Pirkei Avos (chapter three) tells us that "All who are pleasing to one's fellow man are pleasing to Hashem and all who are not pleasing to one's fellow man are displeasing to Hashem."

There is a rule that everything in the written or oral Torah must have the briefest possible wording. Whenever a wording is longer than the shortest way possible, the extra is intentionally there for an additional teaching.

Hebrew could convey "pleasing" in a single word (e.g. noam, me'urav, etc.). Yet, in this mishna, Chazal chose a two-word expression to convey the concept, "nocha haimenu." "Nocha" is from the same root word as "menucha" [rest]. A more technical translation than "pleasing" might be, "All whose spirit is restful from him." This tells us something very profound.

A person may consider himself nice and pleasant to people. However, some people might be nice in some ways and not nice in others, nice to some people and not nice to others. They say, "Because of the part of me that's nice, I expect G-d is happy with me." Chazal are telling us that G-d is specifically NOT PLEASED by people who are only PART NICE, who are a MIXTURE of pleasant and not, who are nice in some ways but bother and hurt people in other ways.

Only when a person is nice such that people are AT REST from him [nocha haimenu]; they are calm, satisfied, comfortable with him; his pleasantness is pure and complete - only that person is the one who G-d is pleased with!

In Birkas HaMazone, G-d is referred to as the One Who "is good and does good." Is this not redundant? Would it not be automatic that one who is good does good and that one who does good is good? We know that Torah sources are not redundant, so we must study why the double terminology.

King David tells us [Psalm 34:15] there are two basic steps to being good, "Turn away from evil and do good." On must first clean the slate by abandoning doing bad and then must occupy himself with exclusively and actively doing good.

One may be good but the person may be shy, busy or otherwise closed off from regular beneficial interaction with the rest of the world. He would never think of doing bad to another but he never actually does good for others. His quality of being good is abstract and theoretical but he never brings his abilities to actualization by being good to others to the extent of his potential. He may be good and not do good.

A person may do good, but with an ulterior motive. He may want something from you or may want to get your guard down so he can harm you. He may do good and not be good.

G-d, Who serves as the model for what our traits and behaviors aught to be, IS good and DOES good. That defines who truly is good: the one who IS GOOD AT ESSENCE AND WHO DOES GOOD IN PRACTICAL ACTION. A good person practices good midos, interacts sweetly with others and treats others with

Pirkei Avos teaches us to always give people a kindly and pleasant countenance (chapter one) and to always receive people cheerfully (chapter three). Get into the habit of treating everyone in a sweet and friendly manner always. Be sociable and healthily involved in the life of your community. The Chafetz Chayim (Ahavas Chesed) says that even if you can't give a beggar a penny, a warm, friendly, comforting or encouraging response to the poor person can be a kindness, and, therefore, is a mitzva. Greet neighbors on the street. Ask people, with sincere interest, how things are. Approach them with compassion, helpfulness, humility, patience and responsibility. Generally, in Jewish law, the closer someone is to you, the higher the priority to give of yourself and be steadily good to them. Always be gentle, loving, kind and respectful; especially with those of your own home. You'll start to see your attitudes - and relationships - improve.