The Most Important Thing - To Do Something Good for Someone Else

I want to begin where I left off at a talk I gave on Wednesday – on the eve of Yom HaShaoh, the day in the year when we, as Jewish communities across the world, recognise and memorialise the genocidal murder of our people under Nazi rule only a blink of an eye ago. I ended my talk with a tale told by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Carlebach’s a complex figure, but I think it’s a really important story, especially for today.

Carlebach tells his story that he was wandering through the streets of Tel Aviv and he sees a man, bent over, a hunchback, sweeping the streets. And he wonders what there might be to learn from such a person. So he goes over, and he gets closer to the man he sees on his forearm the tattoos of a man who was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis. So he asks the man, where are you from,.

And the man responds, From Piaseczno.

Now for Carlebach – for me also, there is a certain magic in the name of this small Shtetl about 16 km South of Warsaw. It’s the home of one of the greatest inspirations for me, especially in a week like this, when I want to find a way to remember, to mourn and find a way to go on in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Piaseczno was the home of Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira – the Piaseczno Rebbe. Now before the Nazis invaded Poland, before all the awfulness that was to come, the Piaseczno Rebbe was already known as a great teacher and scholar and specifically a great teacher of younger children. And the Nazis invaded Poland, and the Piaseczno Rebbe, like so many others, was driven into the Warsaw Ghetto. And here is where he becomes more than a great teacher and scholar and specifically a great teacher of younger children. It’s here that the Piaseczno Rebbe becomes a hero.

In the Ghetto Reb Kalonymous serves as a Rabbi – he’s better known as the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto  - and he teaches, week in and week out in circumstances that are, for me, for all of us, beyond belief. He had to get up and give a sermon that gave people hope, and comfort in a place that seemed empty of hope and was certainly empty of comfort. Eventually the Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe was deported and taken to his the death, but amazingly his teachings, these brave, beautiful words that he hurled against the wickedness of his time, somehow escaped the clutches of the Nazis. In the aftermath of World War Two, when Warsaw was being rebuilt a construction worker came across a container buried in the earth. Inside were manuscripts in Hebrew letters. So the worker took the container to the Jewish Historical where the following was read;

Attention – Aufmeerkzam

By the grace of God, I respectfully request the honoured individual that find my following writings – sermons on the weekly portion given between 1939-1942 to be as so kind to take the trouble to forward them to the land of Israel at the following address, Rabbi Isaiah Shapira, Tel Aviv, Palestine. Please send this letter as well. When, with God’s compassion I and the remaining Jews will survive the war, I request that everything be returned to me or to the Warsaw Rabbinate. May God have mercy on us, the remnanet of Israel, wherever we may be. May God spare us, grant us life and save us in the twinkling of an eye.
With thanks from the depths of my heart,

Kalonymous.

And, after the war, after the establishment of the State of Isarel, the teachings are collected, translated into Hebrew, and published. I love this collection. It contains some of the powerful attempts to speak to people in places of pain and suffering that it is possible to imagine.

And Shlomo Carlebach knew these teachings and that’s why hearing the name of the town, where the street-cleaner grew up struck him so.

Did you, perhaps, Shlomo asked the man, Did you, when growing up in Piaseczna ever know Reb Kalonymous Kalman Shapira?

Of course I knew him, came the response. I was one of his students, before the war, before all this. Before the war I was a strong young man, so strong that the Nazi beat and beat me, and that is why I am now so bent over, and broken.

And can you, what might you be able to tell me about the Torah you learnt the Rebbe, was there anything he taught you that you could pass on to me?

I don’t remember much, said the street-cleaner. I remember the atmosphere, how wonderful it was, and his kindness, how special he made us all feel. But I don’t remember much of the content. Only this. There was one thing the Rebbe would always say at the end of his teachings. He would always end by saying this,

Hadavar Hachi Gadol BaOlam Laasot Tovah L’Mishehu Acher.

The very greatest thing in the world is to do something good for another person.

He would always end his teaching with this.

