Accelerating the Dawn

Micro-affections are kind of a BIG deal

Accelerating the Dawn

There is a long tradition of rabbis seeing the study of Torah as kindness-centric. Rabbi Simlai taught that the Torah begins and ends with acts of kindness.¹ On a simple narrative level, this teaching refers to God making clothing for Adam and Eve at the start of Genesis and God burying Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. Practically, as an applied spiritual intention, being kind to each other is understood to be the entire purpose of the Torah.

The Torah’s wisdom teaches us that the only way to be truly pious (a chasid - חסד) is to be a master of kindness (a baal chesed חסד) in human relationships. It also supports our faith that in difficult times, our small acts of kindness make a big difference.

There is a popular custom to stay up all night on Shavuot and learn Torah until the morning. By learning Torah we learn to be more kind. As we study through the dark night, we declare that when things are not the way they should be and we feel like the world is simply too much, we don’t surrender to the fear by hiding until it passes, but we organize our collective powers of goodness and, through learning, increase the light until we create a new dawn. Kindness not only helps us to endure adversity, but helps end it.

The Midrash observes that The Book of Ruth, which we read during the day of Shavuot, isn’t legally didactic, but was rather written to teach us about the reward for kindness.² Ironically, it was also intended to trace King David’s lineage back to his great-grandmother, Ruth, who comes from the tribe of Moav - a people that was so unkind³ to the Israelites when they left Egypt that Moabites are biblically prohibited from converting into Judaism!⁴

The opening line of the book tells of a famine in the land of Israel that motivates one of the wealthiest men of the generation to leave, so as not to be constantly bothered having to help others in need. His name is Elimelech and he chooses to settle in Moav because their dominant culture of selfishness comforts him, at least in the short term. He uproots his entire family just to escape the constant call to be kind and his death follows shortly afterwards. We are informed that when the famine has ended, Naomi - his widow, is going to return home after her two sons also pass away.⁵

The theme of engaging in kindness, in relationship with the Divine Presence, continues later in the story when Boaz tells Ruth to “stay the night and in the morning there will be a redeemer.”⁶ The rabbis understand this verse as an allegory for a long night of exile in which good deeds do not only cope with the darkness, but accelerate the dawn.⁷

King David instructs us in Psalm 92 that it is good “לְהַגִּ֣יד בַּבֹּ֣קֶר חַסְדֶּ֑ךָ וֶ֝אֱמ֥וּנָתְךָ֗ בַּלֵּילֽוֹת - to relate Your kindness in the morning and Your faith in the nights.” The word “לְהַגִּ֣יד - l’hagid,” like the word “הגדה - Haggadah,” is also a language of “continuation.” On the night of Passover we recall the miraculous acts of kindness that our ancestors experienced to transition the night into day, reinforcing our faith that acts of kindness generate the redemptive light of day.

Boaz, who was otherwise a generous man, famously served Ruth a meal comprising only “toasted kernels of grain.”⁸ He has good company in this example of inappropriately meager action. Yalkut Shimoni posits that had Reuven, Aharon, and Boaz known that scriptures would be recording their actions, they would have embellished them greatly: Reuven wouldn’t have simply planned to retrieve Joseph from the pit, but he would have carried him home on his shoulders. Aharon would have greeted his brother Moses, upon returning to Egypt, with a big brass band. And if Boaz knew that the Book of Ruth was going to preserve the menu of their encounter, he certainly would have served the best meat available and not just toasted kernels of grain.

One of the lessons of the Midrash is that we don’t always know which moments of our lives are going to turn out to be the most significant, and so it is best to approach each encounter as if it is critically important. Perhaps another teaching here is that these great individuals had an incomplete awareness of the potential of piety in the mundane actions of relationships. Once they saw that these exchanges were worthy of being preserved in the holy writings, then they would have approached these acts of kindness as spiritual practices that always invite our beautifying enhancements. We are taught “derech eretz kadma l’Torah - “proper conduct is necessary to learn Torah”, which implies that by treating one another properly, we become more worthy of the Torah.⁹

Just as a precondition for the Israelites prepared for the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, by unifying as one person with one heart, the generations preceding the building of the Temple also required the same refinements of connecting through kindness. Even after the Temples have been destroyed, the purifying power of being nice to each other exists and brings us closer to restoring a world that is free of baseless hatred.

Avos D’eRabbi Nosson highlights an additional function of kindness in our times with the following story: “Once, Yohanan ben Zakkai, left Jerusalem, and Rabbi Yehoshua followed after him. And he saw the Holy Temple destroyed. [Rabbi Yehoshua said: Woe to us, for this is destroyed –] the place where all of Israel’s sins are forgiven! [Rabbi Yohanan] said to him: My son, do not be distressed, for we have a form of atonement just like it. And what is it? Acts of kindness, as it says, “For I desire kindness, not a sacrificial offering.” For the rabbis, kindness reflects an aspect of the physical Temple transformed into action.

Shavuot is the only festival whose designated reading includes the commandment to engage in charitable acts, as it says “then you shall observe…offering your freewill contribution.”¹⁰ This emphasis, during the festival, reminds us that the Torah is a tool to bring goodness into the world, and to be a successful practitioner of it we must ourselves be dedicated agents of goodness towards each other.

1. Sotah 14a “דָּרַשׁ רַבִּי שִׂמְלַאי: תּוֹרָה תְּחִלָּתָהּ גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים, וְסוֹפָהּ גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים.”

2. Midrash Lekach Tov on Ruth 1:8 “אמ"ר זעירא המגילה הזאת אין לה לא טומאה ולא טהרה לא איסור ולא היתר ולמה נכתבה ללמדך כמה מתן שכרן לגומלי חסדים.”

3. Deuteronomy 23:5

4. The men, but not the women. See Yevamot 77b.

5. Addressing her two daughters-in-law, Naomi encourages them to turn back to their family of origin and offers them a parting blessing: “May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me!” (Ruth 1:8) One of the many interesting aspects of this blessing is that the Hebrew word for “deal” is written “יעשה - ya’aseh,” but pronounced “יַ֣עַשׂ - ya’as.” Naomi’s request for the kindness of the Divine Presence, known as the “שכינה - Shechinah,” is alluded to in sharing the same numerical value (385) as the way the word “יעשה - ya’aseh” is actually written, but not pronounced. See Rabbi Moses David Valle (circa 1697 – December 17, 1776.)

6. Ruth 3:13.

7. See Ohr Hameir and Recanati.

8. Ruth 2:14.

9. See Reb Elchonon who also applies this concept to the seven Noahide laws.

10. Psalms 89:3.