From a young age I remember my mother going out to help someone in need. Whether it was visiting people without family in a nursing home or children in the burn unit of the hospital, collecting and wrapping gifts for children with cancer, or going out of her way to give someone a ride home who looked lost, she has done it all wholeheartedly.

My mother’s kindness has touched many people in various ways over the years. It of course affects all the people she has cooked for with her amazing culinary skills, made laugh with her clowning and magic act, given rides to so they weren’t stranded, and shared her advice and support to bring reassurance, but it has also affected me, her daughter, in a profound way. I feel blessed to have grown up in a home where chesed, kindness, was inculcated into everyday activities. There was no concept of needing to set aside time to help people; it was a constant part of life. If we went shopping for Chanukah presents, the children in the burn unit were part of our list in addition to our own family members. Going out to lunch sometimes meant in the nursing home cafeteria in order to visit the elderly woman who was alone and longed to see my mother every week, a Sunday afternoon could easily be spent mitzvah clowning, and cooking for Shabbos meant preparing an extra pan of chicken because someone was likely to call saying that someone needed food last minute. Chesed was not an activity that needed to be fit into our schedules, it was, and is, the foundation of the home my parents built.

As my husband and I build our home together, we look back to where we come from and what we can build upon for our future together. It is certain that we will do our best to integrate chesed into our home to be able to share this value with our future children.

By Yocheved DiskindBy Yocheved Diskind