And the streetcleaner continued to tell his story. He had been deported from Piasescna and taken to Auschwitz, and one night had felt so desperate about his lot, that he thought of taking his own life. And as he stood and looked out at the barbed wire of the camp he remembered the teaching of his Rebbe.

Hadavar Hachi Gadol BaOlam Laasot Tovah L’Mishehu Acher.

The very greatest thing in the world is to do something good for another person.

And he decided to find someone for whom to perform at Tovah – a good thing, a kindness.

Do you know, he said, how many ways there are to do something good for another person in Auschwitz?

So many people who wanted someone to talk to, someone to share in their pain.

And it’s still true, the man continued.

Do you know, he said, how many ways there are to do something good for another person while sweeping the streets of Tel Aviv?

There’s something very special for me to be able to share this story today, on a Shabbat when we mark Yom HaShoah, and when we mark, William, the contribution of your family to the rescue, from the Nazis of the extraordinary Czech Memorial Scrolls.

Scrolls whose every letter teaches us

Hadavar Hachi Gadol BaOlam Laasot Tovah L’Mishehu Acher.

The very greatest thing in the world is to do something good for another person.

VeAhavta L’Reacha Camocha – we’ll read that verse next week.

You shall love your fellow as you love yourself. Rabbi Akiva said that that verse was the very essence of the entire Torah.

It’s all about how you treat other people.

Now William, you are a younger sibling, so I know you know exactly how annoying other people can be. Actually we all know how annoying other people can be. And I don’t just mean your sister. But here’s a thing.

What if the other people we meet in our lives, even the very annoying ones, were opportunities for us to the most important thing in the world?

I mean, the remarkable thing about this piece of Torah that comes fluttering down through time, the remarkable thing about this teaching of Reb Kalonymous is that it’ actually not hard.

Let me say something about that Hebrew word, Tovah – the most important thing is to do a Tovah for someone else.

The word comes from the word – Tov – good. You can’t really translate it perfectly – to do a Tovah is to give a moment to see what the other person needs, and find a way to be the response to that need – what do most of us need? A chance to feel connection, to feel listened to, to feel appreciated.

It’s an amazing thing to do a Tovah for someone else. It changes them, it changes you. And on the other side of something even as simple as a Tovah the world is a better place.

Made incrementally better each time one person performs a Tovah for another person.

A Tovah might sound like a small, inconsequential action, but it’s not – it’s the most powerful way in which we can mend the world, improve the world, and make a world more fit for our future.

The most important thing in the world is to do do a  Tovah for someone. Reb Kalonymous didn’t say the most important thing to do in the world was solve the problems of Brexit, or Climate Change. He didn’t say that you had to make someone else’s problems disappear in a puff of smoke. He didn’t say that you need to be able to cure every disease. He said that you need to do a Tovah.

Because here’s the problem.

We’ve forgotten the most important thing. We’ve forgotten that we need to lead in doing good in the world. Most of the time, most of us are waiting around for someone to do something good for us before we do something good for them. Or we spend our time looking out at everyone else criticism them, pointing out their shortfallings and failures and, well seen like that we’ll watch out and keep waiting and waiting. And in the meantime the world gets more and more broken. If we want to live in a kinder, more peaceful and happier society it’s not going to be enough to wait for other people to do good things for us, before we do good things back to them.

That kind of life has got us into a place where we are continually judging other people as not worth the effort.

And the message that somehow, miraculously, was saved from the Holocaust, is that we need to go first.

Hadavar Hachi Gadol BaOlam Laasot Tovah L’Mishehu Acher.

The very greatest thing in the world is to do something good for another person.

If we go out into the world, whether it be the streets of Tel Aviv, or St Johns Wood, and look for opportunities to do these acts of Tovah we will build a future for ourselves and our children that, please God, will never know the destruction of the century now passed. If we go out into the world and look for opportunities to do these acts of Tovah, we can build a world of kindness and goodness. A world we would all wish to live in,

Shabbat Shalom