Doing Chesed With Mentchlichkeit

Sorry, brisker. You are wrong here. While beggars can’t be choosey, and mytake did admit to sitting uncomfortably because she didn’t want to be offensive to the volunteer, the party that was out of line here is the driver. She was thoughtless and inconsiderate of the recipient – and that is at least half of any chessed project.

While it might make a lot of sense to add an extra mitzva on your way home from a wedding, a) leave when you say you will b) if you offer a ride to other wedding-goers, remember that the party is over as soon as you pick from a hospital.

mytake -I understand where you are coming from. Some of these orgs. do it only for Kovod/prestige. Others do it L’shem Shomayim.

I had to do a certain amount of volunteer time as part of my college schooling. I figured great -I’ll volunteer at my local Bikur Cholim. I offered to drive or do other things, but they declined saying they have enough volunteers. But the reason was because I didn’t have any connections, so I was declined. So I went to a different town and volunteered in that Bikur Cholim.

So unfortunately, not all these orgs. are doing it for the right reason. Some are and some aren’t. Trust me it’s not the girls -it’s the way that org. is run!

Health

You need connections to do bikur cholim?! Im getting sick…

This is “MY” take. When you go about doing a “chessed” it is not a matter of your convenience it is a matter of doing the chessed. If you choose to combine it with something else that is your business but if you say you will be available to do a chessed at a certain time then that is when you are on the clock for that chessed. If you are at a wedding and offer to do a chessed on the way home from that wedding, then it is your responsibility to leave that wedding on time no matter what. The other girls are either in it with you or not. Your obligation is first to the job you agreed to do and the girls at the wedding should be made aware of that. If she didn’t understand the obligation or responsibility she took on when agreeing to pick up this person from the hospital then she shouldn’t have volunteered and someone else would have. That is the point. Her “Job” was to leave the wedding on time and make herself available to the person in need on time, be courteous to that person and be understanding to them. If she couldn’t do it, or didn’t understand how its done, then she should have left it up to someone who could.

Anyone who volunteers to do a “chessed” should understand what they are signing up for. They are NOT doing a favor for someone else who should be grateful to them. They are signing up to do a mitzvah and they should be grateful for the opportunity to do it understanding that if the shoe was on the other foot, Hashem will send them their own shelichim to help them.

I think a person who has a chessed done for them should be grateful for whatever amount of kindness shown to them, whether or not it meets their expectations.

At the same time, a person who is doing a chessed should be happy to do everything possible to make the receiving party more comfortable. There is an idea called mitzvah goreres mitzvah, one good deed follows another. If a person does a chessed, there will be more opportunities to do more good deeds. Sometimes, those good deeds are simply dealing with the inconveniences along the way, which may be caused by the receiver of the chessed being a rude or insensitive person (like the receiver of real-brisker’s chessed), and bearing it with a smile.

DY – Why not? How is it different?

I cant understand why someone would blame an organization for the reason mentioned – the fact that the girls were not acting mentchlich. There is a wonderful organization that i know of that ofers rides to people. The way it works is that when someone calls, they take the info and somehow let their drivers know that someone is in need of a ride to ___ and if someone is available, they go pick up the person. In this case, where the OP was waiting at the hospital, yes the org could have called to let him/her knwo that they were running late, but they couldnt have controlled the way the girls behaved. The girls were wrong, but the organization isnt.

real-brisker: I’m sorry you had to go through that with whomever that person was. But think of the schar you got! You didnt have to take this person! But you did and it was a pain, but you did it! This person was not fair but you get schar for that too!

It does bother me how there are ‘takers’ that feel the world owes them and that they can demand, complain, and be nasty to the ‘givers’. I hope we are all zoche to be on the giving end!

Mytake, please stop saying “favor” and lets replace that word with “mitzvah” because thats what it is. Then lets understand the difference between favors and mitzvas. Jews are NOT obligated to do favors, however we are obligated to do mitzvos and chessed AND to do them b’simcha.

In addition, if we don’t do them with the proper kavonah we don’t get the same s’char.

One more very important point. If we don’t really want to do this mitzvah or we don’t do it with the right kavanah then we should NOT do it and give that opportunity to someone else.

RB, had you not picked up that hitchhiker, someone else would have and might have NOT had the bitter feelings you did but would have considered it a “test”. What if this was a specific nisayon Hashem sent to him, maybe he was tested by a specific malach that Hashem sent to test to see if he would get upset or do this chesed b’simcha. Who knows?

So RB, would you say you passed or failed the test? After 120, how would you answer your maker about this incident, would you tell him that that hitchhiker had such nerve as you are telling us? Or would you say that you are such a baal chessed that even though you were cold, you turned off the heat to accommodate your passenger, and even though you liked music, you turned it off to accommodate your passenger, and even though he gave you the wrong address you still went out of your way, etc. Will you make yourself look good or will you make him look bad? There are always two ways to look at it.

As far as mytake is concerned, there are organizations set up to help people in this situation and calling upon volunteers who choose to take chessed seriously and volunteer their time to do so, is what is depended on. This young lady who made her feel so uncomfortable had no businesses volunteering if she wasn’t serious. Someone else would have been happy to make the trip and do the job. Not only did she make the recipient feel uncomfortable and needy, she stole the opportunity for doing this mitzvah and this chessed from someone else. Does she really get schar chessed for picking mytake up from the hospital? That is questionable.

On the other hand if she asked her friend to lend her a car and the car she lent her was dirty and had no gas in it, she would have no reason to complain because that is NOT a chessed that is a favor.

mytake – You are taking it way too far. You are making it as if the org. purposley sent the people an hour and a half late. Chill out, people do cheesd NOT cause they are boerd, rather cause they want to help out people. Now who said that chessed must be served on a golden platter. That is taking chessed to a new level. If you want someone that you can have tainahs on for coming late and being noisy. By all means call a taxi and then you would have a legite complaint.

