Moshe Chaim Danzig (not real name) or MCD as everyone called him is a special person. He’s always picking up the used tissues from the tables. He cleans up the half-drained coffee cups left in the lobby. He tapes the pages of ripped siddurim.

MCD is always the first to say “Shalom Aleichem” and when someone needs a shoulder to cry on. it’s MCD who’s there providing comfort and encouragement.

When we’re kibitzing I call him Moishele the Chesed Doer.

Once I casually remarked to MCD that he must have had wonderful parents.

“Actually Rabbi” he responded quietly “I grew up in a home which today would be termed ‘dysfunctional.’

“My parents weren’t nurturing and chesed was nonexistent.”

“How then did you become such an ish chesed a man who embodies kindness?”

“I had a good rebbi who had a great rebbi; I decided to make my rebbi’s rebbi into my rebbi.”

I asked MCD to explain.

“Since I grew up in a challenging home I decided to become close to my teachers and to my sixth-grade rebbi Rabbi Stern in particular. He was a true ‘star’ (shtern in Yiddish means ‘star’). His ‘English’ was more Yiddish than English and his knowledge of baseball was almost nonexistent; however he was the kindest man I’ve ever met in my life.

“I remember the first week of school; there was an Indian summer and we were all sweating away in the classroom. As Rabbi Stern took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves we all saw the numbers on his forearm. That tattoo became a tangible connection between the American boys of Brooklyn and the destroyed world of Vilna.

Rabbi Stern was kind to everyone. He always said ‘Tenk You’ to the African-American custodian who changed the light bulbs in our classroom. He always cleaned up before Mrs. Specter the English teacher arrived.

If any boy ever forgot his lunch; Rebbi gave him his lunch.

One winter day Rebbi came in without his overcoat looking frozen. When I asked him what happened he told me that he saw a homeless person sleeping at the Avenue J subway station so he covered the sleeping homeless man with his coat.

I was shocked at this amazing display of chesed.

“Rebbi” I asked him “you went through Auschwitz. You told us that your entire family including your six-year-old sister was killed before your eyes. You and your wife have no children. How did you become a kind person?”

Rebbi looked at me and said “I had the best rebbi in the world.”

“But Rebbi you told us you were taken to the camps when you were in fifth grade and that you never had a rebbi!”

“True Moishele I never had a human rebbi. However; I had Pain. And Pain is the best rebbi of all. Throughout the war through all my pain and my suffering I saw how man is capable of hurting his fellow man. And so in the middle of Auschwitz I made a promise to Hashem. If He would let me survive I would spend my life spreading kindness and comfort.

“My revenge against the Nazis is by being the opposite of what they became. My pain taught me how much joy and kindness a man can spread. Pain was my rebbi and it taught me well.”

“From that day on” MCD told me “I decided to make my rebbi’s rebbi my rebbi too. I decided to use the pain I experienced at home as a catalyst to do chesed and kindness. And that’s how I became an ish chesed.”

I looked into the eyes of Moshe Chaim Danzig and saw G-dliness.