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One of my students told me a story about a soldier’s mother who could not pay her electricity bills. The mother was disabled, lived on a small pension, and could not cover the cost until her pension money arrived. On the train, the daughter was crying over the phone, begging the electric company not to cut off her mother’s electricity. Suddenly, a man overheard, approached, called the company himself, and paid the 2,000-shekel debt (about $600 USD) with his own credit card. Then he disappeared. Someone managed to take his photo, and later it turned out he was previously employed by the military.
Such extraordinary actions are very touching. They inspire us and show the beauty of human compassion. We need more of these examples to encourage people toward kindness in their interactions. At the same time, I must say that the electricity company acts according to set business rules, and in principle, nothing can be done about that. Yet we must take into account that there are vulnerable people like pensioners who should be treated differently, perhaps through redistributing the burden among other consumers.
Do I like such stories? No. I do not want such cases to remain exceptions that bring us to tears. I want them to become the natural, systematic behavior of a society that functions as it should, with positive threads of connection among its members, and which deliberately takes care of all its citizens. Then we would no longer need isolated heroic acts that are good for a movie but tragic in reality. These cases happen often, but we do not hear about most of them. A corrected society must ensure they do not happen at all.
Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on February 21, 2016. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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