Whether or not it is a chessed is irrelevant, if you commit to something you have to do it. In this case the driver committed to pick up mytake at hospital “x” at “x” o’clock, therefor the driver is at fault because she should have been waiting outside at the given time. The driver never committed to pick up mytake without any music or friends, yet anyone who thought for three seconds would have made the normal decision to turn it off or at least ask mytake if s/he minded. The only difference between a chessed ride and a regular ride (carpool, car service) is that you aren’t getting something in return so you have less of a commitment, thus allowing you to call and say that you will be late, as opposed to a car service or carpool where it’s not so nice to call and say you will be late.

DY, you still owe me an apology from another thread I don’t owe you an explanation.

DY – I answered you, but for some reason the mods didn’t aprove it.

r-b,

Try rephrasing it.

True chesed is in the heart which is the emotions department, not the logic department. You have to keep a smile on your face even when you feel that you have been “ABUSED”, you’re making points upstairs for the mitzvah. The next time you feel it would put you in an uncomfortable position let someone else do it, but when the chessed is being done by you, let the recipient feel that they are cared about because thats really what its all about.

DY, seriously, you forgot? It is something you remember quite easily and comes to you at hand. It was on a thread that was closed, I really don’t want to discuss or chat with you because of your lack of respect and courtesy. Maybe someone else or the moderators would care to remind you. You were very proud of yourself at the time; and I told you at the time that you owed me an apology. That is all I have to say to you.

winny – Being abused is not what chessed is about. You may be a nice guy if you don’t answer vack someone that abuses your services. But I wont call it chessed.

aries,

Our posts apparently crossed in the (e)mail. In case you missed it, I apologized again.

RB

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I dont disagree with you . How many times in life do things not work out as we wished when dealing with other people. So wer try not to have to deal with that person again, but that doesnt keep us from still dealing with others.

RB – I am involved in a chessed program at my house. One of the people who came by started getting aggressive so I had to ask her to leave. She sent police over to have me arrested for harrassment. Three times! Talk about abuse.

Real, now I’ll get real. I think we all understand your point of view, but we think that you don’t really get where the OP is coming from. You won’t be able to understand unless you want to.

Any time a point is brought to light it seems magnified. When you notice a small design on furniture after owning it for three years, someone spent time contemplating exactly how to draw it. There is a ong way from being ungrateful to personally being upset about the eggshell in the pie.

Another point is that it is a wonderful thing to start aa Chesed organization. But once it is up people aren’t supposed to be made to feel like Shnorers. That would defeat the purpose.

winny – I don’t get what your saying.

DY – True, my case is a bit more extreme. But my point still remains.

DY, the apology you gave on that thread was NOT an apology and I told you so at that time. If you are sincerely apologizing for what you did then I accept. What you did was rude and uncalled for aside from being wrong and out of context.

RB, the girl is the only one in control and accountable for her actions. She took on an obligation and didn’t take it seriously. There is no other way to look at it. It was her obligation to be there on time or to at least call and let mytake know that she was going to be late and what time to expect her. Or even that she can’t follow through. This would have given mytake the option to either continue waiting or find another way home. What the girl did was obligate mytake to wait for her because mytake had no way of knowing when or whether she was going to show up and no way of reaching her on her own.

Health, the only thing I can say is that the only way an organization can know whether or not it is working properly is if people like mytake give them feedback. If everyone just thanks them and applauds them for their good work and doesn’t get back to them about the problems they have no way of knowing and they have no clue that they have to make corrections.

RB, one more thing, I just had a very unusual experience in a frum store where I currently am. There was a woman in the store who obviously was a bit off. She was talking loudly and was speaking about how she wants to be married by Chanuka. She was already wearing a sheitel so it seems she must have been married sometime in the past and must have developed these emotional or mental issues somewhere between then and now. At any rate she even asked one man in the store if he were married or if he were available for a date. Everyone heard, he didn’t skip a beat, nor did he get embarrassed, he simply explained that he was married and wished her all the best in her journey to find her bashert. Then she started asking everyone in the store for a ride to where she was staying. The man next to her turned her down but one man int he back of the store spoke up in a loud voice that if she waited a few minutes he will be done and he will take her.

She then went over to every man in the store and asked if he is taking her and each person politely said no, that man is in the back but she should wait for him at the counter. RB, no one got upset in the store. No one felt abused by her loud voice. No one felt she was abusing them with her questions. It was a rather unusual experience but everyone treated her with dignity.

RB, did she have a right to annoy and address everyone in the store? She was not the owner in the store, we were NOT her customers. Obviously, she needed help. Obviously she needed our chessed and compassion. Did she have a right to ask for a ride, for a date, if the man was married? Should we as customers feel put upon or upset or even abused by this customer who approached and addressed everyone in the store? After all we didn’t owe her anything. WE didn’t know her, why should we care about her. We had two choices we could either be chessedik to her or we could have just ignored her and tried to avoid her by hiding behind the shelves. She approached me and told me she knew me. I smiled and told her I heard that many times from others, I just happen to have a common look. She asked if I were “X” from “Y” and I said no.

The man who shouted from the back and offered her a ride really went above and beyond and truly was looking to do a special mitzvah. He knew that she would chew his ear off even for the less than five minute ride in the car and yet he realized that she needed the chessed and he wanted the opportunity to do this mitzvah. He had no idea what he was getting himself into other than doing the chessed. Kol Hakovod to him. Do you think he is telling his friend about the crazy lady he gave a ride to today?