There are three stages of doing an act of chessed and tzedakah. Perhaps one day and you thought, My friend, who is a very precious Yid who toils in Torah, has reached the exciting stage of marrying off his son, and the poor man has nothing. Feelings of friendship and compassion fill your heart. You think that it would be a zechus for you to make things easier for him, to get hold of a respectable sum of money that could help him. You made the choice to help him, and for this choice alone you will be rewarded from Above.
At this stage you take action – you speak to someone who can help; you send out letters, give recommendations to philanthropists, go from door to door or from person to person, and in this way you do hishtadlus. For this you will also be rewarded from Above.
And there is a third reward as well: the result. Not always do you receive it, and not always do you see it. Sometimes the thought, the deed, and the result go hand in hand. For example: You were on a bus, you saw a Yid approaching, and he wanted to sit on the seat next to you. You noticed the seat was a bit dirty, and his clothing would likely be stained if he sat there. In less than a second you made the choice to clean the seat, to remove the dirt, and you got an immediate result: the chair was clean, the Yid sat down, and all is well.
But even this small act might not conclude successfully. For example, the Yid for whom you cleaned the seat might have continued on and sat on a different seat, where coffee just spilled.
This is what Rabbenu Bachyai instructs in the fourth chapter: A person should try to hide his acts of assistance, of tzedakah, or of chessed. How fortunate is someone who succeeds in helping another person without the other person knowing about it, without advertising his action or seeking honor for it, without telling anyone about it and without getting any admiring glances. A complete act is one that is free of all negios, when the goal of the person doing it is only to come closer to Hashem.
Some people give in order to see their name on a plaque or on a building, with a description of their great and mighty acts of chessed. This is well and good, but the shleimus of a chessed is when it is done without honor. Some people do chessed with the thought that they’ll be rewarded. I’m helping you now, and tomorrow you’ll help me. They will be rewarded for this act, because the chessed was done and the other Yid benefitted from it, but this is nothing compared to an act that is done with no hope of being rewarded, without the thought that a day will come when the other person will give me something in return or leave me an inheritance.
Sometimes a person does good out of a desire to control or dominate other people. The act of giving could confuse him. Since he is the one with the money, he might feel he can lord over the person to whom he is giving it. Giving with no intention of controlling others is a great chochmah. Standing off to the side and keeping quiet is a special form of greatness, which makes the act of giving a complete one.
We need to remember that as much as we can make every effort, exert ourselves, and speak well on behalf of another person, the results are not in our hands. We need to trust in Hashem that He will bring the matter to completion according to His desire. Sometimes the result comes immediately, and sometimes it doesn’t.
A Yid decides to help his friend and speaks to a philanthropist on his behalf. The rich man heard him out but wasn’t moved to give anything. Several years later, once again the philanthropist heard about that same needy person. He recalled that he had heard good things about him a while back, and this time he is moved to give ten thousand dollars – not a thousand dollars, as the man who initially recommended him was hoping for, but ten thousand.
This is just an example of how acts of chessed can come about. We have no idea about the Ribbono shel Olam’s plans. He wants us to help and assist, to invest thought and to act. We will receive much reward for every good choice we make and for every act we do for the sake of another, but the reward is not always what we think it will be. Sometimes we don’t see anything, and sometimes we see results only after several days, weeks, years, or generations.
This is the case even if the act is a complete chessed, without anyone knowing about it. We will never regret a good act that we did. We need to remember: It is never for naught.
Let us review the tenth “Ani Ma’amin” – that the Creator yisbarach knows all the deeds of all of mankind and all their thoughts, and, Rav Tzadok Hakohen zy”a of Lublin adds, even a small, passing thought is not hidden from Him.
