Charity - Partnership with Hashem in the Act of Creation | Rabbi Asher Perkesh

00:00 What is the point of giving tzedakah for ordinary people, simple people—people who can barely make it to the end of the month? Why does everyone need to give tzedakah? We know that this is the halachah. The Torah establishes, and halachah says, that every Jew must give tzedakah. There is a practice of giving tzedakah every day. The Gemara says in Bava Basra, page 10, in its discussion of tzedakah, and in other places: “Rabbi Elazar would give a coin to a poor person and then pray.” Before davening, Rabbi Elazar would give tzedakah, and afterward he would daven. This is also brought in halachah in the Shulchan Aruch. The question is: What exactly is the purpose of having each and every person give tzedakah? I can understand that when Hashem has blessed someone with wealth, blessed him with a comfortable income, and he has money to spare, he should use it to help others too. It is a beautiful thing to be kind and to give. But there is something more here, something inherent in giving tzedakah. We see that giving tzedakah is a goal in its own right: every Jew is obligated to give tzedakah, every Jew, whatever his circumstances, as we see from several details of halachah. What exactly is the point of giving tzedakah? Today we’ll learn something interesting and surprising that emerges from the Midrashim, and particularly from the teachings of Chassidus: a new and different way of looking at the whole subject of giving tzedakah. We are used to thinking—and at first glance, that is the straightforward way to understand it—that tzedakah is about society, giving, kindness, making sure people have what they need, doing good for people. But if we look at the sources and go deeper into the subject, we will reach a much deeper, fresh, and in some respects very surprising understanding of the mitzvah of giving tzedakah. First, let’s look closely at the word, the key word: tzedakah. That is what it is called in the Torah and in halachah. We call it

02:41 tzedakah. And here a simple question arises. The word tzedakah comes from the root tzedek, meaning “justice.” When we think of tzedakah, we mean something quite different. In our world, the mitzvah of tzedakah is understood as kindness, generosity. You give tzedakah, meaning you do an act of kindness. There is a person in need, a poor person, someone in a difficult situation who doesn’t have enough, and I, thank G-d, do have enough, so I give. But that is not the literal meaning. If we take the word tzedakah, we hear something quite different. Its literal meaning is justice, fairness. What do justice and fairness have to do with something that seems to be about kindness and generosity? That is something else entirely. Yet words in Lashon Hakodesh are precise. The fact that our Torah calls this mitzvah tzedakah carries a very, very deep message. To understand it, let’s begin with a difficult question, one that our Sages already asked: Why does this whole concept of tzedakah, of giving and kindness, exist in our world? Put more simply, why did Hashem create a world with poor people and rich people, with people in need who have nothing and people who have more than they need, creating this dynamic of giving, kindness, and tzedakah? What is the reason? This is not a new question. It is an age-old question. The Midrash, Midrash Rabbah on Parshas Mishpatim, tells us that King David asked Hashem this question about a verse in Tehillim, chapter 61: “Who will preserve kindness and truth for him?” The verse begins, “May he dwell forever before G-d,” and then it says, “Who will preserve kindness and truth for him?” The Midrash says that King David put this question to Hashem. His question

05:09 was about the words, “May the world be settled before G-d.” In other words, why didn’t Hashem make a more settled world, a more equal world, where everyone is on an equal footing? Let the world be settled: a world where everyone has what they need, where no one lacks anything, where there is a balance and each person has what they need. Then no one would have to plead, ask, or say, “I’m lacking something.” All the problems of rich and poor would disappear. Hashem answered him, “Who will preserve kindness and truth for him?” If I create a world where everyone’s needs are equally met, then who will preserve kindness and truth? How will they exist? There will be no kindness and truth, no genuine kindness in the world. Hashem wanted there to be kindness, for “the world to be built through kindness.” So, for kindness to exist in the world, one person must have something while another does not. Then there can be giving; there can be kindness in the world. We find this question presented in another, very interesting way in the Gemara, Bava Basra, page 10. The Gemara tells of an argument between Rabbi Akiva and the wicked Turnus Rufus. In Rabbi Akiva’s time there was a man, apparently a philosopher and a high-ranking Roman official, called the wicked Turnus Rufus. He hated the Jewish people. There are many stories about him in the Midrashim, and for some reason he liked arguing with Rabbi Akiva. They would meet and debate often. The Gemara relates that in one of their arguments, the wicked Turnus Rufus asked Rabbi Akiva, “Why do you perform acts of kindness? Why do you help the poor?” And he gave him a parable: To what can this be compared? To a king who had

