I discovered him a few weeks after I came to live in my current apartment – a neighbor who is an older Yid who lives alone in a room, broken and sad. His life events are filled with pain and sadness. He was orphaned of his parents at a young age and was never able to get back to himself. He has no relatives, and good Yidden tried to help him here and there. From time to time someone remembered him and took pity on him, without any sort of commitment, and that’s how the days and nights passed for him – mostly nights.
I asked myself, How is he living? My conclusion was very sad. I have no idea, and neither do others. One day I asked him if he wanted warm homemade food. He nodded, and that day he received a hot lunch.
That was the beginning, and I started sending him a cooked lunch every day. My whole family took part in this chessed.
The chessed, which started out as a sort of voluntary outburst of good will, turned into a commitment. A while later, the regular portion I brought him was no longer enough. He preferred a certain type of food, and he demanded that I pay attention and not mix things together. Moreover, he wanted me to add a fresh salad, cut into small-enough pieces, and a fruit salad as well for good measure.
In the beginning I did not notice that it was becoming difficult. He asked me to cut? I’ll cut. Wants salad? Salad it will be. Thus, aside from the hot meal cooked by my wife, I also cut up a fruit salad and a vegetable salad. This took some time, and I felt it was becoming too much for me. I thought nothing would happen if he cut up a salad for himself. I decided I would continue doing the chessed by giving him whole fruits and vegetables to cut up by himself.
That moment I did not realize that not only did this decision not save me time, but it brought in its wake much ogmas nefesh. At first I did not associate this with the unpleasant development in my home, but Hashem wanted me to make the connection, and He took pity on me.
A few weeks after this unfortunate decision, I met a friend who knew my neighbor and tried to help him as well. “Good for you,” he told me. “You have no idea what a chessed you are doing by sending your neighbor food each day.” I nodded. I had not meant for him to know about this private act of chessed toward my neighbor, which Hashem presented me. The neighbor must have really enjoyed it if he told my friend about the meals. In general, I was not zocheh to get too many good words from him, and this roundabout expression of gratitude very much encouraged me.
