Introduction
In his Shulchan Aruch, the Alter Rebbe states: “It is a universal Jewish practice for each community to arrange a levy on its people for the sake of providing wheat for Pesach, i.e., to purchase and distribute it among the needy, thus enabling them to bake matzos for the Seder nights.” Nowadays, this practice has been expanded, and Maos Chitim (“money for wheat”) now includes all other Pesach requirements as well. The Rebbe devoted an extraordinary amount of attention to this annual pre-Pesach drive.
Urim to Pesach
We should begin organizing and publicizing Maos Chitim well in advance, i.e., immediately following Purim.
Our donations towards providing the Pesach requirements should steadily increase, adding more and more the closer we get to Pesach.
All Pesach Necessities
Maos Chitim includes supplying all Pesach requirements for all seven days of Pesach within the Land of Israel, and eight days in the Diaspora. It includes the needs for the Seder nights—matzos, four cups of wine, and so on—as well as general yom tov requirements such as new festive clothing, meals, and the like.
With Hiddurim
After providing an individual with all his Pesach requirements, we should strive to raise the person to a higher standard of Torah observance. Then, due to his new and enhanced level of observance, we will need to furnish additional Pesach supplies appropriate to his new level.
Turn Recipients into Donors
We should put immense effort into ensuring that every single Jew—even the very “smallest” in either a physical or spiritual sense—has all that he or she needs for Pesach.
We should supply not only all they need for themselves, but enough to allow them, in turn, to announce at the start of the Seder: “Kol Dichfin… All who are hungry, come in and eat. All who are needy, come in and make the Pesach Seder.”
Like Your Own Pesach Supplies
In keeping with the Torah’s commandment to “Love your fellow Jew as yourself,” we should make sure that our fellow Jews have all their Pesach needs prepared and set out before them, just as we do.
Furthermore, we should supply the Pesach requirements for our fellow Jews even before we arrange our own.
Best Quality
We should supply “from the best and sweetest foods on our table, since the Torah commands us to give from the best we have to Hashem.” This requirement is reflected in the traditional name for the pre-Pesach drive, Maos Chitim, “money for wheat,” wheat being the choicest of the five species of grain acceptable for baking matzos…
Proactive Donating
We should not wait until the official tzedakah collector comes to [you], requesting donations to help provide Pesach needs for others. Rather, we should be proactively running and seeking any possible way to donate Maos Chitim.
Then, when the tzedakah collector comes around, we will give him a donation in addition to those contributions we gave without having to be asked.
Do Even Better Than That
Even if we have actively concerned ourselves with Maos Chitim for some time, we should never consider our obligation complete. Rather, each of us should take time to consider and determine—with an honest self-accounting—whether we have truly given Maos Chitim in a manner that befits our particular position. Quite possibly, there may be room and a need to add yet further in this regard…
Create a Last-Minute Rush
The concept of alacrity is emphasized throughout the themes of Pesach, starting with the rushed baking of shemurah matzos. So just before Pesach, we should again increase and complete our efforts at providing all the needs of Pesach for others, and doing so with alacrity.
Make Every Jew Wealthy
In the final hours before Pesach, we should promote the need to complete supplying the funds for Maos Chitim. Everyone can and should complete and perfect his or her efforts at giving tzedakah through donating in a friendly manner. This, in fact, is the predominant aspect of giving tzedakah.
Hurry! We will now conclude this gathering by distributing dollars for tzedakah to all who are present. Those who are not here now, but are listening via live hookup, should also give tzedakah in their respective locations now—each person making another into his agent to give tzedakah on his own towards a timely cause, Maos Chitim. The sooner this is done—and the quicker—the better.
Like Your Own Pesach
We should utilize the remaining time before Pesach to increase in and complete the supplying of Maos Chitim and all other Pesach requirements to all who need them—not only providing “whatever he is lacking,” but also donating amply, even to the extent of “making him wealthy.” We should do this in the same way that we try to ensure that our own affairs are arranged in an ample and affluent manner.
“All who are needy”—Who’s that? We should continue this drive until not a single Jew remains in a state of hunger and need. Do not be concerned with rendering the opening passage of the Haggadah superfluous, for even in such a situation, i.e., that there would no longer be any poor Jews, we will nevertheless be able to continue reciting, “All who are hungry, come in and eat. All who are needy, come in and perform the Seder.” Rather than referring to actual paupers, we will in effect be declaring, “Were it possible for such a prospect of a Jew who is hungry or needy, then we would certainly invite him now to join us in the Pesach Seder…”
Grab the Last Minutes of a Mitzvah
In the final hours before Pesach—while it is still permissible to handle money, and indeed, when it is still a mitzvah to handle money for the sake of Torah and mitzvos…
