Posted on September 25, 2026
We lived in Cincinnati for eight years, and somehow, I never made it to the Cincinnati Tennis Open. It had been on my bucket list, so this summer, we finally went. What stuck with me most wasn’t a great serve or a dramatic match, but a small courtesy that’s part of the language of tennis.
A player hit a ball that caught the top of the net. The ball barely made it over and landed just inside the court where her opponent had no chance to get to it. She won the point, then looked across the net, raised her hand, and said, “Sorry.”
It was a lucky shot, and everyone knew it.
But something struck me about this little ritual. She wasn’t apologizing for winning the point—she was trying to identify with the person on the other side of the net. In a game where the person across from you is your opponent, this brief moment pauses the game to say, “I see what just happened to you. I know you couldn’t do anything about that. I realize that was a bad break.” This subtle exchange is a fleeting instant when you stop thinking about the point—and notice the person.
That little “Sorry” was her way of showing she understood the twist of fate; why her shot was unreturnable. She could have simply celebrated winning that point, but instead, for a millisecond, she reflected on how it felt for the other person.
It was a tiny act of recognition.
But maybe kindness begins with exactly that: noticing another person across from us, with an experience of the world that is just as real as our own.
And that made me think of Theo of Golden, a novel by Allen Levi.
Theo is a quiet, solitary man who lives in the small town of Golden, Georgia. One day, he walks into a local coffee shop and notices ninety-two portraits on the walls. To most people, they are simply pencil portraits—faces that blend into the background. But Theo stops and looks. He grows curious about the people in those portraits: Who were they? What became of them? What stories are hidden behind those faces?
That curiosity changes his life. Theo decides to buy the portraits and track down the people who were the subjects of the drawings—or, if they are no longer alive, their families. He sits with people, listens to their stories, and then, one by one, presents them with their portraits as gifts. What began as a fascination with ninety-two faces becomes a journey into the lives of ninety-two people.
At its heart, Theo of Golden is a story about seeing and being seen.
As I thought about Theo, that gesture on the tennis court made more sense to me.
Theo takes a moment of noticing people and expands it into a way of life.
Theo’s first gift is attention. He sees what others have stopped seeing. For Theo, the portraits are not merely background decorations on the walls but the essence of the people depicted. He sees their faces. Their expressions pique his curiosity.
It may seem a simple thing, but in our day, many of us see people, portraits, and expressions and keep walking. It is not that we don’t care; it is that we are distracted. Our world is overfilled with things to see; we multitask; we see the forest but miss the trees. We notice the portraits but do not see the pain, the pathos — the despair of our family members, neighbors, and friends. We stare at our phones, TVs, and computers; we hyper-focus on problems at school or work; we are preoccupied by our anxieties. We are consumed by our own images in the many mirrors and windows we pass each day. And others in our world disappear in plain sight.
A friend says, “I’m fine,” and we don’t notice the hesitation.
An acquaintance stops coming to synagogue, and we don’t wonder why.
There is the person who is always the one to set up, clean up, make the phone calls, and smooth out problems — and we forget to say thank you.
A person stands alone at a gathering, and we assume someone else will talk to them.
Theo of Golden reminds us that kindness begins with paying attention. Before we can care for someone, we must notice them. Yom Kippur asks us to do the same—to pay attention to the things and people we otherwise try to avoid. Teshuvah is noticing someone who is hurting, lonely, or simply in need of being seen. And then taking a step closer.
That step moves us from seeing human beings to knowing and appreciating them. He gives the lifeless portraits energy by tracking them down and asking them to tell their stories. He discovers their range of emotions: joy, sadness, worry, fear, gratitude. He fuses their narratives with the details of their faces in the portraits and finds plenty of pain, but he also sees the remarkable possibility in each person he meets.
He refrains from judgment, generalization, and categorization. To see someone authentically is to appreciate that there is a story behind the face we do not yet know.
The philosopher Martin Buber described the possibility of a true, transcendent connection between human beings as an “I-Thou” relationship—the sacred space in which truly seeing someone brings the presence of God between them. Buber’s truth finds a popular expression in the elegant lyrics of Les Misérables, where “to love another person is, indeed, to see the face of God.”