07:15 servants. The servants behaved badly, so the king punished them and put them in prison. Then someone comes and takes them out of prison, feeds them, and gives them drink. Isn’t that rebelling against the king? Turnus Rufus was asking a simple question: Jews are servants of Hashem. We have sinned against Hashem, so we deserve punishment. If so, how can you come and help people who are suffering? Rabbi Akiva answered him with a different parable: A king had a son who sinned, so he put him in prison. Then a friend of the king came and helped the son, feeding him and giving him drink while he was in prison. Wouldn’t the king be happy that someone had helped his son? Of course he would. So Rabbi Akiva told Turnus Rufus: We are not merely servants of Hashem. We are called Hashem’s children, and when a son sins, the king is still happy when someone helps him. The Gemara continues that Turnus Rufus did not accept this. He said, “Sometimes you are called servants, and sometimes you are called children. When we do the will of Hashem, we are children; when we do not do His will, we are servants.” Rabbi Akiva answered that this was not quite right. He brought proof from verses that even when the Jewish people are in exile, in darkness, going through difficult times when we are not doing the will of Hashem, Hashem still expects us to help one another. But where is the explanation here? It’s a beautiful story, but what exactly were they arguing about, and what exactly was the explanation? In both accounts—when King David asks Hashem and Hashem answers him, and in Rabbi Akiva’s exchange—we need to understand the deeper explanation. What exactly is Hashem telling King David? And the same question applies to Rabbi Akiva: What exactly is the explanation? It seems like a clever exchange of parables.

09:11 And examples. But getting to the heart of it, what is the real explanation? What was Turnus Rufus’s argument, and what did Rabbi Akiva answer him? Here we reach the deeper point, as Chassidus illuminates and explains it for us. There’s something very interesting here. Turnus Rufus the wicked came from a Roman worldview. When he looked at the question of poor people and rich people, he saw it as fate. Or, to put it in perhaps more spiritual terms, as a matter of what a person deserves. If someone became rich in life, he deserved to be rich. Even if you look at it from a G-dly perspective, he must have behaved well; he deserves to be rich. And someone who is poor deserves to suffer. Life, fate, his own conduct—whatever it was—brought one person to wealth and the other to poverty. So if someone has been destined to be poor, that’s how things are. That’s nature, that’s reality, that’s his fate; that’s how it should be. So how can you interfere? You’re interfering with the creation of the world. In other words, if we take Turnus Rufus’s question to a deeper level, it really is a profound philosophical question. He argues that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world and its rules, and gave everyone what they deserve. As in the well-known saying of our Sages: You created poor people, You created rich people, You created wise people, You created foolish people. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created different kinds of people in the world, with different kinds of lives. So someone destined to be poor deserves to be that way, and if we make changes, we are seemingly interfering, imposing ourselves and mixing

11:16 our own approaches into it, changing the nature and reality of the world Hakadosh Boruch Hu created. That is his argument. What does Rabbi Akiva answer him? What is the deeper meaning of Rabbi Akiva’s response to Turnus Rufus? And this is also what Hakadosh Boruch Hu explains to King David. The point is that the whole foundation of this way of thinking is mistaken. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created reality precisely so that a Jew would come and make a change in creation. It isn’t as Turnus Rufus thought, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created things a certain way because that’s how they’re meant to stay. On the contrary: Hakadosh Boruch Hu created reality a certain way because He wants man, through his work, through his effort and actions, to change creation—to perfect the world. This connects to another story the Midrash tells about Rabbi Akiva and Turnus Rufus. It seems that the same debate came up on different subjects, which are connected to one another. The Midrash tells a very interesting story about an argument they had concerning bris milah. As is known, the Romans decreed against circumcision and forbade the Jewish people to perform a bris milah, but Jews continued to do so with mesirus nefesh, risking their lives. Here, too, Rabbi Akiva and Turnus Rufus argued. Turnus Rufus asked him, “Why perform a bris milah? If Hakadosh Boruch Hu dislikes the foreskin, why didn’t He create man without one in the first place, so that he would be born already circumcised? Why did Hashem make it so that a person is born with a foreskin and then has to undergo the pain of a bris milah on the eighth day? If Hashem doesn’t

