The parsha discusses the mitzvo of tzedaka (charity) and promises a special bracha to one who fulfills this mitzvo b’simcha: “You will surely give to him [the poor man] and you should not feel bad in your heart when giving him; because of this thing (davar hazeh) Hashem, your G-d will bless you in all your deeds and your every undertaking.” The Gemara discusses the amount of brachos one receives when he gives tzedaka: “Rebbi Yitzchak says, ‘one who gives a prutah to a poor person is blessed with six brachos and one who speaks kindly to him [whilst giving the prutah] is blessed with [an additional] eleven brachos[1].” The Gra explains that these 17 brachos are alluded to in the passuk – the Torah says that a person will receive the blessing, “because of davar hazeh” – the word hazeh is gematria of 17, thus alluding to the maximum amount of brachos one can receive if he gives tzedaka in the optimum manner.
However, this Gemara seems difficult to understand: It says that a person receives nearly double as many brachos for speaking in a friendly manner as for giving money – of course being friendly is a good hanhaga but why does the Gemara consider it so much greater than providing a poor person with the money he so desperately needs?! There is an Avos d’Rebbi Nosson which discusses a similar inyan that can help us answer this question. It says, “one should greet every man with a friendly countenance… if a person gives to his friend all the gifts in the world, but his face is sullen, it is considered as if he gave nothing. But one who greets his fellow with a friendly countenance, even if he gave him no gifts, it is considered as if he gave him all the best gifts in the world.” The Sifsei Chaim explains that what people want more than anything is for others to show an interest in and care about them. A gift is merely an indication that the giver thought about the needs of his fellow and how he could give him joy. However, without an accompanying show of warmth the ikar tachlis of the gift is lost because the person does not feel as if he is being genuinely cared about. In contrast when a person is friendly to his fellow even without giving any gifts, then he is providing him with his ikar need, the desire to feel cared about. This explanation can also be used to answer our question. A person who gives tzedaka with a friendly attitude is giving much more than money, he is nourishing the poor man with a sense of importance by showing that he is cared about.
We learn from here how showing an interest in our fellow is one of the greatest possible chasadim we can do, even greater than giving tzedaka. There are a number of places where Chazal stress the importance of being friendly. The Gemara tells us that Rav Yochanan Ben Zakkai greeted everyone before they could greet him, even the non-Jew in the market-place. Rav Dan Roth Shlita explains what we can learn from this Chazal: Rav Yochanan Ben Zakkai was the greatest Sage in his time and was the nasi, the highest ranking position amongst the Jewish people. And yet, despite his high rank and prestige, he never failed to greet other people first. He recognised the power of a friendly greeting – wishing someone ‘good morning’ shows that you acknowledge who he or she is. In a world where people are often not appreciated enough, by greeting someone we show that we see him as something of worth. This applies to non-Jews and especially to those people that we tend not to notice or acknowledge such as taxi drivers, street cleaners and security guards. The following true stories demonstrate how important it is to learn from Rav Yochanan Ben Zakkai.
A Jew was working in a meat-packing plant in Norway. Towards the end of the day he went into one of the freezers to do an inspection. The freezer door slipped off its safety latch and closed, trapping the man in the freezer. He tried banging on the door and yelling but no avail. Most of the workers had already gone home and the sound was muffled anyway by the heavy freezer door. He was in the room for five hours and on the verge of death. Suddenly the door opened. The security guard put his head in and came to his rescue and saved his life. The security guard was later asked why he thought to open that freezer door. He explained, “I have been working here for thirty-five years. Hundreds of workers come to this plant every day. This Jew is the only one who says hello to me in the morning and good-bye in the evening. All the other workers treat me as invisible. Today he said hello, but I never heard the good-bye. I wait for that hello and good-bye every day. Knowing I never heard it, I realised that he must be somewhere in the building so I searched for him.[2]’’ A simple ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ were so important to this security guard that he waited for them every day. We should strive to be like the Jew who greeted him so regularly and NOT like everyone else who treated him as if he didn’t exist.