On Yom Kippur, we stand before God, asking to be seen in full—not for the curated masks we show the world, but for the whole truth of who we are: our failures, our regrets, our goodness, and our potential. But our “ask” of God also carries responsibility: If we desire to be met with God’s benevolent gaze, we must first learn to look into others’ souls with the same grace.
Theo shows grace: he bridges the gap between feeling and doing by turning empathy into action. He transforms virtue into practice. He needs no recognition for buying portraits, finding their owners, listening to their stories, and then giving the drawings to them as gifts.
Allen Levi captures the essence of Theo’s character in a timeless line by the poet William Wordsworth: “Theo lives out ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.’”
We live in a world drawn to what is big, loud, and visible. Theo teaches us that goodness does not need an audience. It happens quietly, away from the spotlight. Theo does not seek to be seen. He chooses instead to shine a light on others.
We can practice those “little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.” But we need to resolve to do it:
We can ask a follow-up question. Concentrate on remembering someone’s name. Reach out to someone we have been meaning to call. Sit with the person who is alone. Say thank you to those whose work goes unnoticed. Put down our phones and listen to the person sitting in the room. Hear someone without trying to fix them.
Kindness does not always require that we change or repair someone’s life. Sometimes kindness is simply changing someone’s next ten minutes.
We notice the person behind the face.
We decide to look again.
We resolve to connect.
We choose to act.
We return to the tennis court in Cincinnati.
A player hit a lucky shot. The ball barely cleared the net and landed where her opponent could never have reached it.
She won the point. And then she raised her hand. “Sorry.”
In tennis, “sorry” is just one word – it can be a courtesy, a ritual, or a playful jab. The art is in knowing when to say it — and when nothing needs to be said at all.
This is the spiritual center of Yom Kippur: To become people who turn – turn to look again. People who refuse to let another human being fade away into the background of our lives. Every person carries a story we cannot see.
And our task—as Jews, as human beings—is to make sure those people and their stories do not go unseen. The great promise of teshuvah is that we can try again. Let us resolve to begin this year by seeing one another differently—with more kindness, patience, and love.
“The Baal Shem Tov was once walking through a crowded market square with his disciples. In a quiet corner of the cobblestone street stood a poor, hunched old man playing a battered, scratched violin. His fingers were stiff from the autumn chill, and the notes he produced were raspy, slightly out of tune, and fragmented.
Most passersby walked right past him, covering their ears or tossing a meager coin out of pity. The disciples looked at the old man and felt a wave of sadness. One of them turned to the Master and whispered, ‘It is painful to watch. The instrument is ruined, and the melody is broken.’
But the Baal Shem Tov did not walk past. Instead, he stepped closer to the old violinist. He closed his eyes, tilted his head, and listened with reverent stillness. A look of profound wonder washed over the Master’s face, as if he were standing in the court of royalty.
When the old man finally finished his song, the Baal Shem Tov smiled warmly, bowed deeply to him in gratitude, and placed a beautiful silver coin in his cup.
As they walked away, the confused disciples asked, ‘Master, why did you bow? The music was flawed and full of errors.’
The Baal Shem Tov looked at them with deep, luminous eyes and said: ‘Sometimes we listen only with our ears, and so we hear the cracked wood and the stiff fingers. I listened with my soul. I did not hear a broken song; I heard a man pouring his entire life, his heartaches, and his quiet hopes into those strings. To the world, it was noise. But to the Heavens, it was a pristine, flawless masterpiece. Never look at a person and see only their broken instrument. Look deeper and listen to the beautiful symphony they are trying to play.’”
True kindness is the willingness to listen to the solo of someone else’s story. The joys and the sorrows. It is the choice to look past the rough, imperfect surfaces of this world—the flaws, the mistakes, even the bad notes — and recognize the dignity vibrating underneath.
Your story matters.
Your life matters.
You matter.
As Theo of Golden says, “God gave us faces so we can see each other better.”
I see you.
Let us see each other.
Let no one standing across from us disappear.
G’mar chatimah tovah.
