GEN438 When you have reason to have a personal grudge against someone, it is all the more important to do him a favor. You should do chesed with the recipient in mind, and now with yourself in mind.  Rav Yisrael Salanter was once traveling on the train, and at one of the stops a young Jewish man boarded and chose to sit down next to him. The young man was an abrasive and complaining fellow, and throughout the trip to Vilna, he treated Rav Yisrael with great disrespect. When the train arrived in Vilna, there was a large crowd gathered to greet the great rav. The young man was thoroughly mortified when he learned to whom he had been so disrespectful, and he mustered the courage to go to Rav Yisrael’s place of lodging and apologize. As soon as he entered Rav Yisrael greeted him like an old friend and told him to forget about the day before. During their conversation he learned that the young man was trying to get a license to be a Shochet, and Rav Yisrael found somebody to teach him, and then helped him find a job.  Although he had good reason not to go out of his way to do this young man a favor, Rav Yisrael helped him more than anyone else normally would. Kindness of this sort is a reflection of the purity of the soul, and the depth of one’s character. Chazal said that the Torah begins and ends with chesed. For the beginning with chesed, they cite [this verse]. Rav Scheinberg, shlita, often points out that they did not cite the fact that Hashem gave Adam an entire beautiful and perfect world, or that he gave him a wife, because at that time Adam was still perfect and untainted. It is not hard to do chesed with a great gadol and tzaddik. They cited the chesed that Hashem did for Adam and his wife after they had sinned and brought death and destruction to His entire creation. That is the example of chesed with best describes the beginning of the Torah. That is the type of chesed we must strive to achieve. CASTLE 82-3