Parshas Chaye Sarah

Vavraham zakayn bah bayomim / And Avrohom was old he came in days. What does it mean to come in days? The Shaloh haKadosh and others quoted in Nesivos Shalom tell us that it means that Avrohom practiced chesed / loving kindness each day of his life. Furthermore a Jew must do an act of kindness each day or that day is not a day in his life.


Why is chesed so essential to make it a day? The Nesivos Shalom offer three reasons which I present out of his order.

1. Olam chesed yibaneh. The world is built on kindness. Hashem modified His planned conduct of the world with straight justice by adding mercy. Without this kindness the world would never survive. Since Hashem constantly recreates the world our continued existence is due to his constant kindness. If we wish to continue to deserve this kindness we must ourselves practice acts of kindness. This is because Hashem tzilcha. Hashem reacts to us like a shadow. What we do He returns to us. We are kind to others He is kind to us.

2. The goal in life is not Torah and mitzvos but rather devaykus clinging to Hashem. We learn Torah and practice mitzvos to bring us to Hashem. The truest way to come close to Hashem is through imitation. Since Hashem is Kind with a capital K so too we should be kind. When I practice acts of kindness I am emulating Hashem therefore becoming closer to Him. We all imitate that which we truly admire.

3. All of our mitzvah performance suffers from lack of intent or ulterior motives. When we don't concentrate on a mitzvah it degrades the mitzvah and if we have ulterior motives we may not get credit at all. Chesed loving-kindness is different. When acts of chesed are preformed even with ulterior motives it does not matter as long as the recipient receives the benefit. Each and every day we must perform at least one mitzvah pefectly. Chesed is perhaps the only mitzvah that we have a good shot at performing perfectly.



In light of this third point I would like to speak out against a phrase I hear all too commonly. That is "no good deed goes unpunished". This is usually heard when one has just done an act of chesed by dropping something off at someone’s house and then hit their car backing out of the driveway. Or we tried to do something for the shul and get an earful about why we didn't do it differently. This pernicious phrase implies that it's not really worthwhile being nice. Although we always “Ha Ha Ha” when we hear it, the statement sinks in and it has been adopted as a truism. Therefore I want to explain why these bad things do happen to people who do good deeds particularly chesed.

Once a good deed has been done the Satan is in a bad spot. He tried to prevent us from doing the deed but failed. The only way he can get rid of the deed is by getting us to regret it and thereby cancel it. So he hits us with adversity in the hopes that we will say "darn, I never should have done that mitzvah in the first place". So watch out. Be prepared. When some adversity hits just after having done a mitzvah particularly acts of chesed which are the most perfect of mitzvos, do not give in. Say ‘I know your tricks. I am on to you. I will deal with this but I am still happy I did the mitzvah. Because when the time comes I want to come with this day as well as all of the others before Hashem.