Rav Wolbe zt”l tells over the following story in Alei Shor. There was a baal teshuva in a yeshiva and his friends asked him who influenced him to be chozer b’teshuva. He answered, “I grew up in a mainly secular neighbourhood, but there was one religious Jew there. The residents of my area did not extend greetings to each other, the only exception being this one religious man. Every morning on my way to school I passed by this man he greeted me with a warm ’shalom’. I began to think to myself, ‘why is it that of all my neighbours only the religious man greets me – there must be something to his Torah!’ This was the start of how I came to complete teshuva.” It is clear from these stories that a friendly greeting can often have wonderful consequences. Moreover, it is a very great Kiddush Hashem when an observant Jew demonstrates that the Torah teaches us to show great warmth to our fellow man.
It should be noted that these inyanim are not merely middos chassidus, rather they are obligations that are incumbent upon every Jew. Rav Dessler zt”l points out that the Mishna in Avos which tells us to greet people in a friendly manner is said in the name of Shammai. It would have seemed more appropriate for Hillel, who is associated with chesed to say this maamer than Shammai who is known for his midos hadin. Rav Dessler explains that this comes to teach us that greeting our fellow in a friendly way is a chiyuv gamoor. Moreover, the Gemara states that anyone who knows that his friend regularly greets him should strive to be the one to initiate the greeting and that if his friend greets him first and he does not return the greeting then he is called a thief. Rav Dessler explains that when one refrains from returning his friend’s greeting, he is stealing his self-worth and this is a terrible sin. When we are doing teshuva for the various forms of stealing he should include the aveiro of ’gezeilas shalom’ and commit to being more friendly in the future.
There is another way of expressing an interest in others – smiling. The Gemara says that one who smiles to his friend is better than one who feeds him. This teaches that showing simcha at seeing someone gives him more joy than providing gashmius. The Gedolim spoke very strongly about the importance of smiling. The Alter of Slobodka said that someone who walks in public with a gloomy face is like a ’bor bereshus harabim’ (a hole in a public area) – when he is in public he has no right to force others to see his gloomy face. Moreover, he saw an inability to smile a negative mida; a senior talmid from a famous yeshiva in Poland stopped by in Slobodka on his way back from Lithuania. The Alter told him several times to smile. The talmid, who had been trained all his life to be serious and tense, could not change his habit, and did not smile. The Alter regarded this as a serious character flaw and refused to allow his grandson to cross the border n the company of that talmid. In a similar vein, the Sefer Yireim writes that just as there is an issur of onaas devarim, causing pain with hurtful words, so too there is a form of ‘onaah’ in showing an unhappy face[3]. One may argue that there is a requirement of yiras shamayim that seems to contradict the requirement to be constantly smiling. The Gedolim also dealt with this issue at length.
In short their maskana is that a person should internally feel an element of seriousness about life, but externally they must show happiness. Rav Yitzchak Blazer zt”l brings a story from his Rebbe, Rav Yisroel Salanter zt”l to show just how important it is to avoid letting one’s own coved rosh effect other people. One Erev Yom Kippur, Rav Salanter was walking to shul for Kol Nidrei. Whilst walking he turned to speak to someone he knew, but the person was in the midst of aimas hadin and did not reply. Rav Salanter commented, “why should I suffer because of his aimas hadin?!”
We have seen how there is a clear obligation to show warmth in our interactions with our fellow man and that by doing so we can give him a true sense of self-worth. How can a person strive to improve in this vital area of avodas Hashem? Sifsei Chaim suggests that in the area of smiling, we should utilise the principle that our external actions effect our internal being. Therefore a person should try to smile even if he doesn’t feel in the state of mind to do so. By showing an expression of simcha, he should begin to feel genuine simcha in his heart. In the area of greeting one’s fellow, it is recommended to notice anyone in our neighbourhood who doesn’t seem to know many people and to try to befriend them. This applies especially to new members of the Kehilla who naturally feel unknown and unimportant in their new neighbourhood. But it is even worthwhile to say a friendly word to anyone in the community with whom we have thus far not made any effort to do so.
May we all merit to treat our fellow in the way that he deserves.
Notes and Sources
[1] Bava Basra, 9b. The parentheses are used to explain the Gemara according to the understanding of the Gra.
[2] Kaplan, Impact, p.76.
[3] Mishel Avos, Ch.1, p.176.
From The Book “The Guiding Light 2”