Small Kindnesses

Most often, our growth opportunities are personalized. Sometimes, though, they impact all of Am Yisrael. COVID was one such recent instance. The current war is another.

Unfortunately, when stressed, some of us forget to act from a locus of kindness. Namely, we let fear overtake us to the extent that we become insensitive to all but our own needs.

I recall the first Pesach during COVID. Eggs were scarce. Some of us had none and made do. Eggs are nice, even pro forma, for Pesach, but it’s matzah that’s necessary.

Nonetheless, during that year’s hours of cleaning and cooking, I took breaks to read my email and to check on the limited (I regularly employ just one channel) social media that’s part of my life. I was dumbfounded by what I read.

Among other communications was a “newsletter” created and distributed by a woman I’ve known for many years. Within its limited and limiting pages was a piece she wrote about organizing the purchase, among a few shops, of more than four trays of multiple dozens of eggs!

She seemed very pleased with herself for the tactics that had enabled her to gather all of those ova and wanted her “friends” to be aware of her magnificence. Nowhere in that writing, however, was there any mention of thanks to HaKadosh Baruch Hu nor any idea about the importance of sharing assemblages of stuff with the less fortunate, let alone with us average folk, who just happened to be managing without eggs during that holiday season.

Yup, I was entirely flabbergasted. We need to see ourselves collectively. Chagim, let alone ordinary days, are happier when we do so. In fact, as a people, we’re judged, in part, on whether or not we act in concordance with our communal good vs. merely in keeping with what we think will best serve our private desires. Sigh.

Recall, there is but One True Judge. We puny humans must do our histadlut in rectifying the world and, ultimately, it’s Hashem, not any of us, who determines whether or not our looked-for ends become actualized.

All in all, we’re imperfect creatures. We’re fashioned as lacking with the purpose of our reaching toward our Maker and toward each other. On balance, we’re not automatons. Our brains are in place so that we evaluate each and every yearning.

Sadly, a repeat of the Pesach incident occurred last week, when Iran sent a volley of weaponized drones in our direction. That is to say, when I opened up my emails, I didn’t see requests for newly called up soldiers names for Tehillim, queries about the well-being of the sick or elderly, nor questions about how those who had supplies could share them with those who did not. Sadly, in email after email, which had been sent by members of a women’s group, to which I belong, I was notified about who had “scored” by arriving early at the few makolot and supermarkets that had braved the war’s dangers to stay open.

Relatively speaking, my neighborhood’s neither rich nor poor. I assumed that even if the ladies, who were writing to the rest of us, lacked the equivalent of “eggs for Pesach,” they still had cupboards, refrigerators, and freezers laden with supplies. I wish that a few of them had thought to ask about needy families, about moms whose husbands were suddenly called up, and about other persons who might need help rather than focusing on whether they had enough potatoes to make kugel or a wide enough assortment of dips to grace their Shabbot table.

In fairness, war is scary. International confrontations remind us how extensively we’re not in control of anything in our life outside of our individual response to our experiences. It’s initially/superficially easier to reply to events from a point of dread instead of buckling up and replying as a person who is holding tightly to faith. Garnering comestibles is one such example, regrettably, of this behavior.

I don’t expect that any of us will be forever free of terror. Real horrors exist. What’s more, most of us have vast imaginations. In my immediate family, there were bouts of tears, anger, and more.

I do hope, however, that when faced with difficult situations, we think beyond ourselves. Whereas no one knows what Hashem will allow or disallow in this war, and whereas no one  needs to scramble for Shabbot fare until next week, it would be wonderful if we could begin to operate a little more, maybe make one phone call or create email that reaches out, that asks after a friend’s or stranger’s welfare.

My husband and I were shaken like everyone else. We choked, action-wise; we’re not tzadikkim. In the end, though, we checked on a few neighbors before Shabbot, and afterwards, we called a few friends who live alone or who live with others but are affected by trauma.

Sliding, just a tad, out from the illusion that we control our lives, i.e. pausing, just a little, from focusing on ourselves, enables us, The People of Israel, to partner with Hashem in healing our nation and enables us to bring to mind that He, not us, runs the show. Besides, by engaging in small kindnesses, we increase the potential of receiving the best sorts of results.