by Rabbi Yisrael Rutman

The story is told of someone who was visiting the Steipler Gaon late at night in his home in Bnei Brak. He noticed some p’takim, notes on small pieces of paper, heaped on a desk. The Steipler cautioned him not to look at them. For all the sorrows of the world were written in them. You have to be made of steel, he said. The Steipler was the address for people with problems—everything from terminal illness and crushing debt, to those in search of a spouse, and yeshiva students feeling discouraged about their progress in Torah—and late at night he would read their pleas and beseech the Almighty to help them.

For anyone who follows the news, the situation is somewhat analogous, though we seem to possess the requisite metallic constituents. But if your heart is made of less durable material, you might want to look for the good news amidst the bad. One place to find it is in the letters to the editor page of Yated Ne’eman,* which they call Reshut HaRabbim, The Public Domain. Unlike the proverbial irate letters to the editors we are familiar with, the focus is on acts of kindness and expressions of gratitude.

In a typical edition, there are notices about clothing for the poor, free lending libraries, an acne cure (half a grapefruit daily), the dangers of smoking, the new law against loud music at weddings (already being enforced), and a be-on-the-lookout for the bicycle thieves who operate in the early morning hours in the vicinity of Ben David, Kibbutz Galiot and Kehillot Yaakov streets.

Sometimes the helpful advice comes in harrowing form. Like the recent letter that told of someone who fell to his death when he stepped into an elevator that wasn’t there, only an empty shaft. The moral of the story—watch where you’re going—may seem obvious, but sometimes we need to be reminded of the obvious.

But that’s not the good news. The good news is in all the letters about hashavat aveida, the return of lost objects. In any given week, there are several such notices, both from the losers and the finders. If you’ve lost something of value, write in with details of the location and approximate time of loss, asking anyone knowing of the whereabouts to call. And if you’ve found something, you can announce where and when, with a description not too detailed, so that the claimant can authenticate his claim by providing more detail. For example, you can write in that you found a pen on the 8 a.m. bus from Thataway, and ask the claimant if he can tell you the brand and color. That’s what the Egged bus driver, Toby, did last week when he found a wallet containing a large sum of money on his local Jerusalem bus.

That’s the usual—cash, credit cards, eyeglasses, books and articles of clothing. But sometimes the path to losing and finding is serendipitous. Like the fellow who dropped his cell phone down a sewer grating. He assumed it was down the drain forever, but a friend encouraged him to call the municipality. Sure enough, in half an hour two employees of the city of Jerusalem, Yoram Eviotz and Ofer Mizrachi, came to the rescue. It took some twenty minutes of concentrated effort, but they retrieved the phone, and with a pleasant manner too. Even sewer work can be an elevated activity.

Sometimes the objects get lost on their own. Like the seven-year old boy who, after missing his regular school bus, boarded the wrong bus to get home. When the bus turned to depart Bnei Brak, he realized his mistake and approached the driver in a panic. A certain Rabbi Genot from Rechasim took the matter in hand, though he didn’t know the boy or his family. He calmed him down and took him home in a taxi, calling the parents to explain the situation and to say that they were on the way. The parents offered reimbursement for the taxi, but he refused.

Returning lost articles is judged far too undramatic for the stuff that headlines are made of, but it shouldn’t be underrated. Who can calculate the good will engendered by such acts? Or the heavenly reward? One fulfills not one, but two, Torah commandments: the positive commandment to return the thing, plus the negative commandment not to ignore it in the first place. Furthermore, according to some authorities, it is the source for the prohibition not to harm the person or property of others’. There is no explicit source for damages in the Torah; but if we are enjoined to return lost property (including helping to save it from damage, such as alerting the owner to rising flood-waters), all the more so is it incumbent upon us not to cause damage in the first place.

In a time when the news is so full of corruption, of embezzlement, influence peddling, payroll padding, to say nothing of outright fraud and theft, it is encouraging to witness the everyday honesty and integrity of so many Jews. Nobody would ever know if they pocketed the wallet they found; and there is little fanfare, other than the profuse thanks of the owner, for their trouble.

For news like this you don’t need to be made of steel; flesh and blood will do.

* I am referring to the Hebrew edition published in Israel, which is no relation to the newspaper of the same name in published in English in America. Reshut HaRabbim appears on Wednesdays.

Related posts:

1. On The Importance of Attending Synagogue Regularly
2. The Year of Heroes
3. Children, or Clean Pants
4. As Others See Us
5. The Great Thing About Gratitude