LOVING KINDNESS IN JUDAISM A Foundation of the World - with Rabbi Michael Skobac

Pirkei Avot, Chapters of the Fathers, is a section of the Talmud containing maxims and aphorisms of various sages on how to understand life from a Torah perspective and how to live a more elevated and spiritual life. One of its very first teachings is by Shimon the Righteous, who would say, the world stands on three things, Torah, divine service, and acts of kindness. These three things are both why the world was created and based upon what merit the world continues to exist after its creation, meaning what were the goals for which God created the world, what was God hoping would be manifest in the world. Three things, according to Shimon the Righteous, Torah, divine service, which means the service in the Holy Temple, nowadays it refers to prayer, and acts of loving kindness. As well, he means that what is it that keeps the world afloat? We know in the past that God destroyed the world when the world became wicked, and so upon the merit of what does God continue to allow the world to exist? And so Shimon the Righteous said these three things, Torah, divine service, and acts of loving kindness. We're going to focus on the third of these three. Acts of loving kindness are both a goal of why the world was created, God wanted a world where acts of kindness would be manifested, and it's one of the things that convinces God that it's worthwhile to maintain the existence of the world. And this is based upon a verse in the book of Psalms, chapter 89, verse 3, which says the world will be built through kindness, olam chesed yibanei, the world will be built through kindness. These kinds of activity involve, among many, many examples we could give, visiting the sick, hosting guests in one's home, burying the dead, assisting couples to get married, returning lost objects, giving people useful advice, trying to cheer up people who are down, helping to find people a job, providing people with what they need, like a ride, or helping them move, giving people a full smile, being the first to greet others. These kinds of activities are included in the biblical command to love your fellow as yourself. The Talmud points out that the Torah begins with kindness and ends with kindness. In the beginning of the Torah, in the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve violate the prohibition against eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and their eyes are opened and they recognize that they're naked, God makes garments for Adam and Eve. One of the first things that happens in the Torah is that God clothes the naked, and at the very end of the Torah, we see that God buries Moses after Moses passes away. Our sages speak about true kindness. There's kindness and there's chesed shel emet, true kindness. This is where you act kindly without expecting anything in return. The classical example of chesed shel emet, of kindness that's true, is burying the dead, because they're obviously not in a position to pay you back. However, even here, even when it comes to burying the dead, you may receive some favor from their relatives, an appreciation for what you did. Or you may receive some acclaim, some public acclaim, for having gone out of your way and troubled yourself to help ensure that someone will get buried. So even though it's given as the classical example of doing an act of kindness where you aren't expecting to get paid back, still you can get some kind of payback for that act of kindness. So an important part of performing acts of loving kindness is to purify and refine what you've done so there'll be no benefit to you. One of the things people strive for is anonymity in their good deeds, trying to do them in a way where your involvement isn't discovered, where people conceal their involvement in the good that they do. There's a famous story about a student of the Chafetz Chaim, the Chafetz Chaim of Yisrael Meir HaCohen of Radin, passed away in the beginning of the 20th century, great great Torah sage, and he had a student that developed a very serious illness and doctors were unable to help him. So he traveled, he wasn't living in the same town as his teacher, he traveled to see his teacher and to ask for a blessing. The Chafetz Chaim told him that he would help on the condition that the student not tell a soul about the story. And the Chafetz Chaim instructed him to travel to a certain rabbi who lived in a small city far away and to tell this rabbi the situation. And the Chafetz Chaim said he will give you a blessing and he will pray for you and with God's help you'll get better. The student traveled to see that rabbi and followed the instructions of the Chafetz Chaim and after a while he recovered from his illness. The student ended up getting married and establishing a family and according to the instructions of his teacher he never told this story to anyone. Twenty years later his sister-in-law came down with the same mysterious illness that he had. His sister-in-law was getting progressively worse and he was very tempted to reveal how he recovered from it, but he didn't because of the instructions of the Chafetz Chaim. But as the situation grew more and more dire he decided that enough time had passed where he never revealed the story and that now he could finally reveal what had happened to him. And so he told his wife and the family how he had recuperated after receiving a blessing from a certain rabbi and that gave his family some hope. But then his illness returned and he was very very shaken and he told his wife that he has to return to the Chafetz Chaim. So he traveled very very far, he was not living anywhere near the Chafetz Chaim now, he traveled very far to the city of Raden where the Chafetz Chaim lived and by now the old sage was old and weak. The Chafetz Chaim remembered the last meeting quite well and he listened carefully to this tragic turn of events. After a short silence the Chafetz Chaim spoke quietly and slowly and he said to his student I'd love to help you again but what can I do? The first time you were sick I was still young and strong, I fasted for 40 straight days in order for the Almighty to send you a healing. Now I'm too old to fast like that again. Not only did the Chafetz Chaim suffer for 40 days straight to help a student but he arranged the matter in such a way that it appeared that it was someone else's blessing that helped. This is what it means to conceal the acts of kindness that you do. This is chesed shel emeth, this is true loving kindness. The prophet Micha in chapter 6 verse 8 of his book captures in a few short words how we should live our lives. He writes he has told you O man what is good and what does God ask of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. It's one thing to do kindness, it's one thing to be kind to others when we have the opportunity but many people will help others if asked. Many people when they're put into a situation will do the right thing but do they love acting kindly, do they love helping others, do they look forward to and desire to be able to help to have more and more opportunities to extend themselves to others. Many people when there's a knock on their door by a poor person will give them some money but how many people are waiting anxiously for the poor person to show up. Abraham was such a person. He was already a very old man and recuperating from his circumcision yet he sat at the entrance of his tent hoping to have an opportunity to welcome guests and provide for them. The Midrash teaches us that God made it exceptionally hot that day so that people wouldn't be traveling and Abraham would be spared from having to tend to guests. But when God saw how upset Abraham was that he wasn't able to provide for guests God sent three angels in the guise of men so that Abraham would be able to do what he truly loved to do. Abraham exemplified the Prophet Micah's trait of being someone who loves doing kindness and it literally oozed out of him. Kindness is one of the three pillars for why the world was created. Kindness is one of the reasons that God keeps the world going and kindness is one of the main attributes that people are urged to work on to get close to as they go through life.