Does this Count?
This week I planned to have an easy Shabbos.
I've been doing a lot of cooking lately so I decided not to overdo it this week.
A no frills, no guests weekend, with a little help from the store.
When I got home from work yesterday I had a call on my answering machine from someone I didn't know asking if I would help out by doing some cooking for a family in town that was sitting shiva. She got my name from the Rabbi (which is fine, I like to be called if someone needs me) but only found out about this family at the last minute and wondered if I could prepare "a few dishes" for them. Ugh. I mean... Great! A chesed opportunity!
I really wasn't in the mood but then I thought that if this family didn't have friends in town willing to voluntarily bring them over food for Shabbos they probably could use a hand and some support so I decided to do it. I called back right away (this mental conversation in my head took all of two minutes.)
"Oh that's so nice of you" the woman on the phone said, "but we already have enough volunteers." "OK" I said, and for lack of a closer I ended with "Call again any time." Which I meant, in spite of my better judgement.
Then I did some kind of a funky end zone dance and gave my husband a high five which probably wasn't really appropriate considering that someone just died and I got out of cooking for their family because I got home from work late.
So the question is: If I was willing, despite my initial reluctance, to go ahead and cook for this family even though I didn't end up doing it does it count for anything or did I throw away all my schar when I hung up the phone and yelled "YES!"
Oh well, I'm sure they'll call again.
Labels: chessed, selfishness