Give and Take

On a drive home with my mom the a few weeks ago, we saw a number of volunteers standing alongside the median, holding out cans for charity.   While stopped at a light, she kind of just stared onward, hoping to make eye contact and just drive on.  Not that my mom isn't a generous person, but she's never been one to arbitrarily hand money out to donations to strangers.  

What with all the ALS Ice Bucket challenge videos that have been flooding the Internet, it has been hard to escape at least some consideration of being charitable.  But when the choice is between pouring ice water over your head and donating $100, it's not entirely surprising to see why we got so many videos.

I recently saw the following email from a friend's old rabbi discussing the nature of Tzedakah (lit. "justice", but frequently used to describe charity), which I found interesting enough that I wanted to share:

I was walking with Levi (our 18 month-old boy) on Liacouras Walk a few days ago, and we passed Alumni Circle where one of the sororitys was doing a "Can Shake" for 9/11, asking for spare change for charity. Levi was very excited about the noise, I think he wanted to join the sorority just to be able to shake the can. I gave Levi a quarter for Tzedaka, and he put it in Emily's can.

As we were walking away, there were two students right behind us who were commenting on the can-shake in general it seems. "I don't have any SPARE change, I save my change to do laundry". The other one responded "Yeah, one day I'll have a really good job and then I'll be able to give a lot of charity, until then I need every penny."

And here comes the part of the story that you won't believe: I didn't even interrupt them to offer my (figurative) two cents about their comments! ;)  But no worries, I'll share my thoughts with you here:

A. "How often you give Tzedaka," said the 12th century sage Maimonides, "is more important than how much."

Why? Because when you write a check for $365, a good cause gets another $365. But give a dollar every day for 365 days -- and your hand becomes a giving hand. As an anonymous Jewish sage wrote, "A person is more influenced by the things he does than by the knowledge he is taught." We need to start training ourselves young, so that when our resources grow and we have that dream job (God willing soon), we will already be a giving person.

B. "Charity" is when I give MY money to someone else - even though they don't deserve it / didn't earn it - because I'm feeling generous. The jewish idea of Tzedakah, on the other hand, is that the money was never meant for me in the first place; the "spare change" was meant to be just that; spare change for Tzedaka. There is even a Jewish teaching recorded in the Code of Jewish Law, which stipulates that: "Everyone is obligated to give charity. Even people supported by charity must contribute from what they receive."

I don't know that I agree 100% with what was said, but again, just an interesting little essay I thought I'd share.  I've never made it a real point to understand why I sometimes feel a "need" to be charitable, I guess because I've never really given beyond my means or the amount of chump change laying about in my back pocket.  Is it pity for our fellow men?  A way to feel better about ourselves?  Guilt from engrained social mores?  A mixture of things, I suppose.

In the end, it's still just an exchange that we get to put our own tag on.  And even if then the price is too high.  Well.  It's a nice thought, but no one said you had to buy.

Until the next.