Success Stories: The Motti and Rina Family

The Motti and Rina Family – The Moment They Stopped Just Surviving

Motti and Rina, parents of five children, were already known to nearly every charity fund and chesed organization in their city. For years, they lived trapped in a cruel cycle of poverty, debt, and humiliation. Every month began with a little hope and ended with even greater fear. The phone rang constantly — the landlord, the bank, the electric company, loan funds. Sometimes Motti would simply turn off his phone and sit in the dark because he no longer had the strength to hear another threat or demand for payment.

At night, after the children fell asleep, Rina would cry quietly so no one would hear her. Again and again, she tried to calculate how to buy food, pay for medication for one of the children, and somehow cover the water bill that was already facing shutoff. Sometimes she skipped meals herself so the children would have something to eat in the morning. The children began to feel the burden too. They stopped inviting friends over. Their oldest son once begged his mother not to attend a school meeting because he was embarrassed that tuition checks had bounced again.

Motti was breaking inside. "I felt like I wasn’t even a father anymore," he later admitted. "Just someone chasing another loan and another bag of food."

Over the years, they moved from one charity organization to another. The people were kind and genuinely wanted to help, but the system was overwhelmed. Slowly, Motti and Rina felt they had become just another family in a long line of people receiving food vouchers and emergency assistance. No one was really asking what it would take to help them rebuild their lives permanently. "They gave us food for Shabbat," Rina said softly, "but nobody truly believed our lives could change."

When they first arrived at Lema'an Achai, they had already lost hope. They were convinced it would just be another temporary handout before being sent on their way. But at Lema’an Achai, someone finally stopped and truly listened — not only to the bills, but to the pain, shame, fear, and dreams that had almost disappeared.

The Lema'an Achai team created a full rehabilitation plan: financial counseling, emotional therapy, career guidance, advocacy for their rights, and close personal support. It wasn’t magic overnight. There were setbacks and painful moments. But for the first time in years, they were no longer alone.

Two years later, their home looks completely different. Motti now works as a driver for a large delivery company with a stable salary. Rina completed bookkeeping studies and now works part-time in a local office. The children are smiling again, the home is no longer filled with fear, and the family table has become a place of peace instead of anxiety.

But perhaps the greatest change happened in the smallest moments. In the past, Motti was too ashamed even to enter a Torah class in his neighborhood. He felt that everyone who looked at him pitied him. Sometimes he would stand outside the synagogue for several minutes, then quietly turn around and walk home. Today, after work, he has the peace of mind and emotional strength to sit calmly and happily in evening Torah classes. "I used to run away from people," he says. "Today, I can finally hold my head high again."

One evening, while sitting together at a simple family dinner, Rina began to cry once more. But this time, they were different tears.

"Once we cried because we didn’t know how we would survive tomorrow," she said. "Today we cry because, finally, we have a future."