Early this morning, my husband, who was up earlier than me, came into the bedroom and said urgently, “You have to call Zisha right now!” Of course, my first reaction as a Jewish mother was, “Is everything okay?” It’s like when the phone rings in the middle of the night and your first response is, “Who died?” I was nervous. Why the urgency?
Okay, okay, my husband assured me it wasn’t bad. He then called Zisha, our friend and colleague, and put the call on speaker.
This is what our friend told us.
Every once in a while his father-in-law (who is a rabbi) sends out a package of things he wants to share. He sends it to all his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and beloved friends and contacts—our friend describes it as an army of people. And this month, one of the things in the package was an article titled “If I Can Be Happy Stuck in a Middle Seat, I Can Be Happy Anywhere!” Zisha read it, and then looked at the byline and saw that it was written by me. He thought to himself, “Oh, that’s cool! She’s my friend.”
Then he continued to open his mail. The next piece of mail was a wedding gift for his son—from my husband and me. He thought, “Wow! that’s incredible! In this mountain of mail [Zisha runs an organization called Emergency Parnassa Institute—one of the things they do is provide interest free loans to businesses—so you can imagine how much mail he gets] these two letters are next to each other. Not ten pieces away, but one on top of the other.”
He, like myself, does not believe in coincidences. I refer to this phenomenon as “Hashem is winking at me.” (Note that my husband had to remind me a few times to send this gift, and that even after it was all stamped and ready to go it still sat on my dining room table for two days until my husband asked me again if I’d mailed it. So you see, it wasn’t my fault that the gift was late—it was Hashem’s plan!)
We chatted about how Hashem was giving us a “shout out,” a little nod to let us know He is there. And while we were on the subject of the mail, he went on to tell us that his father donated to every charity that came his way, both mail and in-person, Jewish and non-Jewish. No one left his house empty-handed. He would put cash in all the envelopes, often 30 requests a week. Incredible, right?!
My friend went on to say that he leaves cold water in the summer and hot coffee in the winter for the mailman and the garbage men. He believes that if they are a little happier because someone was kind to them, and they are a little kinder to their wives, who are a little kinder to their children, who are kinder to others…then he is happily making the world a better place.
Is this beautiful or what? You want a revolution? Be kind. Be kind to everyone, and the ripple effect will change the world. And maybe, at some point along the journey, Hashem will send a wink your way.
Jewel Safren is an LCSW with decades of experience helping her clients get to the root cause of their emotional struggles while maintaining stability in their personal lives. Jewel lives in Fair Lawn with her hubby, and uses her frequent flyer miles to visit her four kids and four grandkids. You can contact Jewel at 973-464-8556 or [email protected].
