And she (Pharaoh's
daughter) opened the basket and saw the boy,
and behold he was crying. She took
pity on him and (then) said,
"This is a Hebrew boy." (Shemot 2:6)
Kindness
and truth are both extraordinary virtues; however, they are not always that
compatible in life. Kindness is a tender emotion that flows from the heart, an
instinctive emotional response to something. Truth, on the other hand is
established by the brain. It is the product of scrutiny, investigation and
logic. According to Rabbi Frand from Ner Israel of Baltimore, in a certain
sense, truth might even be seen as antagonistic toward kindness.
When the world was being constructed, according to legend, with too
much judgment (the product of truth), the world collapsed under the
weight. Thus, prior to truth, kindness must come, as most
people need to be warmed by kindness before setting off in search of
truth. In
fact, when kindness, chesed and truth, emet, are mentioned
together in the Torah (Genesis 24:49, Shemot 34:6 and Joshuah 2:14) the word chesedalways precedes the word emet.
In our Torah portion this week, Shemot, the very beginning of the Book of Exodus, Pharaoh's
daughter, Batya, went down to the river to bathe. She caught sight of a
basket floating in the water and sent her attendants to fetch the basket. When she
opened it she saw a baby crying. Then she said, "This is a Hebrew
boy."
According
to the Torah, when she heard the cry and saw the basket, her first
response was compassion. Only afterward did she acknowledge the truth
that he was a Hebrew baby. Tenderness
first, truth followed.
The
teaching around this seems to be that our first reaction needs to be kindness,
otherwise, we might deliberate so long with facts, that the moment of open
hearted giving would be over and we would have missed it.
When
a person begs at the corner for a handout, we respond with kindness and
give tzedakkah. When an institution we love needs
financial assistance, we give what we can. When we are asked to lend a
hand, the
spiritual guidance of the Torah suggests we should trust our hearts to
lead us
toward right action of compassion. At some point, if we suspect that an
investigation, an audit, or questions are necessary to discover whether
there's a truth that would mean that kindness is not the best response,
then we follow that trail.
But first and foremost, chesed, kindness
