We are all aware of the importance of giving tzedakah. As part of a long series of classes and X-posts on the topic of Hiddur Mitzvah (Enhancing our Performance of Commandments), HaRav Ginsburgh focused a great deal on the legal and meta-legal stipulations of tzedakah.
In this excerpt, taken from one of these posts, he focuses on a famous saying from the end of the Second Temple period, a saying that serves as a fundamental rule for preserving and augmenting our wealth through tzedakah and kindness. The full post was first published on X on the 25th of Cheshvan, 5786 and appeared in print in Hebrew in the Vayeitzei 5786 edition of Nifla’ot.
PRESERVING AND AUGMENTING WEALTH
The sages provide us with seminal advice about wealth:
The salt of money is lack; and there are those who say [the salt of money is] lovingkindness.
What is this “lack?” Many are familiar with a similar saying found in another source, “Tithes [giving a tenth of one’s wealth to charity] are a fence for affluence.” The Magen Avot explains that tithing [giving ma’aser] not only preserves one’s money, but it also augments it providing for affluence. This possibility is captured in the verse, “There is one who distributes and yet more is added.”
This also relates to the well-known prophecy, “Test Me with this... and I will pour out for you a blessing without end,” and to the sages similar statement, “Tithe so that you may become wealthy.” The Hebrew words for “tithe” and for “become wealthy” are virtually identical except for the switching of the left shin for a right shin, alluding to the powerful connection between tithing and become wealthy. Switching the left for the right is a very important principle in Kabbalah known as “including the left in the right,” following the principle that the higher one reaches in the supernal realm the more all that is related to the left axis of reality is swallowed within the right axis. The left axis represents judgment and might, while the right axis represents kindness and love. And so the more one gives charity, the more one transforms judgments that might be hanging over their head into kindness.
The first two words of the verse, “There is one who distributes...,” suggest that one should distribute or scatter one’s sense of being. This type of distribution of one’s being leads to eternal sustainability, as in the verse, “He scatters, he gives to the poor; his righteousness stands eternally.” The initials of “He scatters, he gives to the poor” spell the word “fallen.” By distributing and scattering one’s wealth, one lifts and revives the fallen, not just the poor who receive the gifts but also one’s own fallen state described in the verse, “Seven times the righteous shall fall and be lifted.”
HOW SALT WORKS
The identification of “lack” as a preservative for money is based on the well-known fact that salt is a preservative, specifically for meat. The Magen Avot explains that salt preserves by removing the moisture in the meat, which is what causes it to spoil and putrefy. Moisture symbolizes pleasure, as is well known that, “Water generates all forms of pleasure.” To preserve meat, external pleasure must be removed, which refers to the sense of self-importance that one receives from eating meat. To preserve money, one needs to remove the external pleasure, i.e., the sense of self-accomplishment and importance that one can receive from money. One example of this can be seen in the animal soul’s interest in counting and recounting money (or constantly checking the balance in one’s bank account).
Interestingly, the Torah does not state that what was created on the second day of Creation was good, because all was water, all was pleasure. Even though the water was split into the higher waters, representing Divine pleasure, which is free of a sense of being, the lower waters represent human pleasure derived from one’s feelings of self-importance. Only on the third day, when the lower waters collected and dry land—akin to the removal of moisture—could be seen, does the Torah describe what was created as good. By scattering one’s money as tzedakah, one becomes part of society, grows affluent, and goes from true strength to strength.
SECRETS OF LACK
The Hebrew word for “lack” permutes to spell the root of “trade” or “business.” A Jew must strive to conduct trade, to do business, and the best type of trade is distributing tzedakah and acting with kindness. This is the right way to do business with God, as He Himself invites it through the prophet, “Test Me with this....”
“Lack” also permutes to spell one of the synonyms for “sun,” suggesting that this also leads to healing, as in the verse, “the sun of tzedakah brings healing in its wings [rays].” Another permutation of “lack” is “stench,” suggesting that either one exercises “lack,” i.e., tzedakah and preserves one’s wealth, or it will stink and be spoiled.
Interestingly, the vowel signs in the word “kindness”—in the variant that, “the salt of money is kindness”—are both segol. There are 9 vowel signs in Hebrew and they correspond to the sefirot (from crown to foundation, excluding knowledge and kingdom). The segol corresponds, how appropriately, to the sefirah of loving-kindness. The doubling of the segol suggests that one should perform kindness after kindness. It is because of our acts of kindness that we are known as an Am Segulah, which means a “treasured people,” because our innate nature is merciful. Our innate nature is developed even further when we take it beyond its natural state and devote ourselves to the service of charity.
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