Rabbi Peretz Chen | This is how we'll bring kindheartedness into our home

00:00 Hello. There’s a principle that says good draws more good. One good deed leads to another; one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah. We very much want to bring that kind of good into our home, so that, with Hashem’s help, it will draw much more good after it. Today’s shiur is about what kind of good this is, and how we can bring it into our home. We’ll also go a little deeper, based on Chassidus, and understand what “good” really means. What’s the difference between goodness and chesed? What does goodness mean? And how important is it to bring that goodness into our own homes, and into our lives in general? I want to open with a story that illustrates how one positive thing draws many more positive things after it. It happened this past Friday. On the Wednesday before that, I called my older brother. He’s a combat medic in the reserves, and he was with a group of soldiers on the border of the Gaza Strip. I called him and asked, “How are you? How’s it going?” We were just talking, the way brothers do, and during the conversation I heard him speaking to someone about a hot plate—presumably for Shabbos. So I asked him, “How are you set up for Shabbos? What do you have?” He said, “Honestly, if we had a pot of cholent for Shabbos, it would really make a difference to the guys.” I told him, “You know what? I’ll look into it.” I finished the call and said to my wife, “Listen, with Hashem’s help, they’ll have a pot of cholent this Shabbos.” We started looking into it and reaching out to the dear people in our neighborhood, and suddenly that one pot of cholent for Shabbos turned into dishes coming from every direction. Different kinds of fish, sufganiyos—it was Chanukah, after all—fruit, cakes, meatballs, side dishes, salads, savory foods, schnitzels, cold drinks, and all

02:13 sorts of other things. People opened their hearts and pitched in, and all the food reached the soldiers for Shabbos. They enjoyed it so much and were so happy. Now, on Friday we had to get the food to them. I couldn’t drive all the way to where they were, so I drove to a sort of operations center near the community of Shuva, close to Netivot. We’d arranged for me to meet the guys there so they could pick up the food. I waited there with the car, and after a while a military vehicle arrived with two men. They took the food and were so happy to see how much fresh, delicious, home-cooked food people had put their whole hearts and souls into making. I said to one of them, the younger one, “Come put on tefillin.” He said, “Honestly, forget it. I’ve never put on tefillin. It’s not really my thing.” I said, “What, you’ve never put on tefillin in your life?” He said no. Now, we know that when someone has never put on tefillin, we really have to help him do it, right? As it says in the sources, this is no small matter. And if I have a chance to help a Jew put on tefillin for the first time in his life... So I said, “Listen, come put on tefillin.” He said, “No, forget it.” “Come put on tefillin! What, for the first time? Come on!” After a few more words, this young man, twenty-six years old, put on tefillin for the first time in his life. Years after he reached bar mitzvah age, he had his bar mitzvah. At twenty-six, years after reaching bar mitzvah age, the young man had his bar mitzvah. And it didn’t end there. Of course, I was moved by the significance of the moment and the occasion, and I said

04:03 to the guys there, “We’ve got a bar mitzvah here!” They said, “Yes, how wonderful!” There was even a chocolate cake that had arrived in the delivery from his sister. I said, “There’s even a chocolate cake—it looks like a bar mitzvah!” Then a young man named Dror walked by. He was in charge of that whole operations center. I said to him, “Dror, look what’s happening here—a bar mitzvah!” He took it seriously. “Wait a minute,” he said. He went and brought back a new pair of tefillin, still in its bag, and told the soldier, “I’m giving these to you as a gift.” The soldier said, “Forget it. I don’t know if I’ll use them. Give them to someone else.” He told him, “No, I want to give them to you, so that if you feel the need to put on tefillin, you’ll have a pair.” Suddenly I realized what was happening. One amazing good deed—bringing food to those soldiers, which made their Shabbos wonderful; they were so happy and grateful—led to a young man who had never put on tefillin putting on tefillin. Who knows when that would have happened without that opportunity? That led to his receiving a new pair of tefillin that now belongs to him, and one thing led to another, and another. Because one good thing draws another good thing. A positive act has the power to draw another positive act. In our homes, with our children, we want to bring in goodness and smiles so that they lead to more goodness, more smiles, and more smiles. But what is the difference, if we go a little deeper, between goodness and chesed? Let’s understand the terms. Broadly speaking, there’s a concept called chesed. There’s its opposite, gevurah, and there’s goodness—kindheartedness. What’s the difference between them? Chassidus explains that gevurah—what is gevurah? Gevurah means that I give someone something only if he deserves it, only if he worked for