13:12 want it, He could have created him without it from the outset.” The Midrash relates that instead of answering him, Rabbi Akiva asked for food to be brought to the table: baked goods on one side, and a plate of wheat on the other. He said to him, “Please, help yourself.” Turnus Rufus, of course, immediately took some of the baked cakes. Rabbi Akiva said, “Wait, why aren’t you eating the wheat? After all, if Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted you to eat bread, He should have made ready-made loaves grow on trees. But that isn’t how it is. Hakadosh Boruch Hu made wheat, and then we have to work on it and grind it. It takes a whole process before we have cakes. Why did Hashem make it that way? Because, on the contrary, Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted it this way. And this is the verse at the heart of Rabbi Akiva’s position, as opposed to Turnus Rufus’s. It says of the creation of the world, as we say in Kiddush, ‘which G-d created to do.’ The words ‘to do’ seem unnecessary. Why not just say ‘which G-d created’? What does ‘created to do’ mean?” Rabbi Akiva explains to him: “Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world in a way that left it imperfect. The world is not complete, and particularly man: He created him in a way that things are not complete. ‘To do’ means to perfect.” We learn this from various verses, such as “And He made the luminaries”—He perfected them. “Doing” can mean perfecting. “Which G-d created”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world, but He created it incomplete so that man would come and perfect it. A person perfects the world through his work, through his involvement. Animals get their food without having to toil. They go straight to the field: those that eat vegetables, those that eat grass, those that eat other animals—they take what is there. But a person does not. He has to prepare it, to go through a whole process before his food is ready. In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created man specifically so that things would not be complete for him. He is the one who perfects creation.

15:28 The same is true of bris milah. A person is born in an imperfect state—and beyond all the explanations of this, a person is born with desires. Because the question about bris milah is actually a much deeper question. It isn’t only about the mitzvah of bris milah itself; it concerns the whole subject of desires and restraining them. Turnus Rufus’s argument is really much broader. He looks at the reality of creation: a person is born a certain way; that’s who he is, that’s how he behaves, and that’s how he should live his life. What does it mean to change? What does it mean to become gentler? What does it mean to do something different? A person is the way he was born. Just as a lion will always be a lion, a dog will remain a dog, and a horse will remain a horse—that is their reality and their nature—so, too, a person has his nature and his desires. You aren’t going to change him. Rabbi Akiva explains to him: No. Unlike the rest of creation, man comes into the world to perfect things, to make a change, not to leave things as they are. And here we come to the deeper point concerning giving tzedakah: “The world is built through kindness.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave man an extraordinary gift: a person becomes a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the creation of the world. A person has this extraordinary gift, this extraordinary privilege, that he becomes, as it were, a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu

17:30 In the creation of the world. There is a teaching of our Sages in Tractate Shabbos: Whoever recites “And the heavens and the earth were completed” on Friday night becomes a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the work of creation. What does that mean, a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the work of creation? We are talking about the Creator, and we are ordinary created beings. How do we become His partners in creation? But this is essentially the point Rabbi Akiva explains. Hakadosh Boruch Hu was the first to perform kindness. He bestows, gives, and passes things on. The whole reality of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s creation of the world is one of giving and kindness. It is a matter of giving and receiving. Hakadosh Boruch Hu formed and created the world so that the entire world is based on giving and receiving. There is a giver and there is a recipient; there is one who bestows and one who receives. That is the whole reality of the world. “The world is built through kindness,” and it begins with every detail of creation. Hakadosh Boruch Hu made “and there was evening and there was morning.” There is the dynamic of evening and morning, darkness and light. There is one who receives, one who bestows, one who gives. There is a sun, there is a moon, there is a man, there is a woman—everything in the world has this reality of giving and receiving. And in fact, no one is one hundred percent a giver, and no one is one hundred percent a recipient. On the contrary, each and every person has aspects of both. In certain things I am the giver and he is the recipient; in other things he is the giver and I am the recipient. Because that is really the secret of creation. The secret of creation is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu established the world on giving and receiving, kindness, bestowing and receiving. Whenever I am here in the world, every Jew, every created being in the world, has

