The community in the Old City of Yerushalayim thought they knew Gershon Burd. It was only after he was gone that the truth began to emerge, in glimpses, of a man who had quietly spent his life doing chesed that no one was ever meant to discover.
On the second day of shiva, a woman appeared at the Burd home and told Batya something no one else knew: for nine years she had been the "front" for Gershon's private tzedaka fund. Every month he brought her money and a list of names; she would call the families and hand them the money, and they never knew where it came from.
A stationery store in the Jewish Quarter gave every child a free balloon on their birthday, a small, pure joy for the neighborhood's large, low-income families. No one knew who paid for them. Quietly, at the end of every month, Gershon had been slipping in to cover the bill.
The stories kept surfacing, and we keep looking for ideas on how we can do more. A most fitting way to honor him is not just to read about his chesed, but to do it ourselves as well.
To buy the book "The Secret Life of Gershon Burd," click here.