The phone rang. The Caller-ID said it was Staples. Then they called again. Then a third time. I finally picked up.
It was an employee letting me know that someone had found our keyring. We had been looking for those keys all over the house and had no idea where they were.
How did the store get my phone number? A women found our keys in a parking lot. Looking for a way to identify the owner, she noticed the mini staples award card on the key ring, brought the keys to the nearest staples, found my account on file, had them call me, and passed on her contact information.
Staples gave me the number to the kind woman but by then she was already on the way back home to her home in Apex. She immediately turned around to return the keys despite my insistence of my going out to her house. It also became clear to me how far out of her way she had gone to track me down and return the keys.
I shared the story with my Hebrew School class this week. What the kids were quick to point out was not just her doing the Mitzvah of returning the lost object itself but rather the effort and time that went into to it.
The simple story made for a great teaching moment. Acts of kindness, calledChesed, is something we all do. But the question is whether such deeds are done out of a sense of duty/guilt or whether we commit ourselves fully to those Mitzvot.
A good litmus test is observing how we react when attempts to do “kindness” hit an obstacle. Does the enthusiasm fizzle or does the new challenge just give us greater determination to complete the Mitzvah?
We all know the feelings:
- The times we muster enough energy to make that phone call to the other person, but deep down hope we get the answering machine...
- The occasions we are willing to do the bare minimum of a good deed but then stop when the first problem that comes up (telling ourselves “But at least I tried...”)
It is times like these that need to discover the trait that is called NETZACH in Kabbalistic texts. Netzach means Endurance. Perseverance. The ability to dedicate ourselves to a task and see it through no matter what.
Oh…and the date on the calendar my keys were found? Last Sunday, 7th day of Iyar, the 22nd day of the counting of the Omer, the day of the Omer we work on the trait of “Chesed of Netzach!”
You can download an app for the counting of the omer and the trait to work on each day at this link . You might just found yourself seeing occurrences through the lens of that day's trait... :)