{"id":1049,"date":"2013-10-28T14:59:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T18:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/truthsyoucanuse\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2013-10-28T14:59:56","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T18:59:56","slug":"how-to-pay-it-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html","title":{"rendered":"How To Pay It Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"payitforward\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week I conducted a funeral service for the matriarch of a large family. Meeting with her children and grandchildren, I learned about the immense acts of kindness she did for so many. They spoke about the hundreds of calls they had been receiving, from her former hairdresser to long-forgotten work colleagues.<\/p>\n

The family members said to me,\u00a0\u201cIsn\u2019t it sad that she didn\u2019t get to live to hear all these wonderful memories? Isn\u2019t it too bad that she did not know what an impact she had on others?<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand your feeling,\u201d I replied. “But this is the way life. We never know all of the consequences our actions may have.” Indeed, think about it.\u00a0When we help\u00a0another person, we do not know if and how they may repay it. We rarely know the way the little things we do may end up becoming big things.<\/p>\n

What does this teach us? We need to grab every opportunity to perform an act of kindness. We never know what benefits it might bring.<\/p>\n

Pay It Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

The hit movie Pay It Forward<\/i>\u00a0proceeds on this premise. Each act of kindness is\u00a0\u201cpaid forward\u201d rather than repaid. In other words, we express gratitude to someone by doing a good deed for someone else. Our one act of kindness therefore creates dozens, hundreds and even thousands more.<\/p>\n

Two thousand years ago the Jewish sages proposed this very idea. They wrote that the\u00a0\u201cone mitzvah\u2014<\/i>good deed–leads to another mitzvah<\/i>.\u201d They did not describe how it works. They did not try to prove it through any logical formula.<\/p>\n

They simply held\u00a0that as a matter of faith, no sacred act is for nought.\u00a0Every act builds on the ones that came before it. Every sacred act brings us closer to the world as God intended it to be.<\/p>\n

In the end, what we do shapes the way we are remembered. “The best portion” of our lives, as the great English poet William Wordsworth put it, are the “little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” To that we can only say\u00a0Amen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I conducted a funeral service for the matriarch of a large family. Meeting with her children and grandchildren, I learned about the immense acts of kindness she did for so many. They spoke about the hundreds of calls they had been receiving, from her former hairdresser to long-forgotten work colleagues. The family members…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":507,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHow To Pay It Forward - Truths You Can Use<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How To Pay It Forward - Truths You Can Use\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week I conducted a funeral service for the matriarch of a large family. Meeting with her children and grandchildren, I learned about the immense acts of kindness she did for so many. They spoke about the hundreds of calls they had been receiving, from her former hairdresser to long-forgotten work colleagues. The family members…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Truths You Can Use\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RabbiEvan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-28T18:59:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/truthsyoucanuse\/files\/2013\/10\/payitforward-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Evan Moffic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@chicagorabbi\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How To Pay It Forward - Truths You Can Use","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How To Pay It Forward - Truths You Can Use","og_description":"Last week I conducted a funeral service for the matriarch of a large family. Meeting with her children and grandchildren, I learned about the immense acts of kindness she did for so many. They spoke about the hundreds of calls they had been receiving, from her former hairdresser to long-forgotten work colleagues. The family members…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html","og_site_name":"Truths You Can Use","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RabbiEvan\/","article_published_time":"2013-10-28T18:59:56+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/truthsyoucanuse\/files\/2013\/10\/payitforward-300x200.jpg"}],"author":"Evan Moffic","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@chicagorabbi","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html","name":"How To Pay It Forward - Truths You Can Use","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/truthsyoucanuse\/files\/2013\/10\/payitforward-300x200.jpg","datePublished":"2013-10-28T18:59:56+00:00","dateModified":"2013-10-28T18:59:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/#\/schema\/person\/55ddc5e03d79abbfcc6d4f944687d65d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/truthsyoucanuse\/files\/2013\/10\/payitforward-300x200.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/truthsyoucanuse\/files\/2013\/10\/payitforward-300x200.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/2013\/10\/how-to-pay-it-forward.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How To Pay It Forward"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/","name":"Truths You Can Use","description":"Jewish Wisdom, Jewish Blogs, Daily Jewish Inspiration and Jewish News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/#\/schema\/person\/55ddc5e03d79abbfcc6d4f944687d65d","name":"Evan Moffic","description":"Rabbi Evan Moffic writes for people of all faiths. His book, What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Jewishness of Jesus was a 2015 best-seller. His upcoming book of devotions\u2014Shalom for the Heart\u2014takes short biblical passages and show they way they can help us make better choices and live with fewer regrets. With Rabbi Moffic, you will find an open, accessible guide to life\u2019s deepest truths. A husband and father, he graduated from Stanford University in 2000, and was ordained a rabbi in 2006. He leads a congregation in suburban Chicago. You can connect with him directly at emoffic@gmail.com.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.rabbimoffic.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RabbiEvan\/","https:\/\/x.com\/chicagorabbi"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/author\/emoffic"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/507"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1051,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions\/1051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/truthsyoucanuse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}