When Kindness Actually Counts

Hashem put a nuclear reactor in our mouths. Our words can destroy, but they can also resurrect. Most of us are amazing at being nice to the people who like us, the people who validate us, the people who think like us and act like us and dress like us and vote like us and daven like us, the people we already agree with. But that's not the test. The real mitzvah is when it's someone who rubs you the wrong way, someone who annoys you, someone who disagrees with you, someone who doesn't validate you at all, someone who doesn't flatter you, doesn't think like you, and maybe doesn't even like you. That's where greatness starts, because it's easy to love the people who make you feel [music] good, but it's a holy to love the people who don't. It's easy to speak kindly [music] about the guy you naturally admire, but it's divine to speak kindly about the guy you don't understand. It's easy to smile at your friends, but it's powerful to smile at a stranger who looks like he's hanging on by a thread. So let's use this gift, this unbelievable power of speech, to build, to heal, to revive a soul that forgot how to breathe, because [music] you never know. Maybe the next shalom aleichem you say to [music] the guy you don't really want to say it to might be the one that changes a life forever, because in life, the person you least expect may be the one who needs your kind words the most.