The World’s Secret Foundation

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org)

The Midrash (Shochar Tov 37) records a curious exchange between Avraham Avinu and Shem, the son of Noach. “How could you have left the ark [after the Mabul]?” asked Avraham.

“It was in the merit of tzedaka we did there,” answered Shem.

“What tzedaka did you have to do? There were no poor people in the ark, only Noach and his family. With whom did you do tzedaka?”

“We did chessed for the animals and the birds. We didn’t sleep. Instead we went from animal to animal putting food before each one the whole night.”

Based on Shem’s answer, it would seem that Avraham meant to ask: How did you survive the Mabul? Shem replied that the merit of doing chessed with the animals during the year of the Mabul was what saved Noach and his family.

However, the Torah declares from the outset that Noach was a perfect tzaddik. Why would he have needed special merits in order to survive the Mabul?

Rav Chaim Friedlander explains that Avraham Avinu meant to ask something else: How could you have left the ark to rebuild the world? In what merit could you do that? The world had been destroyed by sin; in what merit could it be rebuilt?

Shem answered that Hashem placed them in a situation that demanded non-stop chessed for an entire year inside the ark. Why? So that their superhuman acts of chessed would restore to the world its right to exist. Hashem could have saved Noach in other ways. Some say that Eretz Yisrael was not affected by the Mabul; Hashem could have sent Noach and his family there. Only this would not have brought forth the chessed needed to rebuild the world.

Shem’s answer is reflected in Tehilim (89:3): “Olam chessed yibaneh — the world is built through chessed.” This verse is usually understood as meaning that a functioning society needs people who care about and help each other. Rav Friedlander is bringing out the verse’s deeper meaning: Chessed is the merit that provides the world its right to exist.

In Pirkei Avos 1, the Sages state: The world stands on three things, Torah, avoda and gemilus chassadim; but particularly then, in Noach’s generation, when Torah and avoda were absent, chessed was surely the pillar upon which the world was supported.

In Bereishis Rabba 33:3, Hashem states: “If Klal Yisrael, who depend on chessed, are engaging in chessed with each other, then I, who am pure chessed, must certainly do chessed for them.” The Chofetz Chaim (Ahavas Chessed 2:5) explains this Midrash as meaning that when we do chessed, our actions bring Hashem’s chassadim into the world. The Chofetz Chaim adds that particularly in times such as today, when there is such intense midas hadin and Klal Yisrael is in desperate need of yeshu’os, at both the individual and national level, chessed is the key for gaining Hashem’s rachamim, as it states Yerushalmi (Sanhedrin 10): “If you see that the merit of the Patriarchs is no more and that the merit of the Matriarchs has crumbled away, go and cling to chessed.”

The Shlah Hakadosh [at the end of his commentary on Maseches Pesachim] writes that chessed is so vital that a person should not let even one day pass by without finding a way to engage in chessed. He bases this on the verse, “the chessed of Hashem is all day” (Tehilim 52:3).

Rav Avraham Pam would encourage his talmidim to look for opportunities to do chessed. He would tell them that chessed means more than just prominent mitzvos of this sort, like bikur cholim or nichum aveilim. Even when it seems that no chessed is needed, a kind word or simple “good morning” can cheer a person up and even boost his spirits for the entire day.

“Little actions like these are in fact big opportunities for chessed,” Rav Pam would say.

Once, a man who davened in Rav Pam’s minyan fell ill and was hospitalized. Rav Pam felt distraught that he could not visit him (since he was a kohen, and could not enter hospitals or places with tumas meis). He decided to write him a letter, explaining why he could not visit him personally, and sharing his hope that he would quickly return to full health and rejoin the minyan.

The patient later recounted how much that letter meant to him. “I put it under my pillow. I felt Rav Pam’s presence and good wishes at all times. Whenever people came to visit me, I showed them the letter, so happy I was about it.”

“Look at what a simple act of chessed can do!” Rav Pam later told his talmidim. “See how far it goes! All I did was write a few sentences on a piece of paper and send it to this man, and look how much it uplifted him!”

May we be zoche to uphold the world through chessed!

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