In honor of the 65th World Kindness Day on November 13, I would like to offer my Torah Thought’s Mr.
Roger’s style. For those of you not familiar him, let me introduce you to Mr. Fred Rogers, the cardigan
wearing minister who reinvented children’s television in the 1960 and 70s. I grew up watching him,
transfixed to the television as he took off his shoes and invited you into his imaginary home. He made
me feel like I was important and that the world was a good place to live. Everyone was welcome in Mr.
Roger’s Neighborhood.
In this week’s Torah portion, Vayera, we learn about the original Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood by the
Terebinth’s (a fancy word for tree) of Mamre somewhere in the Negev desert. There, Abraham and
Sarah opened their tent to strangers and cemented the value of hospitality in the pantheon of Jewish
ideals. We admire our patriarch and matriarch’s speed in making room for their uninvited guests,
washing their feet and providing them with a full meal from their ancient kitchen. And it is a good thing
too, as the stranger come bearing the gift of prophesy, predicting the future birth of Isaac. We never do
get the names of these angelic figures, but we feel better having met them and that even in the middle
of the wilderness, people could be made to feel at home.
It is no mere coincidence that the 65th anniversary Kindness Day comes a few days after the 81st
anniversary of Kristallnacht. We know what happens when we are unkind. Thirty years ago, on the same
day and in the same city synagogues were burning a generation before, the Berlin Wall finally fell. As an
art gallery in Berlin announced the following year, “many small people, in many small places do many
small things, can alter the face of the world.” If that isn’t the essential message of kindness, I’m not sure
what is.