Yael Eckstein epitomizes kindness and lives it every day, not only in her personal life but also, especially, in her role as president and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the leading nonprofit building bridges between Christians and Jews, blessing Jewish people around the world with humanitarian care and lifesaving aid.
In an episode of her “Nourish Your Biblical Roots” podcast on kindness, Eckstein says, “You can’t only be kind to the people close to you, and mean to those outside. True kindness demands we are kind to all kinds of people.”
Eckstein asks, “Can you go the distance for a stranger in need?” She goes on to say that true kindness means that we are kind to all kinds of people: people we like and people we don’t love, people we know, and people that we’ve never met before. It’s easy to help out a good friend, she notes, but asks, “Can you go up a distance for a stranger in need? It’s wonderful to be a parent or grandparent who is generous to your own children or grandchildren, but are you generous to children in need who you don’t know and you might never meet?”
She points out that It’s natural to want to help a nice, sweet, kind person who has fallen on hard times, but asks if you can be kind to an embittered person who is angry, who doesn’t have a nice look on their face, but who badly needs your help. “If we are only kind to those we enjoy giving to, then it isn’t really kindness. We’re simply making ourselves feel good. True kindness, biblical kindness, is when we help someone else without receiving anything at all in return,” Eckstein adds.
What is True Kindness?
True kindness is like a boomerang, Yael Eckstein explains. “Eventually, it returns to the person who first cast it out into the world.” She tells a story that powerfully demonstrates this idea. During the height of the First Intifada in Israel, around 1989, an IDF soldier named Gadi Ramon was shot outside the Arab town of Ramallah. The Arab gunman assumed that he was dead, and he moved on. Just then, a young Israeli named Shlomo Bergman found Gadi on the side of the road. He picked him up, put him in his car, and sped to the nearest emergency room. As soon as they got to the hospital, the chief resident took over. He called for blood and trauma staff and wheeled Gadi into surgery. Shlomo saw that there was nothing else he could do, and so he left.
Minutes later, Gadi’s parents arrived. The doctor told them the surgery was going well and their son would live. His mother tried desperately to find the boy who saved her son’s life, but she had no way to identify him. She made phone calls and put up signs asking for any information that could help them find the boy who saved their son, including at the grocery store they owned.
Almost a year later, Anat Bergman, the mother of Shlomo Bergman, was visiting friends in Ashdod, and she stopped in at the Ramon family supermarket, saw one of the posters, and realized it described her son. She walked over to Mrs. Ramon, who was working at the cash register, and asked her who put up the sign. When Mrs. Ramon said that it was her, Mrs. Bergman stared at her in disbelief. She said, “I can’t believe that you are the mother of the soldier that my son saved. Look at me. Don’t you remember me?”
Mrs. Ramon said she meets a lot of people at the grocery store, and didn’t recognize her. Mrs. Bergman related that she had met Mrs. Ramon 22 years ago, when she and her husband lived there, and as the parents of two children, they were struggling financially.
Mrs. Bergman told her that at the time, she and her husband lived in Ashdod. One day she came into the supermarket and was crying. Pregnant and about to make an appointment to end the pregnancy, she remembered telling Mrs. Ramon that she was crying because she didn’t want an abortion, but because of their financial situation, she and her husband felt they had no choice. She went on, “You and your husband overheard my conversation, took me aside, and sat down with me for hours. You lovingly listened to me and encouraged me. You gave me advice and guidance and helped me figure out a financial plan.” In the end, Mrs. Ramon did not end the pregnancy.
Kindness Comes Full Circle
The child she gave birth to was Shlomo, the boy who saved Gadi’s life. As tears poured down both of their cheeks, Mrs. Bergman hugged Mrs. Ramon and said, “You saved my child, and in return, he saved yours.”
When Mrs. Ramon helped, she had nothing to gain and no selfish agenda, it was true kindness for a person she did not even know, and yet she benefited in the greatest way possible.
Says Yael Eckstein, “Our job, my friends, is to offer selfless kindness to all kinds of people without any expectation of receiving anything in return, and yet at the same time, we can be encouraged knowing that God never forgets our good deeds and he will retain us in exactly the right way at the right time.”
She ends the podcast with these words: “This is a great time to reflect on our acts of kindness and to practice being truly kind to all kinds of people. Can you offer to help a friend in need without any expectation of receiving anything in return? Can you help someone who turns to you for help, even if you are not in the mood to do so? Can you do something kind for a complete stranger this week? With every act of kindness, we create a kinder, more godly world.”