Dear Friends;

I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah;

” Parsha in a Nutshell ”

Moshe says to the people of Israel, “I place before you today a blessing and a curse” —  the blessing that will come when they fulfill G-d’s commandments, and the curse if they abandon them.

A Temple should be established in “the place that G-d will choose to dwell His name there”, where the people should bring their sacrifices to Him; it is forbidden to make offerings to G-d in any other place.

A false prophet, or one who entices others to worship idols, should be put to death; an idolatrous city must be destroyed. The identifying signs for kosher animals and fishes, and the list of non-kosher birds are repeated.

A tenth of all produce is to be eaten in Jerusalem, or else exchanged for money with which food is purchased and eaten there. Firstborn cattle and sheep are to be offered in the Temple and their meat eaten by the Kohen.

The mitzvah of charity obligates a Jew to aid a needy fellow with a gift or loan. On the Sabbatical year (occurring every seventh year) all loans are to be forgiven.

Our Parshah concludes with the laws of the three pilgrimage festivals — Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot — when all should go to “see and be seen” before G-d in the Holy Temple.

” Dvar Torah ”

Once again, in this week’s Parsha, Moshe revises the commandments of the Torah with Benei Israel in the last few days of his life. One of the commandments that he reviews with them, is the mitzvah of giving charity! He tells them the following: ” If there will be among you a needy person, from one of your brothers in one of your cities, in your land that Hashem, your G-d, is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, and you shall not close your hand from your needy brother. Rather, you shall open your hand to him, and you shall lend him sufficient for his needs, which he is lacking.” Then a few pasuks later, Moshe continues to say: ” You shall surely give him, and let your heart not feel bad when you give him, for in return for this matter, Hashem will bless you in all your deeds…”.

Interestingly, there are two phrases that has catched our commentators’ eyes.  One is,”You shall not harden your heart”…… and the other, “Let your heart not feel bad”….. Accordingly, they come up with the following question. Why is Moshe so concern about the feelings of heart when it comes to helping the poor? Why does it matter if we feel good or not when we give charity?! After all, when the poor comes and knocks on your door, he is not after love and affection, but rather, he’s after your money! He doesn’t want you to “open your heart”….. he wants you to open your wallet!! Subsequently, the Chachamim derive from these two phrases that helping the poor has to be accompanied with good feelings of heart, meaning that you have to give charity with a joy. To feel happy is as important as the act of giving charity itself! Some Chachamim go as far as to say that the money given to charity without a joy and happiness of the heart, does not count as part of your “Ma-aser”- 10% obligatory donation towards charity!!

But you may still ask yourself, what is the big deal if we are not so happy when we are giving charity and helping the poor? If a guy, for example, wants to write a $500,000 check for a charity organization, why should it matter if he gives the check with a frown on his face? Shouldn’t the organization take the check anyway? Money is money; isn’t it??!! Also, it is not so easy to be joyous when giving money to charity. After all, you might think that the money you give to charity, is the amount that you would be able to spend less on yourself and on your family! So, why does the Torah insists so much that we should be happy when giving charity?

To answer this question and how to reach the ultimate level of joy when giving charity, once again, Rabbi Frand comes to the rescue. He quotes a story from the Talmud that best explains the reason for being joyous when giving charity:

During the time of our Holy Temple in Jerusalem, a Jewish livestock owner was obligated to give 10% of his new flock to the Temple. How was this done? Every year, around Rosh Hashana time, he would pen all his cattle, from a year old and younger, in an enclosure. He would then open up the gate and let them out one at a time. As each animal exited the enclosure he would count: one, two, three,…… seven, eight and nine. When he counted the tenth he would mark the animal with a red dye. That animal would then be set aside to be brought to Jerusalem. The procedure was repeated until all the animals were counted.

A question is asked regarding this prescribed procedure. Why make the rancher endure this whole process of penning the animals and then driving them out the exit one at a time? Why not just take ten percent off the top, add a few extra to ensure that no less than required ten percent was given, and avoid this seemingly time consuming and senseless procedure?

The answer is that a very profound message is being conveyed to the rancher by virtue of this process. As each animal goes out the door, it is as if the Almighty is telling the person, ‘One is for you, two is for you, three is for you…’ After giving the owner nine, the Almighty then asks for only one. After getting to keep nine, the rancher is content and realizes how all of his wealth comes from the G-d Almighty and although he is giving, but he gets to keep much more for himself.

Rabbi Frand says that this is precisely the reason why we should be happy when we give charity. We first have to realize that everything we have comes from Hashem and we should be delighted that we are able to share a very small amount of it with others! If G-d forbid, we feel unhappy about giving charity, it may be because we think that we made our money with our hard work and our own intelligence, and it’s hard to give it away! But this is the wrong way of thinking and it’s not true. And that’s why the Torah is so concern about feelings of heart when it comes to giving charity.

Yes my friends, the reason that we give charity is not because we have pity for the poor; we give charity in order to acknowledge that whatever we have are given to us by Hashem and we should be extremely happy to be given the opportunity to help the poor. Everything we have is a blessing from Hashem. And if Hashem has blessed us with wealth, he expects us to share a little of it with others. If Hashem can be so giving, then why can’t we?!

So the next time a poor knocks on your door, make sure you smile when you open the door. Don’t think for a moment that you are doing him any favors by giving him money! On the contrary, he is doing you a favor! Because he is giving you the opportunity to take part in this wonderful mitzvah. You’ve been given the privilege this time……… don’t let it go to waste!!

Shabbat Shalom & Regards;

Martin