Small Acts of Kindness: Striving for Derech Eretz in Everyday Life (Hardcover)

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by Shalom Freedman


“Derech eretz is, in its broadest sense, acting with consideration and kindness to one’s fellow human beings, and in so doing, fulfilling the will of God. In Jewish religious terms, everyday life presents us with constant struggles to act in the correct way -- we are constantly battling between good and evil. It is a never-ending ethical drama in which the individual should always be striving to serve God in the best way possible. It means being able to transcend the mere formulaic response, yet, in turn, also being able to endure the anguish that true freedom of choice often encompasses.”

“It is important to try to speak with those people who no one else seems to care for. This morning I spoke with a person who hangs out at the shul. He has a speech impediment, and is a harmless, quiet religious person. He is so alone but never complains. Today we talked more than ever before. He has such a smile of innocence and openness. I know how it is when you are alone, and suddenly someone listens to you and makes you feel that you are a human being again.”

—Excerpts from Small Acts of Kindness


Hardcover, 279 pages

 

Shalom (Seymour) Freedman was born in Troy, New York, and received a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Cornell University. He came to Israel in 1974 in the wake of the Yom Kippur War. He studied Hebrew in the ulpan at Beit Ha’am and served in the civil defense unit of the Israeli Army over a period of twelve years. He works in Israel as a free-lance writer and translator, and has contributed to a variety of Jewish publications. For many years he has participated in traditional Jewish learning in houses of study in the holy city of Jerusalem.

He has co-authored two works of interviews with teachers of Torah which center on the theme of serving God (Avodat HaShem), In the Service of God and Learning in Jerusalem, and a book on the life and thought of Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, Living in the Image of God. He has also written a book of Jewish thought, Life as Creation: A Jewish Way of Thinking of the World, an autobiographical work, Seven Years in Israel: A Zionist Storybook, and a book of poems, Mourning for my Father.

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