By Rabbi Jack Bemporad
Kindness, in all languages, is a bouquet, or constellation of terms that represent a manner of conduct in one’s life that embodies a host of virtues, such as gentleness, justice, love, goodness, fairness, compassion and sympathy. Each of these terms is connected and amplified under the overall rubric of kindness. It is kindness that enables us to go beyond external appearances to the inner dimensions of oneself and the other.
Kindness cannot be something purely subjective, a spontaneous feeling or emotion, where one is inclined or disinclined to be kind or not be kind. It has to come to us as an obligation, a judgement that enables us to act ethically; it must be a cognitive recognition of the humanity and dignity, not just of oneself, but of all other human beings, animals, or situations that require us to act kindly.
First, kindness to those around us presupposes the idea of humanity. According to Kant’s imperative, we should treat the other, (as well as oneself) always as an end and not merely as a means. Second, it is wrong to think of kindness in strictly emotional terms. While kindness undoubtedly contains emotion, it must be more than that: it must be a rational judgement of how to go about living our lives. Indeed, kindness is the best measure of how we, as individuals and as a society, respect, honor, and value one another. It is kindness that reminds us that our self-consciousness must be an ethical self-consciousness. For instance, in order to be kind, one must not judge the other without understanding that the other has the same intrinsic dignity as oneself.
Kindness is a support against hate, envy, malevolence, and egoism of all sorts. When kindness is not present, one’s self-aggrandizement and selfishness dominate. The idea of the intrinsic dignity of every human being, of humanity, vanishes, and one’s faith is not in goodness, but in evil. And through evil and selfishness, people begin to think they can achieve their goals through any means.
Also, being kind means I don’t have to choose at each moment how to behave; it becomes a part of our very essence and nature. It isn’t just opening the door for an elderly person or giving charity to a beggar. Being kind is actually an embodiment of how we should live our lives in a society, bringing out the best in oneself and the other. On a larger scale, kindness is embodied in actively addressing the ills of society: heeding the plight of the poor, the suffering of the sick, and the challenge of the homeless. In its Biblical designation, kindness heeds “the widow, the orphan and the stranger,” that is, all who are vulnerable.
Kindness combines justice with mercy. One cannot judge according to strict, legalistic justice, nor all-forgiving love, but it must combine both: justice and love. Righteousness and mercy must be connected to kindness because an act must be judged while taking all extenuating circumstances into consideration, especially repentance. This allows for the possibility that an individual may change, is not frozen in the present judgement and is open to becoming a better person, and it is kindness that encompasses this, as it embodies mercy.
At a time when rudeness, lack of civility and outright cruelty has become apparently acceptable behaviors, perhaps this Week of Kindness will reawaken the true intrinsic dignity and humanity of all, and inspire with kindness the way in which we relate to one another.