What do we do when someone comes to us for help, whether for financial assistance or some other type of help? In the best possible scenario, we try to think if it is possible to help him, and if so how much, and in the best case we truly help him... If some person (Jewish) comes and tells us about the distress that happened to him, we click our tongues and perhaps join him a little in his pain and we say, “Oy vey!” ... but in our hearts we think, ‘What can I do to help him? If I were only able to help him, if I could only solve his problem, or help him out of his distress, but how can I work salvations?!’
It is written in our parsha (15:4) 'אפס כי לא יהיה בך אביון' – ‘However, there will be no destitute among you’, and perhaps we can focus on ‘becha – among you’, for if Hashem Yisbarach shows you a destitute person, it is a sign that you have to help him, for it was not for nothing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu sent him specifically to you, and if he comes to you it is a sign that you can help him, and you must do whatever you can to help him, then how is it truly possible to help others? The answer to this question is also found in the same posuk: that if someone comes to us and tells us his troubles, we have to bring his words into our inner hearts and we have to feel as if this trouble is our own personal trouble. 'כי לא יהיה 'בך' אביון' – ‘there will be no destitute ‘among you’ – ‘becha – within you’. We must feel that his hardship is our hardship by arousing our hearts to feel the hardship of another, to feel as he feels. By doing this we can truly help him.
So said Rebbe Nachman of Breslev, ‘When one’s friend is faced with some challenge, whether spiritual or physical, everyone must say this is surely because of me, because of my sins, and I am the screen that separates the king of all Kings from the world, for HaKadosh Baruch Hu always wants to extend good to His children. But as for me – that is my sins – they are a screen that divides this. The main advice for this is that I myself request of the King on behalf of my friend, and surely he does not think highly of himself, for the main reason a person thinks highly of himself is when he thinks he is better than his friend. But if he thinks that his friend is lacking this level, whether spiritual or physical, is only because I erected a screen that separates him from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, then he will surely not think that he is better.’
-Tiv HaTorah – Re’eh
