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I am so tired of and disgusted by the cruelty and bullying of so many high political and governmental leaders and their sycophants here and around the world that learning recently of the existence of a “World Kindness Day” caught my attention.

This now annual day, falling this year on Friday, November 13, was established by a non-profit coalition of “kindness organizations” in 1998 in Tokyo. Its mission is “to bridge the divides of race, religion, politics, gender and location” and encourage people around the world “to do something deliberately kind, and to notice the kindness already around [us]”. (1)

Imagine the impact on our society if individuals everywhere were kind most of the time, and that government officials and politicians deliberately sought to enact policies that enhanced kindness throughout society at every level of government. What would our nation look like?

Kindness, of course, is nothing new. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (2), credited with having said “When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people,” suggested that kindness has a biblical origin in what he called “prophetic sympathy” – “Not mere feeling but action will mitigate the world’s misery [and] society’s injustice…”

The Biblical prophets, reflecting what they intuited to be a Divine calling, were concerned pragmatically with the well-being of the most vulnerable people in their society: the stranger, widow and orphan. In our era, we can expand those vulnerable categories to include the homeless, poor, food insecure, and lacking adequate health care, the immigrant, stranger, and seeker of political asylum, all victims of violence, terrorism, war, rape, incest, abused children, extreme elderly, and chronically ill.

The virtue of loving-kindness is so important in Judaism that the Talmud (3) created a category of law called גמילות חסדים (Gemilut Chasadim – Deeds of Loving-Kindness) that includes, among other things, “honoring parents, welcoming strangers, visiting the sick, rejoicing with brides and grooms, consoling the bereaved, and making peace where there is strife.” (4)

The rabbis of the Talmud regarded the attribute of kindness (חסד – chesed) to be so important that they deemed it among the ten virtues God established before creating the world (5). They warned that “should any single attribute be absent, we are diminished, and a unified society is threatened.” (6)

There is a Yiddish expression: “Az mir hat nit kein rachmonis, farvoss zein zee a Yid? – If you have no compassion [or kindness], why be a Jew?”

Below, I offer a few additional thoughts about the significance of kindness from the pens of writers and religious figures across time:

“Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.” —Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire (1802-1861)

“There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.” —The 14th Dalai Lama (b. 1935)

“If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?” —Gautama Buddha (c. 563 BCE – c. 483 BCE)

“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.” —Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

“Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” —Henry James (1843-1916)

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” —Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904)

“I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” —Ettiene De Grellet (Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier), AKA Stephen Grellet (1773–1855)

As we vote in this mid-term election on Tuesday, consider the virtue of kindness that ought to motivate all public servants as, at least, one determiner of who to vote for and, come November 13, have a happy World Kindness Day!

Notes:

  1. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Kindness_Day
  2. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-72).
  3. The Babylonian Talmud was codified around the year 500 CE. It is a massive work of Jewish law and lore developed by the rabbinic class in the centuries after the 2nd Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans.
  4. Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 127a.
  5. Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 12a. The ten attributes are wisdom, understanding, knowledge, strength, rebuke, might, righteousness, justice, kindness, and compassion.
  6. Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 40a.

This blog is edited from my book Finding Your Moral Compass – Jewish Values for the Twenty-First Century (Toronto: University of Toronto New Jewish Press – UTNJP, 2026) 147-54. See a recent review of the book at https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/finding-your-moral-compass-jewish-values-for-the-21st-century. The book is available through the UTNJP, Amazon, and the Jewish Book Council of America.