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When Goodness Becomes Performance

by Ram ben Ze'ev


When Goodness Becomes Performance
When Goodness Becomes Performance

Recently, I listened to a man speak. His words made sense, and though I did not agree with everything he professed, there was merit in much of what he said — until he began to tell a story. It was about how he had helped someone in need. In that instant, all the good I had heard dissolved. What might have been inspiring turned hollow through self-promotion. The message was lost, and with it, any chance for his future words to reach me.



There was a time when goodness needed no announcement. A person’s deed spoke for itself; a quiet act of kindness was its own testimony. But today, we live in an age where every act, no matter how noble, must be photographed, posted, and praised. Even our national kindness — the good that Israel does for others — is too often paraded before the Nations.


And so it is when the Nations boast of their charity or trumpet their benevolence. While the act itself might appear good, the merit is erased when the motive shifts from compassion to acclaim. The mitzvah becomes theatre. That such vanity sometimes finds its way among our own people — that even a fellow Jew may fall to this same weakness — is a sadness.


Our Sages taught that the truest deeds are those unseen. The Gemara warns that a mitzvah performed for honour loses its reward. True holiness dwells in hiddenness, for when we act lishmah (for its own sake), we draw close to the Divine. But when we act to be seen, the act belongs no longer to Heaven but to ourselves.



This is why I began the “Tell No One” campaign — a call to return to the humility that defines Jewish goodness. To “do good and say nothing” is not silence born of fear; it is silence born of strength. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not require our publicity — He desires our sincerity.


“Tell No One — for the One who matters already knows.”


When the Nations boast, their reward is the applause of men. But Israel was commanded to be different. “Walk humbly with your G-D.” Every quiet deed ascends higher than any broadcast, every hidden kindness shines brighter than a thousand self-portraits of virtue.


If we truly believe that G-D is the source of all goodness, then our good must return to Him in silence. For the greatest kindness is the one no one knows about.



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