Have you ever
heard of the expression “all dressed up with nowhere to go”? It presents the
pathetic picture of a person who is all ready to go somewhere, to accomplish
something, but no one wants what he has to offer. That is what it can be like
for those who want to live a purposeful life. We want to emulate G-d; we want
to be givers. But in order to be givers, someone has to be willing to receive.
In her book, Circle,
Arrow Spiral: Exploring Gender in Judaism, Miriam Kosman describes the
power of being the receiver in a relationship. “The greatest gift one can give
another person is to allow him to experience that godlike feeling of being the
bestower. By allowing someone to give, you are, on the deepest level, giving
him a chance to express his inner essence….Someone who has no way to give is
locked away from his connection to his Divine essence.” Mrs. Kosman elaborates
on the connection that is created between the giver and the receiver. She says,
“The art of receiving is what opens the door to relationship, to abundance, and
to joy.” According to Mrs. Kosman, the giver and the receiver have a reciprocal
arrangement, and both are doing kindness to each other.
In Pirkei Avos
says that the world stands on three pillars, Torah, avodah (worship) and gemilat chasadim
(acts of loving kindness). Studying Torah and praying properly are difficult
and not always accessible to everyone, but kindness is applicable to every
human. Everyone can be kind, and everyone can appreciate a kindness done to him
or her. The third pillar that supports the world allows us all to emulate G-d
and to be givers. Every person, no matter how rich or poor, can be a giver by
giving or receiving kindness.
The Jewish people
has a long history that involves the desire to do kindness. One of the most
famous stories about Avraham Aveinu is about how he wanted guests so badly that
he ran to greet three strangers walking on the road, even though he wasn’t
feeling well. In a book about Rabbi Shimshon Pincus recently published, I read
an interesting insight into Avraham’s kindness.
Rabbi Pincus was walking with a friend when
they passed a group of Arab workmen eating lunch. Rabbi Pincus said, “See that
cluster of Arabs? The Gemara teaches that that is what the three malachim
who approached Avraham looked like! Despite their shoddy appearance, his age,
and his pain from the bris, he ran
over to them with the enthusiasm of a young boy. Now what do you say about
going to shecht three cows for those
laborers and serving them tongue in mustard sauce?” I had never thought about
the story of Avraham in that way!
There are many
organizations that focus on being kind. A need was noticed and an organization
was established to fill that need. In Baltimore we have an organization for
almost every trouble. Some of them are featured in this magazine.
But one does not
have to be part of a big organization to do kindness. Here are some stories of
simple kindnesses that were done without money, without much energy, just with
a little thought and caring. They are from the book The Glittering World of
Chesed by Rabbi Paysach Krohn.
When a person is
very wealthy, people often honor him and want to spend time with him just
because he is rich. But what happens if he loses his money? Do we ignore him? Rabbi
Krohn writes, “When you see someone whom others have forgotten, that is when it
is more important than ever to give them recognition and raise their
spirits.”
Rabbi Elyah Lopian
noticed that a bachur who was
supposed to leave on Thursday was still in yeshiva on Friday morning. The boy
explained that he had decided to stay for Shabbos. Reb Elya said, “Since you
were not planning to be here for Shabbos, you probably don’t have a change of
clothes. Please come to my room and take what ever you need so you can have
fresh clothes for Shabbos.” Rabbi Krohn comments, “That is what chesed is
all about: thinking ahead, anticipating the needs of others. Anticipatory chesed
requires forethought.”
An elderly woman who
had no children was sitting shiva for
her husband alone in her apartment. A couple whom she did not know and who had
not known her husband came in. When the woman asked them why they had come,
they said that they looked in the paper every week and if they saw someone who
was sitting shiva all alone, they
made a point of visiting them in case they were lonely. Who would have thought
of that?
Chesed does not always involve doing something,
explains Rabbi Krohn. It also can involve not doing something. He talks about
the invasion of privacy that cell phones cause. “It is a chesed to be
sensitive to those around you when talking on a cell phone,” he writes. “We
have no right to intrude on someone’s private space.”
Keeping secrets is
also a chesed. Rabbi Krohn tells the story of a rav who was speaking to a man on the phone when he was interrupted
by another phone call. It turns out that the incoming call was from the son of
the original caller, but the rav did
not even hint to the father that his son had called or to the father that his
son had called, thus maintaining both the son’s and the father’s privacy. Chesed,
in this case, was inaction!
Chesed can go both ways:
from the person in charge to the person at his mercy and the other way around
as well.
Rabbi Krohn
describes the anguish of a prospective employee when the interviewer said he
would be in touch with him about the job but never called back, and the
prospective employee heard that someone else got the job. It would have been a chesed
if the interviewer had made an effort to be more honest about his
intentions!
A writer made the
effort to track down his first-grade teacher for teaching him how to read and
the joy of the written word. When he finally tracked down the now-elderly
woman, he was surprised to hear that he was the first student who had ever
thanked her.
To do a kindness,
one has to put oneself into another’s shoes and see what they can do to help.
That is not always easy because we aren’t always aware of how another person’s
shoes feel! Here is an example from the book:
Rabbi Krohn
developed the idea of writing postcards to people on a regular basis as a way
of connecting to them. For a while he was sending postcards to two men who were
in prison. When he finally came to visit them, one of the men thanked him for
the postcards and said that he had saved them all and treasured them. The other
man shocked Rabbi Krohn by telling him that he hated the postcards. “The man
explained, “The postcards just made me feel bad that you get to travel all over
and I am stuck here in prison.” What Rabbi Krohn thought was a kindness did not
work for that prisoner.
All humans –
important or unimportant, old or young, single or married – can be givers.
Bestowing a kindness on someone makes one a giver. But accepting a favor allows
the recipient to also be a giver to the giver. It doesn’t take a lot of money,
just the desire to emulate G-d and the willingness to think about others.
