whether you are actually attempting to pay off your debt or not, took on a whole new meaning.
 
For my family that debt free goal has meant saying no to new consumer debt and attempting to pay off as much of old debt as possible. It has been slow, it has been fast, and we’ve had successes and failures. 
 
A debt that cannot be paid. 
 
We decided to pay off an 8- year old private debt. A purchase we made, yet didn’t pay for, then lost contact with the seller, and put the debt on the back burner of priorities.
 
As we worked our way through our debt repayment list this debt came to the top one day as we were visiting the seller’s hometown. After repeated attempts to contact this person we finally reached her mother, explained our situation and was met with a startling and sobering response. Sadly, this creditor had passed away about 2 years prior.
 
Our reality is we will never be debt free no matter how many other debts we pay off, no matter how much we donate to charity… this debt will not truly be paid off. 
 
Coincidence… I think Not.
 
Many years ago I had a cat get very sick. I took her to our local veterinarian, he performed surgery, and my cat got well. The bill was large – I could not / did not pay it.
 
Last summer this debt began bugging me. The amount was large, the veterinarian’s office was an hour and a half drive away, and I was embarrassed. The excuses to not deal with it were many and so I kept putting it off.
 
After a few months of making excuses to not pay this debt, my dog started getting sick. My current veterinarian could not figure out what was wrong with her. Over the next several months many lab tests, overnight stays in the hospital, x-rays and ultra sounds were performed – all saying nothing was wrong. And yet, she was very ill. The bills continued to mount until one day I realized that my dog’s bill was almost exactly the same amount as the bill from my cat years ago.
 
In Hashem’s perfect timing, shortly after I realized this “coincidence” of bills, my work brought me to the town of my cat’s veterinarian.  I was determined to pay off the debt and walked into their office with cash in hand. The lady at the front counter did not know what to make of my story – this debt was about 16 years old. She didn’t want to take the money so she called someone else. That lady called another lady and the three of them looked at me over the counter in disbelief and refused to take my money.  I had to beg them repeatedly to take the money before one of them finally agreed and said she would put it in the fund for people who couldn’t afford to have veterinary care for their animals.  She also explained that the veterinarian who owned the practice and performed surgery on my cat had recently sold the clinic…. And, as it turns out, he sold it the same month my dog mysteriously began getting sick.
 
My heart sank, realizing that this was another debt that was not being truly repaid. Then the lady told me something that made me smile. Although the vet was retired and the clinic was sold, he still comes in and performs special surgeries. She said she would tell him the debt had been repaid.
 
I returned home and, in the weeks that followed, paid off my dog’s vet. Although my dog remains on medicine she started during all of the months of tests, she has not shown any signs of being ill since the debts were paid.
 
Hashem is constantly communicating with us. The situations in our lives are tailor made to awaken us from the slumber of this world. To stir within us that spark that longs to connect with Him and find our path to our soul correction.
 
Debt, and the path to repaying that debt, is just another method of receiving His loving messages to help me find my way through the world back to Him. I am ever so thankful for the lessons I’m learning – because even the failures are perfect when you look at them through emuna eyes.

 
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Jennifer invites you to participate in a regularly held Noahide on-line study group that reviews the garden series books of Rabbi Arush. You can contact her at jenniferjwoodward@gmail.com for dates and times.