Recently I was in
the hospital with my elderly father when an aide from the hospital came into
the room. My brother, who was also there, looked at the aide’s name embroidered
on his pocket and greeted him by name: “Hi, Steven, so nice to see you this
morning.” You could see Steven’s posture straightened as he beamed at my
brother. He shared that he has a good friend who is Jewish and had been invited
for Shabbat once. Immediately, the atmosphere in the room changed, and we were
all friends!
My brother’s
daughter, who inherited this middah of caring, shared a similar story.
She was ordering something in a restaurant, and before she made the order, she
asked the employee, “How are you today?” The employee looked at her in shock,
as if to say, “You care how I am?” Then he smiled and responded.
It is not only those
in the position of serving clients who enjoy recognition. Even prestigious and
important people appreciate a good word and a bit of kindness. In the book Living Chesed (ArtScroll) by Rabbi
Avraham Asher Makovsky, there are many stories about small acts of kindness.
Here is a summary of two stories from the book.
Protecting the Honor of Others
1) At a chasidishe Rebbe’s tisch, people were honored by being
called up to the Rebbe. The custom was to call them up without a title, just by
their name. Once, a local rosh yeshiva came to the tisch. The gabbai
called him up by his name and did not mention his title of rosh yeshiva. Later,
the Rebbe was concerned that maybe the rosh yeshiva felt bad. The gabbai
was sure that he didn’t care, but the Rebbe sent him to the Rosh Yeshiva’s
house to apologize. “Tell him that you overheard the Rebbe talking about how
badly he feels that he didn’t have him called by his title.” When the gabbai
came back, he told the Rebbi that the rosh yeshiva was still up and that his
face had brightened when he got the message. “It wasn’t ru’ach hakodesh that
told me he felt bad,” the Rebbe said. “It is possible that if a person is expecting
a certain measure of respect, and he doesn’t get it, you can assume he feels
bad.”
2) On erev Yom Kippur, the rabbi of a shul noticed a
distinguished talmid chacham learning in the back of the shul. The rabbi
thought, “The talmid chacham will soon see how everyone comes to me for
a bracha after Mincha, and he might feel bad.” The rabbi went over to
him and asked for a bracha. The talmid chacham protested, but in
the end, he gave the rabbi a bracha for a gmar chasima tova.
After Mincha, the whole shul indeed lined up to get a bracha from the
rabbi. A student of the rabbi explained, “Instead of allowing the talmid
chacham to feel bad when he saw all the people lining up to receive the
rav’s bracha, he protected the man’s pride. The talmid chacham would
be able to think, ‘They all want the rav’s bracha, but the rav
wants mine!’”
Do You Mean What You Say?
There are many
words and expressions that are used without thinking, ones that we don’t expect
the listener to take literally – for example, when I meet an acquaintance, and she
says, “Hi, Is everybody okay?” When I am asked that question, I always wonder,
who is “everybody”? And what
does “okay” mean? Does she really want to hear that my grandchild has a
stomachache? I doubt it. Instead, I give the usual response: “Fine, and how is
everybody in your family?”
Malka, a young
woman recently married, described how she sometimes meets an old classmate, who
says, “Hi, how are you?” But before Malka has a chance to answer, her former
friend is already gone. “If you don’t really care how I am, don’t ask,” she
says.
Another of Malka’s
peeves is making a conversation into an interview. “A conversation is meant to
be like a ping pong match, not like an interview,” says Malka. “Before I was
married, whenever I met old classmates at weddings or other occasions, all they
wanted to talk about was where I was working or what I was doing. Since I
wasn’t working or doing much, I would dread those conversations. I would love
to have a conversation about my feelings, the things I am passionate about, my
hobbies. People are often afraid to come too close, to connect, so they stick
to standard subjects that they feel are safer but that do not generate good
feelings. I resent people who pretend they are interested but are not.” Malka
encourages people to be genuine. “If you don’t have the time or interest in
speaking to me, just say hi and go on with your day.”
I heard an interview
of Tzipora Grodka on a program called “Meaningful People.” She spoke about the
difficulties of being single in a world where the goal is to get married. She
explained that it hurts her feelings when people only see one aspect of her
life. They are focused on what she is lacking by not being married, instead of
focusing on her personality and her accomplishments. When her younger brother
got married, she counted 70 people who came up to her and gave her a bracha
that she should get married soon. “I would have much preferred for them to say,
‘Mazal tov! So nice to see you.’ There is so much more about me than the fact
that I am single.”
It’s a Mitzvah
We have many mitzvos
to do. Most of them require that we follow certain rules. The sukkah has to be
made in a certain way, the menorah has to be lit in a certain place, we eat
only certain foods, and we pray at certain times. But being kind to other
people can be done at any time, any place, and with any person. It is
appreciated equally by men and women, children and adults, rich and poor, old
and young, Jewish or not.
It is not always
easy to be kind, because a person can never be certain that the recipient of
his kindness will feel comforted or happy with what he said. Each person is
different and feels differently. Even the same person can feel differently at
different times of the day. Something that was nice and meaningful in the
morning can feel annoying and irritating in the evening. This struck me while I
was listening to another podcast, in which Mrs. Leah Trenk was interviewed.
Mrs. Trenk, the
wife of Rabbi Dovid Trenk, zt”l, said
that, since she became a widow, people often feel very uncomfortable with her.
They expect her to be sad and morose because she lost such a great husband. “I
didn’t lose him,” she said. “I know exactly where he is. He was niftar,
as will happen to everyone. And I am not sad; I got a great deal. If Hashem had
told me that I could have a great husband for 55 years but then he would leave
the world, I would have agreed happily. Would I have said, ‘No, I want him for
75 years?’”
Her words made me
realize that one never knows. We can only try to say what seems appropriate. We
can only try our best to do chesed, to care enough to try to make the other person feel good. We
don’t need any special equipment. All we need is a mind and a mouth.
