What Can I Do to Make Your Life Easier Today?

By Elizabeth Danziger

Today, I went to the pharmacy and asked if my prescription was ready. I needed the ear-infection medication urgently so that I would be able to fly to a business engagement. Looking harried, the pharmacist said that she was alone in the pharmacy and that it would be ready in 15 minutes. I sat down to wait. After about five minutes, she said it was ready. Making conversation, I asked her if her staff had called in sick, and she replied, “Sometimes they don’t even call in.” She looked stressed and weary.

I realized that she had done me a favor to fast-track my pills under challenging circumstances, so I asked her, “What can I do to make your life easier today?” Surprised, she said, “Nothing, I’m fine.” But the light had come back into her eyes, and she was smiling. As I walked away, I realized that I had made her life easier just by asking her that question.

Big-picture problems plague the planet: war, climate change, divisive elections. There’s not a lot any of us can do to improve those situations. Unless we hold positions of institutional influence, we feel powerless to combat the world’s evils. But we can, as the Torah teaches us, focus on our four amos. An ama is a Talmudic measure of about an arm’s length. Our four amos is the area a few arms’ lengths around our own body: It is our sphere…