One of the rewarding aspects of saying kaddish is seeing the kindness and generosity in others. Yesterday, a Washington DC snow day, was a prime example of the goodness in man.

By Washington standards the five inches that fell overnight represented a major snow storm shutting down the federal government, all school systems, and much of the bus and rail public transit in the metropolitan area. I awoke at 4:30 am cleaned off my car, shoveled the driveway, and left for shul at 6:15 am. I wanted to give myself at least two chances for a minyan – the 6:30am “rocket minyan” and if that minyan did not materialize due to the snow, I would try my regular 6:55 minyan. While the snow shut down the government it did not shut down any of the minyanim. To the contrary, each minyan convened as usual and I was therefore able to say kaddish at the 6:30 am minyan. When I finished I stopped by the 6:55 am minyan to make sure they had enough men present to make a minyan. As I entered the sanctuary I saw a close friend who did not make it to the Daf Yomi class the night before due to the snow. He came up to me and after I gave him a hard time for missing the class he told me that he specifically came to shul that morning “to make sure you had a minyan”.

With more people like my friend George, Moshiach (the Messiah) will surely come.