Tzedakah Grants Favourable Judgement
When Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai was nearing the end of his life, his talmidim found him weeping copiously. When they questioned him as to why he was crying, he told them: If I were awaiting a court case with a human judge, whose anger is not an everlasting anger, and whose ruling is not an everlasting ruling, and whose death sentence is not an everlasting death, would I not be fearful? Furthermore, on this universe, it is possible to bribe a judge, in the eternal world, however, Hashem's judgement is everlasting, and it is not even possible to give שחד and bribe the Judge.
The Maharsha explains that when R' Yochanan said וְאֵינִי יָכוֹל לְפַיְסוֹ בִּדְבָרִים וְלֹא לְשַׁחֲדוֹ בְּמָמוֹן and it is not possible to appease the Judge with words, or to bribe Him with money he meant that he would no longer be able to achieve forgiveness בִּדְבָרִים - with tefillah that has the power to change our judgement on this world, or שִׁחֲדוֹ בְּמָמוֹן - with tzedakah, which also has the power to render one a positive judgement, as it says צְדָקָה תַּצִּיל מִמָּוֶת. Once one has passed onto the eternal world it is too late to use tefillah or tzedakah to ensure that he is granted a positive judgement.
This once again demonstrates the immense power of both, Tefillah and Tzedakah while we are still on this world.
May we be zocheh to wholly carry out תְּשׁוּבָה תְּפִילָה וּצְדָקָה and in that zechus מַעֲבִירִין אֶת רֹעַ הַגְזֵרָה may all gezeiros be nullified and we should all be gebensht with a שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה and a גְּמַר חֲתִימָה טוֹבָה
אַ גוּט שַׁבָּת
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