In this week’s Parsha (chapter 15 7-10) we have the Mitzva of Tzeddaka. The Gemara in Bava Metzia 32: asks, maybe only a large donation is considered Tzeddaka. What happens if a person only gives a small amount? The Gemara answers that we learn from the Passuk ‘Naton Teeten Lo’ the double expression of giving that every donation is considered Tzeddaka.
Rabbi Pinchas Lerner from Dinowitz, asks that this Gemara needs an explanation. Why would one think that only a large donation is Tzeddaka and a small donation is not?
He answers it with an explanation he heard from his Rebbi, the Degel Machane Efraim (who was a grandson of the Baal Shem Tov).
The Gemara (Yuma 22:) says that one doesn’t appoint a Parnas (President) in a community unless he has a box of creatures hanging on his back. This means that he has to have a shady background.
What kind of shady background are we talking about?
The Degel Machane Efraim explained, imagine the community Parnas had a scrumptious dinner. Just as he is about to finish his dessert there is a knock at the door. A poor man is standing at the door and is asking for some food. The Parnas answers, “sadly, you’re too late, we’ve finished dinner. Try your luck somewhere else.”
But if the Parnas himself also grew up in a poor home and knows what it means not to have had food on the table, he may even had been himself knocking on people’s doors for food. He understands that of course the poor man would have enjoyed a fancy dinner. But in his present state of hunger, the leftovers on the table will revive him and possible save his life from hunger. The pauper will be delighted to enjoy the slices of fresh bread on the table that otherwise would have gone into the garbage, the bits of food left over that weren’t fancy enough to be served on the table but are a delicacy for someone who hadn’t eaten for a few days.
That is the kind of person who can be responsible for everyone in the community.
Similarly, explains Rabbi Pinchas, a rich man may think that only if he can give a large and befitting donation is it Tzeddaka, but if, for whatever reason he cannot give anything significant, there is no point in doing anything.
To that the Gemara answers, every bit of Tzeddaka is a Mitzva. Maybe the Mitzva looks very small but we can never know the reward of any Mitzva in this world nor can we know the ramifications of any Mitzva we do, however small it may seem.
To the poor man who hasn’t eaten for a few days, a dollar that will buy him a fresh roll is more valuable than a fancy meal for the rich man.
Most of us are not going to know the whole Shas Bavli, Yerushalmi and Shulchan Aruch by heart. Many of us may never even get a chance to learn all of them inside. But every Masechet we learn, every Halacha we learn, every Mishna we study is a world for itself.
There was a miser who never gave charity. No matter how many times he was lectured by the Rabbi and his townspeople nothing helped.
After he passed away, he came in a dream to the Rabbi of his town, Rabbi Eliyahu Hakohen from Izmir. The man’s face was shining brightly. The Rabbi was taken aback. Maybe he was a hidden Tzaddik who had given charity in secret and he never knew?
No, the man hadn’t been giving charity secretly.
The man told the Rabbi that every time he never gave charity a bad Malaach had been created that was against him. And there were thousands of them. They all went on to the scales and tipped the scales against him.
But then something happened.
“A poor man had come to my house one day a few days before I died and I was very sick. The poor man hadn’t eaten for three days, he couldn’t walk straight, see normally anymore, he was on the verge of collapsing. He knocked on my door. Just then my wife was preparing me some bread crumbs with an omelet so it would be easy to swallow. But my appetite was very bad. I heard the knocking and asked who is there. My wife answered it is a poor man asking for charity. I told her to give him the egg, I am too sick to eat it. The poor man ate the egg and was refreshed. He now had fresh strength to go round asking for money and food to feed his starving family so the poor man and his whole family were put on to the other side of the scales and tipped it in my favor. Look what one act of charity can do to a person,” finished off the man.
And what about us? We have so many opportunities to tip the scales in our favor and we don’t know which Mitzva will be the one that does it.
