The Secret of Giving - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

i want ari to share some torah with us right from the parsha that we can begin with the energy of shabbat that we've sort of collected and then bring it into the week and give us a base from the torah portion that we can build this whole session on so ari take it my friends there's an idea in this week's torah portion which is so central to the torah that in many ways it cuts to the very nature of what it is to be a jew the torah says if there is among you a poor man of one of your brothers inside any of your gates in your land which the lord your god gives you you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother but you shall open your hand wide to him and shall surely lend him sufficient for what is his need in that which he lacks beware that there not be a wicked thought in your heart saying the seventh year the year of release is at hand and your eye shall be evil against your poor brother and give him nothing and he cry to the lord against you and it be a sin to you you shall surely give him and you your heart shall not be grieved when you give him because for this thing the lord your god shall bless you in all your works and in all that you put your hand to do for the lord for the poor shall never cease out of the land therefore i command you saying you shall open your hand wide to your brother to your poor and to your needy in your land now there are so many critical ideas packed in here firstly the centrality of tsadaka recently i shared how the mitzvah of shabbat became my own and how i developed a deep relationship with it well in my family it became quite clear to me from a young age that our family value our family thing was giving sadaka when people would come to the house and ask for tzedakah which was a frequent occurrence in our neighborhood that people would make the rounds particularly from israel my father would call me in to be there in the room for the conversation in which he always treated the person with much dignity and respect while determining and understanding what exactly he was giving to then he would call me over to his desk when he wrote the check so i could see him writing it and giving the check to the person with a smile on his face and i remember feeling the pain and even resentment when he would do that is i immediately thought of whatever thing was that i wanted that i could spend that money on for even a fraction of that money when i shared that frustration with my father he told me that's what jews do they give he told me that the rule to live by when it comes to tadaka is give until it hurts now i'm not necessarily saying that that's an objective truth but it's definitely made an impression on me as it did on him when his father told him those same words when he was a boy seduckin is often defined as charity but i don't think it's an accurate definition sadaka comes from sedek which means justice the implication is that when we tithe when we give to dukkha we're performing justice that the money rightfully belongs to the recipient of the tadaka if we don't tithe if we don't give to dukkha we're essentially stealing perhaps charity could be called what we give over the 10 percent over the mazda over the tithe that is above and beyond now tzedakah is also unique and that we're promised reward for it in this world not only in verse 10 which i just read to you but also in the third chapter of malachi of malachi in which god tells us bring all the ties to the storehouse so that there may be food in my house and test me now with that says hashem the lord of hosts if i will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour for you an overflowing blessing so we're promised that when we give tzedakah we'll see tangible rewards in this world probably also in the next but definitely in this world as well okay so we all want to be close to god but if god's presence fills the earth as water covers the sea then we're all close to god so what does it truly mean to be close we've discussed this before in the spiritual world you're close to something when you are similar to it and you're distant from something when you are different from it that is why the relationship with god is so intimate and personal because when you embody god's attributes in this world then you are quite literally a vessel for his light and his presence in the world now at the most basic level god created the world in order to give our sages tell us that abraham spent his life seeking god before god even spoke a word to him he pondered and philosophized and searched so what happened abraham looked at nature and realized that it was finite and therefore something had to have created it people worshipped the stars but they too were finite the only thing that could create the finite world outside of the finite is the infinite and if something is infinite it is definitionally lacking nothing so the only reason for this infinite me being to create the world is to give and so the ultimate act of godliness is to give this is why in the world of truth we should say thank you to the people who we give tzedakah to whom we give charity to if the poor people didn't exist then who would we have to give to in order to come close to hashem on some level they are giving to us the opportunity to perform this godly act and come truly close to god and that in and of itself is charity so while they say thank you to us perhaps we should also be saying a very sincere thank you to them i know i've been guilty of this before walking around thinking i've earned this money it's mine but it really isn't true even the money we earn isn't ours it's charity that god is giving us the fact that the fact is that we're all charity cases and that is why even people who receive who received sadaka are obligated to give 10 of the charity they receive to tadaka themselves in the 19th century in england there lived a famous jewish philanthropist named sir moses montefiore queen victoria once asked him what is the extent of your wealth how much do you own sir moses told her that it would take him a few days to do some accounting and then he would reply when sir moses told her as well she became upset saying this is offensive everyone knows that you have far greater wealth than that and he explained that he considered his true wealth to be whatever money he had given already to tadaka anything else that he possessed was only temporary and could be confiscated or lost only what he gave to tadaka was truly his forever hashem abba please let us internalize why giving to dhaka is so important for you could provide for the poor yourself but as you told us in your holy torah you want us to give so that we realize that we're all brothers throughout the parsha it says give to your brother your brother your brother we are all connected we are all responsible for each other please hashem let your nation israel realize that we are not co-religionists but we are brothers and when we realize that then all of mankind can realize that we are all your children that we are all brothers then we are that were responsible for each other then peace can break out all over the earth and we can come together and raise our eyes to you together in peace and love in the holy city of jerusalem shalom my friends back to you jeremy oh thank you ari you