The Incredible Story Behind Daily Giving

[Music] Rosa Haler was born in citz in 1912 his family was very poor he learned in the local CER and as he grew up he started teaching and became a rebi in thater he was teaching little children how to read alipas and the Russians came in and they said you're doing something subversive you're not allowed to be teaching anything religious and they took every m in the school right there and then they went on trucks and the next thing they knew they were in Siberia he never saw his brother his sister or his parents after that he slept in a carved out tree trunk but he was there for 7 years starving and slave labor he made a PCT with Hashem that if he survived he wouldn't talk about all the pain and suffering he will only talk about Denise and venlo years later he would keep his promise and would always repeat the following story there were men in the Gul that were 6'2 2 6' 3 and he was a small man barely 5 ft he saw them fall like flies he said he couldn't handle that he just couldn't bear to see that and he saw what food they were giving everybody and everybody got the same amount so he said to one of the taller men he said I'm a small man I don't need as much as you do you work much harder than I do I'm going to give you part of my ration he would do it with one person one day and another person another day and he would just go around and do this and the people began to see what a what a human being he was that they began to just loved him and I'm sure he was starving too he was all of 67 lb when he came out one morning the Russians woke everyone up earlier than usual and they caught Rosa putting on his Fillin that he managed to hide and take with him to Siberia they tore the Fillin off of him ripped them open and found pieces of parchment in a foreign language they immediately accused him of being a spy the next morning they woke everybody up they put my father in the center and the entire Camp surrounded my father and there were two people who were going to shoot their guns were cocked and ready to go and they said to my father why do you have a smirk on your face why you why you think this is funny we're going to kill you so he says I'm not afraid of you so the comment said well who are you afraid of if you're not afraid of me so he went like this they lifted the guns and the entire group of people that were outside watching this started to scream you can't kill them no no no Rosa was so beloved and respected amongst the prisoners they recognized how special he was and they didn't want him to die they loved my father for the generosity and the kindness that he showed them over those freezing cold months that he was there the two guards in charge got scared that shooting her of mosha might lead to an uprising so they set her of mosha free when he was finally liberated after the war he met his wife Freda in the DP camps and he got married and had three girls a few years later rm's family immigrated to America where they settled in Cambridge Massachusetts right near Harvard in MIT for more than 40 years Raa worked as the Shamus of the treand street sha he was the balora the balila the Bala and he even gave shiur the people that came in and out of our sh were marar with him they wrote letters to him years after they left the shore telling them about children that they have now because they became religious and now they have Jewish families despite not being a man of much financial means he still found a way to teach his children about the importance of giving to daa every single day even if it was just a small amount one day uh a young man came to the house a Salesman and he was selling Colombia Mutual Life Insurance and he said just for a quarter a day you can save up enough money and have life insurance in case something happens to you or your spouse your children will benefit by all this money that will come back before the salesman left he took out a Columbus Mutual Life Insurance coin bank and gave it to Mosa as a gift for listening to him there's this kind of box that you'd put a coin in and you'd turn the lever and it would count how much money you put in we as kids thought it was a cute thing and he decided that this was going to be his sedu box so every day he would sit us down at the table and say who wants to put the quarter in today we loved it this was the highlight of the day you would put the quarter in and you get to push the lever and you would see the numbers change as the quarters would go in it was a treat to come home from school who's doing the Sedaka box today when the coin bank would fill up he would take a handkerchief spread it over the table open the coin bank with a special key spill out all the coins into the handkerchief tie it up put in his pocket and take it to the bank where he had a special charity account from which you would send Saka to an eventually the little piece that you pushed around so that the coin would uh register into that counter it broke so he took a screwdriver and he had to like like you like you're chopping at ice they had to kind of chop that thing to get into place and it would register whatever coin would come up and we used to love watching that do it even after his children got married RHA continued putting tedu into that coin Bank every single day rain or shine healthy or sick until the last day of his life even though my Z did not have a lot of money every day every single day no matter what they put money into the Sedaka box my father didn't have to teach you anything with words just had to watch him just had to follow him him just had to see how he treated people what he did with his money and how he spent it when he passed away at ' 92 he was so beloved and admired by everyone who knew him he was even memorialized in a famous mural where they featured him at a bus with other leaders and influential figures of Cambridge and one of the most important lessons that Raa taught his children of never missing a day of giving to Daka carried over to the next Generation when his oldest daughter plette got married and had children of her own she taught them about the importance of giving tadaka every day her son Jonathan remembers how his mother would make sure to always send him to school with a penny or a nickel to put into the stucka box at school I remember as a child my mother giving me a pen your nickel every day to put in the stucka box and I'm sure it obviously came from my zi by the time Jonathan grew up the concept and the value of giving TOA every day was embedded in his DNA fast forward 30 years I just listened to a class on how even small mits was matter and literally minutes after I finished the class I went into put a dollar in the Stu about like we always do I had this Epiphany moment that no matter how much sduck I give I still get a Mis reference $1 so I was like how can I guarantee myself the mits of Saka every single day no matter what that's the idea that pops into my head that's when daily giving.org was born I ran home I Googled it I was looking is any organization doing this I could not find anyone trying to automate daily giving so I called on my website guy sh and I said CH what do you think of this idea he loved it right away I said chel can you build me a website he said absolutely in less than 5 years there are over 15,00 ,000 yiden from 39 different countries signed up on daily giving.org myself included and they distribute more than $5 million a year to over 75 different organizations in Amel and it's a diversified portfolio of sakas so for $1 a day you get to help organizations that help with those with poverty and you get to help organizations helping with special needs and substance of use and mental health and cancer and Torah and ciru and it's just a dollar but when we come together it is such a massive impact when they gave out their 10 mil millionth Dollar in sadaka Jonathan received a very special gift from his aunt I opened it up and it was my Z Sedaka box the tiny seeds of tadaka that Rosa Holzer deposited every day in his coin bank has now grown into a multimillion doll Empire ofed fueling dozens and dozens of organizations that are dedicated to Bringing Yeshua and ruas to yiden all over the world one day this gentleman signs up for a dollar a day 30 seconds later he signs up again with a different email address and then a third time and then a fourth time and a fifth time in a matter of minutes and so I assume he's probably signing up his children he's a smart man so I called him up and I and I said thank you so much for joining daily giving I said were you signing up your children he said yeah I said that's incredible he said yeah they're 1 2 and four and I said what he said yeah you know in a six 7 8 10 years when I give them their password I already got them their Gmail addresses but now when they get their password in a couple years they're going to open their email and they're going to have one email repeated hundreds or thousands of times thank you for your donation and they're going to see that they did Mitzvah every single day since they were children