19:32 the ability to become a giver or a recipient within creation. And for that to happen, there has to be someone who bestows and someone who receives. There has to be one who has and one who does not. Now, having and not having is not only about money. Of course, for one person it may be about money: he has money and the other person does not. So the one who has becomes the giver, and the one who does not becomes the recipient. But on the other hand, sometimes a person who gives when it comes to money is, in another respect, the recipient when it comes to wisdom, Torah, or knowledge. There are all kinds of things. Every person has something unique to him that he can give—talents, abilities, particular things in which I am the giver. And there are other things for which I need someone else. This dynamic of one who bestows and one who receives begins in its highest source, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, where everything is based on giving, bestowing, and receiving. And that is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to King David: When a Jew helps another person, the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu made one person rich and another poor is not because, as you thought, one deserves it and is therefore rich, while the other does not deserve it and is therefore poor. It has nothing to do with that. From the outset, Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives certain people money that belongs to another person. In other words, the rich man has more money not because he actually deserves more money. Hakadosh Boruch Hu entrusted it to him; it is a kind of deposit. The poor man’s money is deposited with the rich man, who holds it in his hands. Hakadosh Boruch Hu could certainly have given it directly. He is Hakadosh Boruch Hu,

21:33 who nourishes and sustains each and every person, as we say in Birkas Hamazon, “Who nourishes the entire world in His goodness, with grace, kindness, and mercy.” And out of His kindness, Hakadosh Boruch Hu certainly could have given each person everything he lacks directly, without any difficulty. But here is the whole point. Because of His great goodness and His great kindness, Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to give us the wonderful privilege, the wonderful ability, to be partners, so to speak, in the work of creation—to make the created being resemble its Creator. That is, the person down here has the possibility, through giving tzedakah, of making himself resemble the Creator, so to speak. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the source of great kindness, the One who gives and bestows, who created the world and sustains it and gives each person what he needs, when I, too, put myself in a position to give, I become, so to speak, a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in giving. That is why giving is so important: through it, we become like Hakadosh Boruch Hu, partners with Him, in the whole purpose of the world’s creation. The Frierdiker Rebbe once told a very interesting story at a farbrengen. There was a chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek named Reb Yisroel of Polotsk. Polotsk was a town in Russia, a town full of scholars and learned people, ordinary people and businesspeople. This chossid owned a shop and had a comfortable livelihood. There was a group of chassidim, families living there, who, thank G-d, were fairly well-off for those times. Once, Reb Yisroel traveled to visit the Tzemach Tzedek in Lubavitch. He was there for Shabbos Parshas Lech Lecha. That Shabbos, the Tzemach Tzedek, as was his holy custom, delivered a maamar of Chassidus and explained very deep subjects concerning Avraham Avinu, the weekly parsha, and what we learn from Avraham Avinu. Among other things,

23:52 the Tzemach Tzedek quoted the Midrash: “The attribute of kindness said to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, ‘Since Avraham Avinu was created in the world, I have not needed to do my work, for Avraham stands and serves in my place.’” That is what the Midrash says. In other words, there is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s attribute of kindness, His kindness. The attribute of kindness is one of His attributes, through which Hashem bestows and gives all the good in the world. So, the Midrash says, the attribute of kindness complained, so to speak, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It said, “Since Avraham has been in the world, doing kindness for all creatures in such a wonderful way, I have nothing to do in the world. He stands and serves in my place.” The Tzemach Tzedek explained that when a Jew down here in the world—a soul in a physical body, with an animal soul—nevertheless performs kindness and gives, at that moment he takes the place, so to speak, of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s attribute of kindness; he becomes a vehicle for it. And more than that, he said, it is even more exalted. For a person who has the limitations of a body, a yetzer hara and an animal soul, and nevertheless gives—that is something much more precious, so to speak, in the eyes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And that was Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu was generous, as the Midrash says, with his money, his body, and his soul. It is written, “I am a shield for you.” The Hebrew word for “shield” is an acronym for “his money, his body, his soul.” Avraham was generous with his whole being, and through his service he took the place of the attribute of kindness. The Tzemach Tzedek concluded that when a Jew engages in tzedakah and acts of kindness, his body becomes a vehicle, so to speak, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s attribute of kindness. Reb Yisroel, who was a simple Jew, heard these words and was deeply inspired. When he returned