05:55 it, only if it’s his. Otherwise, if he hasn’t worked for it, he will not receive it under any circumstances. That, essentially, is gevurah. What is chesed? Chesed means that even when he doesn’t deserve it, even when he hasn’t worked for it, I will give it to him. I’m doing an act of chesed. I’m a person of chesed. You don’t deserve it; you haven’t invested enough or tried hard enough. But I know you need it and want it, so you’ll receive it. That’s chesed. Kindheartedness is something much more powerful. Kindheartedness means that even when he doesn’t ask, even when it’s not clear he needs it that much, I still want to give to him. I still want to be with him, to be there for him. Kindheartedness is something that has to enter our homes: the relationship between the parents themselves, and the relationship between parents and children. Our approach has to be one of kindheartedness. Not just because he needs it or she needs it, or because my wife needs it, but simply because I want to give to them. I want to give to them even when they haven’t asked. To go to the supermarket and bring my wife something tasty. She doesn’t need it, she didn’t ask for it, she can manage perfectly well without it. But I want to give. I want to foster that. I want to act toward her with kindheartedness. When we act with kindheartedness at home, it develops in the home and spreads further. How do we do that at home? How do we get our children used to kindheartedness, to going that extra step, that special step? There are various ways. For example, it happens all the time in our homes, in everyone’s home, that one of the siblings

07:45 has a tasty snack or sweet, and another sibling wants some too. An argument starts: “He won’t give me any!” “Mom, Dad, he doesn’t want to give me any!” “Why should I give him any? It’s mine!” And so the discussion begins. You can come along and force the issue. That’s one method, but of course forcing them doesn’t produce satisfying results. There’s another way: to say to the sibling who wants some, who’s asking, “I’m sure that if you ask your brother nicely—ask nicely, ‘Can I have a little?’—rather than coming at him all worked up and demanding, ‘Give me some!’—you’ll see that he’ll give you some.” And to say to the other sibling too, out loud, “I’m sure you’ll be kindhearted toward your brother.” Usually that will work. Maybe not in the first second, but after a few more words like that, suddenly they... As people, we want to be kindhearted, but that needs to be developed. Sometimes we need to lead them there, to point them in that direction. Another thing that can really help develop kindheartedness in our children at home is sitting together at the Shabbos table. You can do it formally or informally, spontaneously—it doesn’t matter. Go around the table, or not necessarily; perhaps it’s just Mom and Dad and a few siblings who join in. Whoever wants to can tell about a good thing they did that week, an act of kindness they did that week. We can share good things we’ve done, and we can also share an act of kindness someone did for us. Say we were standing at the supermarket and were really in a hurry, and someone else was also rushing and wanted to go ahead of us, and we said, “We can see you’re in a hurry. Go ahead, you can go in front,” right? Or if someone did that for us when we were really in a hurry and let us go ahead in line. Yes, they showed

09:45 Kindness toward us. We need to talk about it at the Shabbos table, share it, and that way, little by little, week after week, it will develop that same kindness. A person who acts with kindness keeps growing, and others will treat him with kindness too, because the way we behave draws the same behavior back toward us. I remember something that happened to me once. It was a Friday. I went back to the supermarket and was looking for diapers. I needed size five, and I had put a pack from a particular brand—not one of the most expensive brands—in my cart. Then I saw a man on the phone, talking to someone, his wife or someone else, and he said, “Listen, listen, they don’t have that brand”—the very brand and size of diapers I had taken. He said, “No, listen, they don’t have it.” She apparently asked him, “What do they have?” He named the expensive brand. Apparently she told him not to buy it, because he said, “Okay, I’ll look somewhere else.” Those few extra shekels apparently mattered, and they didn’t want to spend them. I heard all this, and what he was looking for was already in my cart. Now, I felt awkward going over to him. I was afraid that if I said, “Here, take it,” and he saw I was giving it up for him, he’d feel uncomfortable. After a few seconds, he left the diaper aisle. I went over and said to him, “I didn’t notice before, but there’s one last pack right there. Here, take it.” I gave him mine and took a different kind for myself. He was happy. “Oh, great,” he said. He told the person on the phone that he’d found it and everything was fine, and I felt very, very

