And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and he said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you!” And they said to him, “The Lord bless you.” (Megillas Rus 2:4)

Megillas Rus tells us that Boaz would greet his servants using the name of Hashem. This is because greeting someone is very important. I would like to share a personal story with you which is difficult for me to write, but it has an important lesson.

My last semester at Brandeis University, I was married and lived in Brighton, MA, which is about 10 miles east of Brandeis. I didn’t have a car, so I would take the “T” to and from work (for those not from Boston, the “T” is the subway and commuter rail). One afternoon, I was waiting at the commuter rail station near Brandeis and saw that one of my teacher’s assistants (TA) was also waiting for the train. The class that he was a TA for was small, so we knew each other, but besides for the class, we didn’t have much in common. I nodded my head to him to say “hi” when I saw him and he nodded back, but we didn’t say anything else to each other. I remember thinking if I should go over to him and try to start a conversation with him, but I decided not to. What would I say? What would we talk about? Maybe he just wanted to be alone, so why should I bother him. So I didn’t say anything to him and we got on different cars on the train.

A week later, I was in class and the TA was not there. No one knew where he was, not even the professor. This was very strange. A few days later we found out that the TA was found. He committed suicide.

There are many times that I wonder if things would have been different if I had a conversation with this TA. What if I just said “hi” to him? Why didn’t I just greet him? Could I have saved his life? I don’t know if it would have made much difference, but maybe it would have. Maybe it would have brightened his day and he would have wanted to live for longer than he did.

I remember I once visited a friend for Shabbos. As we walked to shul on Shabbos morning, we passed a few people and I said, “Good Shabbos” to all of them. None of them responded though. I was so upset. These people were completely ignoring me like I didn’t exist. That’s not nice! (I’m happy to say that my friend has moved out of that community.)

Greeting others is important. Saying “Good morning!” is a great thing for yourself and for the other person. You are giving the person a blessing when you say “Good morning” – you are wishing him that he should have a good day. Don’t just ignore others. Say “hi”.

One final note: I once wrote the story of how I met my wife and it was 15 pages long. It details how Hashem made different events happen which led me to meet my wife at the proper time. The story is for a different time, but I want to point out that the whole story began with me saying “hi” to someone. Greetings are powerful!

Good Shabbos & Yom Tov!
-y.e.s.
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