Rav Nahman does bring an interesting idea: that מסיטרא דימינא מוחא חיוורא ככספא which means from the side of kindness one's mind is made white as silver.
He expands on the idea but you can see that he understands the simple explanation to be that by doing acts of kindness, one mind is made pure.
(I do not recall which chapter in his LeM brings this).
So it seems to me that he is suggesting a good strategy to gain mental health. When an act of kindness presents itself, do it.
But he would not be advocating socialism: i.e. the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
[Or "government control of industry" which is just a fancy way of saying the same thing.]
The reason would be that taking people's money from them even with a good motive is theft. So you do not do theft even in order to do good with the money later. Another reason is that socialism means to take away people's freedom. If you take people's money you take away their freedom because without money you are automatically a slave. You have to do what the boss says or you don't eat.
Also I should add that the idea of Torah about what one should be doing with his time is to learn Torah, and that is the biggest kindness for oneself and all others. You see this in the Yerushalmi where the incident is brought that one person sent his son to Tiberias to learn Torah and heard that he was burying the dead. He sent to him, "Did I send you to learn Torah or to bury the dead?" The Yerushalmi concludes that if there is some kind of mitzva that can not be done by others then one can interrupt learning Torah and do the mitzva but otherwise not.
[I saw in the Even Shelema which brings quotations for the Gra that the meaning of the Yerushalmi is that one can interrupt one's studies for a mitzva that can not be done by others. Not that one must. The reason the Gra says this seems clear to me to be העוסק בבמצווה פטור מן המצווה One who is doing one commandment is not obligated to interrupt in order to do another.
He expands on the idea but you can see that he understands the simple explanation to be that by doing acts of kindness, one mind is made pure.
(I do not recall which chapter in his LeM brings this).
So it seems to me that he is suggesting a good strategy to gain mental health. When an act of kindness presents itself, do it.
But he would not be advocating socialism: i.e. the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
[Or "government control of industry" which is just a fancy way of saying the same thing.]
The reason would be that taking people's money from them even with a good motive is theft. So you do not do theft even in order to do good with the money later. Another reason is that socialism means to take away people's freedom. If you take people's money you take away their freedom because without money you are automatically a slave. You have to do what the boss says or you don't eat.
Also I should add that the idea of Torah about what one should be doing with his time is to learn Torah, and that is the biggest kindness for oneself and all others. You see this in the Yerushalmi where the incident is brought that one person sent his son to Tiberias to learn Torah and heard that he was burying the dead. He sent to him, "Did I send you to learn Torah or to bury the dead?" The Yerushalmi concludes that if there is some kind of mitzva that can not be done by others then one can interrupt learning Torah and do the mitzva but otherwise not.
[I saw in the Even Shelema which brings quotations for the Gra that the meaning of the Yerushalmi is that one can interrupt one's studies for a mitzva that can not be done by others. Not that one must. The reason the Gra says this seems clear to me to be העוסק בבמצווה פטור מן המצווה One who is doing one commandment is not obligated to interrupt in order to do another.