11:27 good about it, of course. I came home and told my children about it. This happened a few years ago, and this week one of my children brought it up. This past Shabbos, one of them mentioned that story with the diapers. I thought, wow, it’s amazing how something like that sinks in. He remembers it. It’s there in his subconscious, and now it’s come into his conscious mind too. Where might it come up in his life? How much we can do good beyond an act of chessed, beyond what we’re obligated to give. How much a good deed can make life happy, whole, and special. How important it is to bring that into our home, to our family and our children. The Gemara tells a story about a man who lived in the Galil. He left the Galil, went to work for someone, and when Erev Yom Kippur arrived, he asked the man for his wages. The man told him, “I have no money to give you.” So he said, “Then at least give me fruit.” “I don’t have any fruit either.” “Then give me land.” “I have no land to give you.” “Give me an animal.” “I don’t have an animal.” “At least give me pillows and blankets,” something to sleep on. He told him, “I don’t have those either.” Well, this poor man from the Galil wanted to bring something home to his family. He had worked. He picked up his bag and went home. The Gemara relates that after Yom Kippur, the employer who hadn’t given the worker what he was owed took three donkeys. He loaded one with food, one with drink, and one with various treats. He went to the man’s home in the Galil, sat and ate with him, and gave him everything he was owed. After they ate and drank, he asked him,

13:27 “Tell me, when I said I had nothing, that I didn’t have this or that, what did you think?” He replied, “When you said you had no money, I thought perhaps you’d found some merchandise at a very low price and invested all your money in it.” He asked, “And when I told you I had no animal, what did you think?” “I thought perhaps you’d rented it out to others, so you had no animal to give me.” “And when I said I had no land, what did you think?” “I thought perhaps it had been sold to others.” “And when I said I had no fruit, what did you think?” “I thought perhaps you had fruit, but the tithes hadn’t been taken from it, so you couldn’t give it to me.” “And when I said I had no pillows and blankets, what did you think?” “I thought you had consecrated all your possessions to Heaven.” The man said to him, “The truth is, you’re right. I had made a vow that my possessions would no longer be available to me, but afterward I went and had that vow annulled.” And he said to him, “Because you judged me that way”—because he judged him so favorably. The man had worked there and received no wages at all, while his employer kept saying, “I don’t have it, I don’t have it.” By every measure, that isn’t right. It really isn’t right. What do you mean? Give me what I’m owed. I’m owed it from the perspective of gevurah, from the perspective of chessed, from every perspective. Yet he still judged him favorably. He showed kindness. In the end, he lost nothing by it; he only gained. We want to bring that goodness

15:01 into our homes. So our task as parents is to try, as much as possible, to speak at home in the language of kindness, of giving beyond what is required. Tell stories about it, share experiences around it, and little by little it will become deeply rooted in our homes. It’s like the Chanukah candles: one candle lights another, then there are two, and so on. Each day we add another candle and more light. In the same way, when we talk about goodness, it will bring more and more goodness, more light, into our homes. May we have much nachas and good news. With Hashem’s help, may the Jewish people have great success. May all the IDF soldiers be healthy and safe, may the hostages return, and, with Hashem’s help, may no Jewish man or woman be harmed. With Hashem’s help, may we have tremendous nachas from our children, who are the central shlichus of our lives. Good news, blessings, and success. I would be very happy if, should you feel this video gave you something, you shared it. Share it with a friend. If you have responses, comments, additions, or your own thoughts on what was said, write them in the comments below. It will add something for all of us. Good news. Happy Chanukah! Today is Rosh Chodesh, so have a good month. Much, much success, with Hashem’s help.