Are Everyday Kindnesses Considered Mitzvot in Halacha?
Question
1) A site manager at a sports competition sees that a player is hurt. An umpire brings the player an ice pack for a rolled ankle. The site manager offers the player another ice pack because the first one is small and may not cover the whole area. The player agrees, so the site manager brings another ice pack and tells the player that if they need another one when it gets warm, they should let the umpire on their court know.
2) A woman has a friend who just had a baby and cannot attend university. The friend asks her to call during her tutorial so she will not miss it. On the day of the class, she asks if the friend still wants her to call. She genuinely offers, but mentions she might not be able to hear well (and in truth, she does not really feel like doing it). The friend says she would like to be called, so she calls and also checks partway through to make sure the friend is still connected.
3) A person finishes work at the same time as a friend. Instead of going straight home, this person walks the friend to the bus stop and waits with her for 5–10 minutes at night.
4) A person sees a small piece of ribbon (about 3 cm long) on the ground in a park. It is not their litter. They pick it up and throw it in the trash to remove the litter.
Are these actions considered mitzvot, and if yes, under which halachic categories would they be classified?
Answer
Thank you for your question.
It is written in the Torah, “Ve’ahavta lere’acha kamocha” (Vayikra 19:18), that one must love his friend like himself. Therefore, one should help his friend just as he would want others to help him. Accordingly, numbers 1, 2, and 3 are mitzvot, and they are very great, since they fulfill the mitzvah of “Ve’ahavta lere’acha kamocha.”
With regard to number 4, If it is something that you think would disturb others, then it would be for the good of the general public to keep the park clean, and this would be considered a mitzvah of benefiting the public.
it is written in Sefer Chasidim (ot 44) as follows:
If a person causes pain to someone, it’s considered as if he caused pain to an entire world, because everything that exists in the world is found within a person.
If someone spits toward another person but it doesn’t actually reach him, he is exempt in human courts, but he is still liable in the Heavenly court.
Even the smallest amount of pain that a person causes his friend, for every single act of pain, he will be judged in Heaven, as the possuk says (Koheles 11:9), “For all these things Hashem will bring you to judgment, even the hidden matters.”
Chazal explain, what does “even the hidden matters” refer to? One example is someone who kills a louse in front of his friend, and it disgusts him. Others say it refers to someone who spits.
Therefore, all those who fear Hashem, the righteous people whom Hashem does not allow to stumble, should be careful to forgive immediately someone who does something unpleasant, like killing a louse, spitting, or anything disgusting, so that the other person should not be punished because of them.
There is a story about a pious person who would cover any spit he found in a place where he knew a Jew had done it. He would forgive the person, and he would cover it so that no one else would see it, become disgusted, and refuse to forgive. In this way, the one who did it would not end up causing others to stumble. And this is a good way to conduct oneself.
Of course, it this is all when it is done within the framework of Halacha
Wishing you well.
