‘But think of the kindness to which it led.’ I’m holding on to Nicky’s words.
She’d been on her way home when the road was blocked by a police car. The policemen were not at their usual tasks; instead, they were trying to pick up a young hedgehog stranded in the road. Experienced in such matters, she wrapped the poor animal in a towel and brought it home for rehab.
Sadly, it wasn’t well. On the advice of the RSPCA we took it to the Royal Veterinary College. It cried all the way, piteously, like a kitten. The vet soon returned with the news that the little creature was too sick to save. We got home after midnight, upset.
‘But think of the kindness,’ Nicky said: ‘The police, all those drivers who stopped, David and Linda who care about hedgehogs, the woman on the helpline, the vet. We also did our best; it didn’t die abandoned. Even wild animals know.’
This may all sound trivial. But I’m not so sure.
The Talmud explains that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, gratuitous hatred. In response, Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook famously wrote:
If we were destroyed, and the world with us, due to causeless hatred, then we would rebuild ourselves, and the world with us, with causeless love — ahavatchinam.
‘Causeless love’ is made up of small interactions. It’s Wordsworth who wrote that the best portion of a good person’s life consists of
little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.
Nothing is too small for love, even a young hedgehog.
These days before the bleak fast of Tishah Be’Av are understood as a time when anger is on the loose in the world. This fits well with our current predicament: lockdown has eased but Covid is still around and there are worrying warnings about autumn and winter. Frustration and anxiety are in the air, like the virus itself.
Short temper, blaming and hitting out are understandable. Who has never done it? But, as the cornerstone of our synagogue building reminds us, the world, so easily destroyed by groundless hate, is rebuilt through love: olam hesed yibaneh.
Transforming vexation into kindness is also a prickly matter to handle. We need to listen, but not react, holding back our own irritations, even if warranted. We don’t simply want to mirror anger back with anger. We need to respond with understanding.
Bernard Kops described how he was walking with his father in the East End when a man up a ladder reviled them with antisemitic abuse. ‘What’s hurting you?’ his father had asked. Somehow, he got the tone just right. The man ended up coming home with them for tea.
Perhaps that’s what Rabbi Yochanan (third century) meant when he explained that the temple was destroyed because ‘the judges ruled by the strict letter of the law’ and not with the generosity of compassion. ‘You’ve asked for it; you deserve to be hit back’ may be true. But it won’t draw the angry puss out of the wound; it won’t transform our world.
The mystics speak of the need to outweigh gevurah, judgement and harshness, with hesed, lovingkindness. This applies to our own emotional state, to the world at large, and even in the heart of God. ‘Noteh klappei hesed – God inclines toward mercy,’ teaches the Talmud, inviting us to do the same.
I’ll hear the whimpering of that hedgehog for a very long time. It is the minute articulation of cries of great suffering across our world.