Dear Awesome Reader,

The real winner of the Powerball Lottery is …..all of us.

All of us hold the winning ticket.

Why do I say that?

Because of the real story behind the billion dollar jackpot.

Shlomo Rechnitz is not the one who won the 1.5 billion dollar ticket, but he is the one who bought one of the winning tickets. And he didn’t buy it for himself.  He actually is a wealthy gentleman.  But he knows that others aren’t as fortunate as he is and with one random act of kindness he tipped the scales for one very lucky woman.

Mr. Rechnitz spent $36,000 and bought tickets for all of the 18,000 people who work for him.  He had the lottery tickets sent via Fedex on Wednesday morning to be passed out to all his employees.

One of these employees, a senior nurse at the Park Avenue Healthcare & Wellness Centre in Pomona, California, had the winning ticket as a result of her boss’s generous heart.  A generous heart that inspired a random act of kindness that will make one person’s life that much easier.

This was not the first act of kindness done by Mr. Rechnitz.  Just recently, he came across 400 US servicemen in the airport in Shannon, Ireland.  They were eating prepared food out out of paper sacks.  He had, what in hebrew is called rachmanis, compassion and gave the commander money for each of the soldiers to buy themselves a $50 warm meal.

Again, another random act of kindness.  One that lessened the discomfort of another human (and in this case, x 400).

We are all winners when individuals such as Mr. Rechnitz behave in this way. Not only does it inspire compassion, but it tips the scales in the heavens above.

In Jewish teachings, Geula is the time when there is world peace and abundance on earth.  It is a time when:

“There will be neither famine nor war, neither envy nor strife, because goodness will flow in abundance and all delightful things will be available as dust. The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know G-d.” — Maimonides, Code of Law 1100’s

We are actually in that time now – it is not fully revealed yet in this physical realm and that is why we still see war, famine and suffering.

But each one of us can tip the scales as Mr. Rechnitz has done.  Perhaps we don’t have $36,000 or 400 fifty dollar bills, but we do have enough.  Enough money to give a coin to charity, enough words to offer compassion to someone suffering and enough time to lend a hand to someone in need.

This is the power we have.  And with this power to do a random act of kindness, we can change the world.

Much love and gratitude,

Meryl