Chesed at Tibor's
I was standing on line at the kosher butcher last Friday morning. The store was packed, but Tibor's has this super-efficient checkout woman who really keeps the line moving.
Right in front of me happened to be someone named Alex. Alex is not only a friend of mine, he's also my electrician. In fact, over the summer he had installed a ceiling fan in my daughter's room, and never sent me an invoice. So, before Rosh Hashanah I called him up to remind him to invoice me. I didn't want to go into the High Holidays within an unpaid debt. He answered me that I shouldn't worry: "I have bigger fish to fry, and I'll get around to your smaller bill eventually."
As the Tibor's checkout was fast-paced, I was surprised when Alex told me to go ahead of him. I insisted that he go first. He admitted that he didn't know what to do because he just realized that he left his wallet at home. I told him not to worry because I also left my wallet at home, but I did have one blank check in my pocket and that I would pay for both of our orders with one check.
I reminded him that I still owed him money, so we could could barter his groceries for my ceiling fan installation. He agreed, and that's what we did. I felt like my Zeidy back in the shtetl when they would barter everything, like a pair of socks for 3 pickles.
One of Stephen Covey's groundbreaking "Seven Habits" concepts is what he refers to as the three stages of maturity: dependence (childhood), independence (adolescence) and interdependence (elevation into a functioning, community-minded citizen). In truth, all human beings need to be interdependent on and with each other.
There is really no such thing as a "self-made man." We all need each other in our universe to function as a cohesive "brotherhood of man." In fact, the word "universe" comes from the Latin root of "Uni -Versus," meaning many components combined into one. Meaning, many different people, with different personalities, talents, races and creeds, all unified, reflecting G-d's unity and kindness in the universe.
The Torah teaches us that G-d created the world as an act of chesed (kindness), and He charges us to emulate Him by partnering with Him to recreate our own world of chesed in our lives. This is why when Noah and his family were charged with starting a new post-flood-era world, they had to first engage in non-stop chesed, by taking care of the animals 24/7, for over a year, in the Ark.
The people of his generation had corrupted their ways, acting selfishly and cruelly to one another. G-d therefore had to hit the reset button and give Noah and his family the mission to recreate a new world, one rooted in kindness instead of cruelty. The ark functioned as an "incubator of chesed."
As Jews we are our own special fraternity and therefore have an opportunity (and responsibility) to create this reality within our our very own "universe," eventually spreading out to larger, broader communities with a ripple effect, creating concentric circles of goodness and kindness throughout the universe!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Koval