26:16 to his home, because it was customary among chassidim, when they returned from the Rebbe, to hold a farbrengen, invite the whole town, and tell everyone what they had heard. So Reb Yisroel told the chassidim, his friends, these words. He did not understand the full depth of the maamar, the long and profound teaching the Rebbe had explained. But he heard this point, listened to it, took it to heart, and shared it with the chassidim. Naturally, all the chassidim who were there at the time were deeply inspired. From that moment on, they resolved among themselves to practice kindness and giving even when there was no need, simply for the sake of increasing kindness in the world. They would go into one another’s shops and ask for a kindness, perhaps a loan. Sometimes it was not something they actually needed; they would borrow, lend, and repay just to give the other person the opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of lending. A wonderful pattern of giving, kindness, and helping one another developed in that town. The Rebbe Maharash, the son of the Tzemach Tzedek, related that a year later, when that chossid returned to the Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, his father, said to him: “Look at this Jew, Reb Yisroel of Polotsk. I see a pillar of light, the light of the attribute of kindness, above his head.” This point of giving, of kindness, is the great insight Chassidus teaches us, and it explains why tzedakah is called tzedakah. It is not merely an act of kindness. It is a matter of tzedakah—of justice and what is right. If I understand that the money in my possession was meant from the outset to be given, that in essence this money belongs to someone else, then there is no sense of “I am the giver and you are the recipient.” There is no sense of “I,” no egotism in giving from a place of “I have something, so I am giving it to you.”

28:24 It is not “You are unfortunate; you have nothing.” On the contrary, it comes from a much more inward, much deeper place. The whole act of giving rests on the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants there to be giving. It is giving without any egotism—giving that comes from the feeling that this is just, this is right. From the outset, it belongs to the other person, and when I give it to you, I am giving you what belongs to you. There was a well-known saying among the early chassidim, going back to the time of the Alter Rebbe, the author of Tanya. When they gave to one another and hosted one another, they would say: “The piece of bread I am giving you is yours just as much as it is mine”—and they would put “yours” before “mine.” In other words, the piece of bread is yours from the outset; it just happens to be in my possession. So in this giving there is no sense of “I am the giver and you are the recipient.” “The world is built through kindness.” And here comes a surprising insight that the Rebbe once discussed at a farbrengen in connection with this. He added: “If we take this point to its deeper meaning, we arrive at something wonderful. When we speak about giving tzedakah—pure giving, giving without any egotism, without any pride, without any sense that I am the giver—it is giving solely because ‘the world is built through kindness.’ To be partners with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the work of Creation, we give and show kindness, becoming part of the vehicle for Hashem’s kindness. My hand, as it were, becomes His hand, an extended hand of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to bestow, and He bestows through me. That is how we view our acts of kindness. So the giving is pure, without the slightest trace of egotism; it comes from a G-dly place. But there is something even more surprising. Even

30:18 the receiving by the person who comes to accept tzedakah comes from that same place. Seemingly, the person receiving tzedakah genuinely needs it. He is lacking something; he needs to support his children or maintain his institution. He comes to ask because he needs it, so he is the one in need. I receive because I truly need to. But if we understand that the entire foundation here is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted there to be a giver and a recipient so that this partnership could be realized, then the recipient, too, is a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the work of Creation. The person receiving the money also becomes part of the partnership. So the receiving, too, is for the sake of Heaven, not just the giving. This is a wonderful idea, and it gives us a new perspective on the whole matter of giving and receiving tzedakah. On this basis, the Rebbe explained the verse, “And they shall take for Me an offering.” Parshas Terumah opens with the words, “And they shall take for Me an offering.” What does “take for Me an offering” mean? It is not only about giving the offering, but also about taking it: “And they shall take.” “For Me” means “for My sake.” Receiving the offering must also be for the sake of Heaven. So when we come to give tzedakah and ask the question, we now understand that something much deeper is involved. Do I need to give tzedakah even when I do not have enough? Why give tzedakah? What is the purpose of giving tzedakah even for someone who is not wealthy and does not have spare money in his pocket? When we understand that the whole point of giving tzedakah is that “the world is built through kindness,” that it means being a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the work of Creation, then the very act of giving tzedakah—even if I give just one small coin, even if I give something—connects me with Hakadosh Boruch Hu and makes me

32:13 a vehicle for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And when a Jew gives without limits, providing for someone who lacks what he needs, then Hakadosh Boruch Hu, too, gives and bestows upon him from His full, open, holy, and generous hand. This is the great kindness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who gives to each person without limit, as the verse says: “I will pour out a blessing for you beyond measure.” It is specifically with regard to giving tzedakah that the verse tells us, “Test Me, please, in this.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu says: Test Me; I give without limits. If you give tzedakah, you may test Me. This is the only area in which the Torah permits a person, as it were, to test Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If you give tzedakah without calculations, I, too, will give you “a blessing beyond measure”—an abundant flow of blessings in everything each person needs, and more.