Part III. The Home Jackpot
Kindness Begins at Home
Now this whole subject, as important as it is when it comes to tzedakah, we have to realize that it applies in the home as well. Because whatever good deeds you’re going to be doing in the home – all day long and sometimes even all night long, you’re doing acts of kindness in the home – those deeds become greater and greater, more and more valuable according to the value of the recipients.
And therefore, let’s say you marry a person who is an idealist, a ben Torah. So when he comes home from work and you’re putting a supper before him — now it’s the same work cooking for a very idealistic person or cooking for a plain, hard-working laborer, a frum Orthodox laborer — but this woman, when she puts down a meal on the table for an Orthodox plain laborer, a man without any great ideals, is getting nowhere the perfection as putting down the supper in front of an idealist, a man with devotion to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
The Chofetz Chaim’s Wife
And that’s why it’s so important when you’re looking for a shidduch to look for the best. After all, a woman serves her husband in many ways. You’re going to invest all your life in doing services to your husband, and the same effort, if it’s invested in somebody worthwhile, it transforms your life forever and ever in the World to Come!
The Chofetz Chaim married a simple girl; she couldn’t even write. He used to come home from the yeshiva in the evening, she had a little store, and she used to tell him from memory what the customers bought and how much they still owe, so that he could write it down in a little record book. She was a simple girl. But he writes in his works that his wife was the one who enabled him to become what he was. He was able to write his seforim because she was in the store all day gaining that little pittance that enabled him to sit and study Torah and make his seforim and be mezakeh es rabbim.
Now, imagine if she had married an ordinary frum Jew in Radin, and she would have served him all her life. She would have passed on to the Next World – of course there’s a Gan Eden for her; chessed to any Orthodox husband is excellent, no question. But now she’s sitting on the side of the Chofetz Chaim in the Next World! The radiance of the Chofetz Chaim envelops her too. She’s in the same radiance! A woman and her husband share 100% in all his achievements! So how great it is, how important it is for a girl to sacrifice to marry somebody good!
The Best Wife
The same is for her husband. You’re going to work to support a wife. Every week, every Friday you come home and bring the pay and give it to your wife – I hope you do – or you put it in the bank and give part to your wife. Whatever it is, you’re supporting a family.
So suppose you’re supporting a family of an ordinary wife and ordinary children, children who go b’derech hayashar more or less, children who go to the synagogue; good decent Jews, but they’re nothing important. You get reward, no question. A father, especially if he has in mind as he’s sitting in his office or in his factory and he’s working and he’s thinking, “I want to support my Orthodox family. I have to pay schar limud to support them,” certainly he’s going to get reward.
But suppose you want more than that. Suppose you desire to hit the jackpot. You’re an idealist and you’re not satisfied with a plain frum family. And so you talk always about Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the home. You praise tzaddikim and mitzvos always. You encourage your children to be better and better, to learn better, to work on their character more.
The Best Family
You want to raise up a family of bnei Torah, children who will be devoted to Hashem, ovdei Hashem with heart and soul, fiery children; and your wife, she’s a loyal frum Jewish daughter and she’s doing everything l’shem Shamayim. Think how much greater are your efforts in that factory or in your office where you slave away all week. You’re doing it for a much more important purpose. And the shleimus, the perfection you gain, is without a limit greater than it would be otherwise!
And therefore, when people are doing their daily deeds, if they’re able to do it to better people – let’s say a woman is standing over the breakfast table and feeding a roomful of children, children clustered around the table. Now, a mother who feeds her children, she cleans for them, she dresses them, does their laundry, so even if the children are going to public school chalilah, it’s also something. After all, public school children it’s a mitzvah to feed them also. But suppose they’re yeshiva children and she’s feeding them, how great is her perfection? She’s sending children to yeshiva with the breakfast inside of them! What a great mitzvah it is!
The Best Children
Suppose, however, she’s training her children to be very good Jews. She teaches them how to make a bracha, how to be grateful to Hashem, how to think about their loyalty to the Torah all the time, she’s raising her children in the right way and she’s feeding those children! Al achas kama v’kama!
Suppose her children turn out to be gedolei Yisroel. The Chofetz Chaim’s mother when she was feeding him, can you compare to another mother who was feeding her child in the shtetl? A little town in the shtetl, a lot of mothers are feeding their children but this mother in the shtetl, she’s nursing a little baby too but she’s nursing the Chofetz Chaim! Oh! Such a zechus! Women, to nurse the Chofetz Chaim would give everything they have!
And therefore, if people make up their minds that their children are going to be the best that they can make out of them, their spouses are going to be as good as they encourage them, then all your efforts are devoted in the very best manner and Hakadosh Baruch Hu considers it a perfection of the chessed you’re doing all day long. You can hit the jackpot even in your own home.
