Tuesday 3/31/20:: "On Three Things the World Stands Upon" and one of them is Act of Kindness

          My sister lives in New York with her husband and their ten-year-old daughter on the Upper West Side near Central Park. Normally, we speak maybe once a week. Yesterday was my sister and brother- in-law's anniversary.  After I wished her a "Happy Anniversary", I joked asking her if she and her husband went to some fancy kosher restaurant. Obviously, the answer was "no". She cooked dinner. I asked her if it is as really bad in New York as it appears on the news. She said it is probably worse. She knows many people who have the Covid-19 virus. She mentioned that a hospital was recently put up in Central Park. They work hard to keep things as normal as possible for their daughter amid what my sister describes as like living in a Third World country. Then she started telling me about the various moments of kindness that she has seen and experienced.  The moments she told me about were not necessarily moments that she had experienced personally, they were moments that had occurred to our friends and acquaintances. While she told me about these "events of kindness", the tone in her voice changed. She sounded a bit less scared and bit more hopeful. It dawned on me how important it is to engage in an of Chesed (Kindness), to experience an act of Chesed, to hear about an act of Chesed and to tell someone about an act of Chesed. Indeed, an act of Chesed serves as a salve, a type of medicine for our souls.  The need to experience or hear about kindness strikes me as an incredibly powerful and fundamental need. On some level, as other basic fundamental needs grow scarce, Chesed, either engaging in an act, experiencing an act, witnessing an act, hearing about an act and telling others about an act of kindness is also the core of religion. So I thought it would be nice to share an act of kindness that I heard about.   https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-trooper-s-roadside-gesture-during-traffic-stop-brings-doctor-to-tears/569200342/?refresh=true

         Every day when we say Hoshia et Amecha  Nevareich et Nachalatecha- Save your people and bless your heritage tend them forever, we look to GOd's kindness. Hareinu Adoshem Chasdecha- Show us your kindness; Kuma Azratah  Lanu U'fdeinu L'Maan Chasdecha - Arise assist us and redeem us by virtue of Your kindness, and finally, V'Ani B'Chasdecha Vatachti Yageil Libi Bishuatecha Ashira L'Adoshem Ki Gamal Alai- As for me I trust in Your kindness, my heart will rejoice in Your salvation, I will sing to God for He dealt kindly with me.  I am sure that there are people who engage, experience, witness, hear or share the story of an act of kindness that does not make any connection to God. For me, there is nothing more spiritual, nothing that makes me more keenly aware of God's presence that people responding to their inner Kedusah, their divine spark and engaging in an act of kindness and beginning a process whereby the rest of us hears are re-assured by people's goodness and God's presence.

Peace,
Rav Yitz

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