At the beginning of Sh’moneh Esrei, we praise Hashem as “gomeil chasadim tovim – grants good kindness.”

It seems like strange vernacular. Is there kindness that isn’t good?

Mr. Yossi Grunwald, a friend of my father, related to me a powerful personal story.

I have had the z’chus to be a rebbe and guidance counselor in a few wonderful yeshivos during my career in chinuch. One of my talmidim, Yossi Glanz, was a student in my shiur when I was a seventh grade rebbe in Ashar and then again when I was one of his tenth grade rebbeim in Heichal HaTorah. I had, and have, a close connection with Yossi.

In celebration of her bas mitzvah last week, my daughter Chayala and I went on a father-daughter outing. No, we didn’t go to Eretz Yisrael, LA, or Miami. Far more exciting than that, we went to visit the land of my youth: Manhattan’s Lower East Side. For me it was a walk down memory lane; for Chayala it was a glimpse into a strange and unfamiliar world.

Although I have been living in Monsey most of my life, for my first eight years, my family lived on the Lower East Side. During those years, the fall season meant that the leaves on that one tree on the corner would fall off because winter was coming. For the most part, however, things looked the same as always.