Later,
our friend was able to collect a number of costumes from other
families, and she decided to set up a free loan for Purim costumes.
She ironed the costumes, and hung them up in a corner of one of
her closets. She collected all the other odds and ends, like masks,
lacy aprons, and funny sunglasses, in a large laundry basket.
Altogether, organizing the costumes, sewing a hole here or a button
there, and showing them to her “customers” took a few hours. But
who can measure the size of the kindness she did for those mothers
and their children who were spared the outlay of money they didn’t
have to spend and the aggravation of going from store to store
looking for the right thing?
Another
aspect of doing kindness is giving something unexpected. There
is a man in our neighborhood whose pockets are always full of
cookies. The children can spot him down the block. It isn’t just
the cookie that he gives to each one of them, but it’s also their
feelings as they walk away with a cookie in their hand. They
feel good about themselves, and see the world as a benevolent
place to be. They feel appreciated just for being themselves,
and they learn that good things can happen just out of the blue.
When our
children told us about the cookie man, we were quite alarmed at
first. We remembered being warned as children about adults who
were giving out candy with razor blades hidden inside, or abusive
individuals who offered candy to children in order to lure them
into their cars and kidnap them. But that was a different world,
far removed from the world of kindness. Living in that world had
made us suspicious and fearful.
Then we
realized that the “dangerous” cookie man was someone who prayed
daily in our synagogue with us. He had found his own unique way
of showing kindness to the children of the neighborhood. He brightened
up their world and taught them about giving by giving to them
by surprise and without their having to win favor, or even ask
him.
A person’s
day, week, year, and their whole life could be seen as a history
of the kindness they do. It could be, that after all is said and
done, it is only the kindness we do that lives after us.
There
is a beautiful story from the Baal Shem Tov, founder of modern
Chasidus. It tells about the Goat Man, a very poor man who was
ridiculed by the townspeople for his simplicity and lack of worldly
accomplishments. He worked as a water carrier, and he lived on
the outskirts of the town in an old dilapidated shack. Everyone
knew that he shared his hovel with a number of goats that he cared
for devotedly. The Baal Shem Tov saw with his sixth sense that
this man was very beloved by G-d and the Divine Presence accompanied
him wherever he went.
The
Baal Shem was determined to find out what gave this poor, unlearned
man such distinction, and through fasting and prayer, the man’s
story was revealed to him. The Goat Man would secretly deposit
bottles of the precious goat’s milk at the doorstep of sick people
and new mothers who were recovering after a birth. The milk had
a miraculous healing effect, and whenever someone drank it, they
felt better immediately.
Why was
the Goat Man such a master at doing kindness in secret? His late
wife had also excelled in deeds of kindness, and after her passing,
she came to him in a dream and told him that she had gone straight
to Paradise on the merit of her good deeds. If her husband wanted
to amass the true riches of the world, she said, he would be wise
to follow her example and devote himself to acts of kindness throughout
his life.
Who is
the greatest Master of Kindness? G-d, Himself, is constantly engaged
in sustaining all of Creation through His infinite acts of kindness.
It is even brought down from the teachings of the Sages that the
world came into being so that G-d could bestow His goodness on
others. We are the recipients of that goodness, and when we act
in a like manner by doing kindness for each other, then we are
emulating G-d.
Just as
G-d created us to receive His kindness and overwhelming goodness,
we need each other to receive the kindness and goodness that should
overflow from us like a cup filled to the brim. Just as a mother
is full with milk and needs her baby to nurse to relieve that
fullness, it naturally follows that we, ourselves, receive gratification
by giving from the bountiful goodness that fills us.
