Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
Rebekah Kantor Bat Mitzvah
Shabbat Behar-B'chukotai
May 14, 2004
How and When To Give
On this Shabbat throughout the world, we Jews complete the third of the five Books of Moses. The last two Torah portions of Leviticus are combined - chapters 25-27 - and are packed with rather radical ideas.
For example, there is the law of Shemitah - the statute that one year out of every seven the land shall lie fallow and the farmer shall rest. This law has two purposes: the first is to testify that the earth is God's, not ours. One year out of every seven the earth shall rest, not only because this is good for the soil, but so that we humans will be reminded that the right to use the earth is a privilege given to us by God and never to be taken for granted. The second reason for the Shemitah year was so that the farmer could have a sabbatical, a year in which to study, to travel, just to be, so that he would not become a clod.
Isn't that a rather radical idea? Can you imagine how different our society would be if everyone - not just professors, but every one - school teachers and plumbers, doctors and taxi drivers, accountants and roofers - were given time off one year out of every seven? It would not only wipe out unemployment; it might help make us truly human beings, not just money-making machines.
There are a number of other laws in these two Torah portions which are equally ahead of their times, such as statutes covering the rights and duties of laborers, ordinances that deal with the cancellation of debts, and more. But tonight I want to focus on two insights into the art of giving which are found in this sedra. The first is a lesson on how to give; the second is instruction on when to give.
First, let's focus on how to give. The Hebrew language is rich in words for poor people. There is oni, evyon, dal, rash and other synonyms, yet none of these words is used in this week's Torah portion. Instead the Torah uses one word to describe the poor man - we would say poor "person" - over and over again. He is called achicha, which means "your brother."
This is the Torah's way of reminding us that the beggar is not some deplorable creature, some tramp to be given a few coins and sent on his way; the beggar is your brother or sister, a person made in the image of God, just as we are. She or he deserves not only tsedakah, but also some kindness and respect. Therefore, when we give, we should do so as tactfully and with as much sensitivity as we can. As important as that you give is how you give, for it is possible to give in such a way as to shame, and it is possible to give in such a way as to enhance the dignity of the person who receives. Terms such as amitecha, your neighbor, and ahicha, your brother, appear over 14 times in just one chapter of this week's Torah portion. They serve to remind the reader that we must see others not through the impersonal lens of dollars or shekels, but as members of a community, of a common family.
Never does the Torah suggest that, if your kinsmen is in dire straits, it is his own fault and he needs to fix it. Nor does it lecture that your kinsman is the victim of social structures beyond his control which need to be changed. The Torah does not address itself to why the kinsmen's poverty occurred in the first place. It simply instructs that we may not abandon anyone to poverty. All of us are connected, implicated in each other's suffering. From God's perspective, there is no "them"; there is only "our brother" and "our sister" - our kin.
Many of us remember the picture which used to accompany a solicitation from Boy's Town in Nebraska. The picture was of an older sibling carrying a younger with the caption "He ain't heavy - he's my brother." That is what this week's Torah portion is intended to teach us. How many of us were shown that picture and caption by our parents? I believe that one of the ways we honor our parents - whether they are living or dead - is by caring for our siblings.
There is a classical Jewish story about a couple who had two sons - one well off and one extremely poor. The couple wanted to have a big 50th anniversary party, so they told their wealthier son to spare no expense in honoring them - they would reimburse him. The son threw a lavish party and came in eloquent clothes. His poor brother came in rags. When the rich son went to his parents to be reimbursed, they said: "Sorry - we said to honor us. If you had truly intended our honor, you would not have allowed your brother to come dressed like a beggar."
When we act as our sister and brother's keeper, we fulfill our parents' dream for us and truly honor them. The Book of Proverbs (17:17) teaches "At all times we love a friend, but a brother is born for adversity." The Jewish understanding is that friends are wonderful for the good times, but a sibling is there to help when a sibling is in trouble. And again, "brother" or "sister" does not mean just biological brother or sister.
There is wonderful story by the Russian writer Turgenev which I love to tell. It is a deeply Jewish story about how we should relate to the poor . Turgenev writes: "Once I was walking in the street and a beggar approached me. He was a frail old man; his inflamed eyes, blue lips, rough rags, disgusting sores made him a repulsive man indeed. Poverty had disfigured him. He stretched out his red, swollen, filthy hand to me and, as he did, he whispered like an animal unable to speak. Only his eyes pleaded for help.
"I reached into my pocket - no purse, no wallet did I find. I had left them behind at home. The beggar waited and his outstretched hand twitched and trembled. Embarrassed and confused, I seized his hand and pressed it with mine. 'Don't be angry with me, brother. I have nothing with me; I have nothing to give you, brother. Please forgive me.'
"The beggar raised his bloodshot eyes to mine; his blue lips smiled and he returned the pressure of my fingers with his. 'Never mind,' he stammered. 'Thank you for this, for this too was a gift. No one has ever called me brother before'."
And so our Torah portion says v'chee-yamuch achicha. "When your brother becomes poor" (Leviticus 25:39) in order that we should realize that this poor person is a human being entitled to dignity, entitled to be treated with respect, entitled to be treated as a kinsman. That is the first lesson I would have us learn from this week's Torah portion. The poor person is our brother, our sister, our kin, our neighbor.
Let's turn to the second lesson. Leviticus 25:25 says: "If, or when, your brother is in straits and has to sell part of his holding, his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold." Imagine the situation. One of our neighbors, our kin, has gotten into financial tsuras, enough so that he or she has to sell some property, selected belongings. It is at this point that we are to step in. We are not to wait until the person files for bankruptcy or reorganization, not wait until the person comes begging. When we pick up a clue that things are not well with our brother or our sister, that is when we are supposed to intervene.
"If your kinsman stumbles," is the literal meaning of Leviticus 25:35. Our sages comment that it is easier to support a person and help him or her up when the person first begins to stumble, than it is to pick the person up after he or she has fallen. It is easier to prevent poverty than to cure it. That is an important truth we need to learn - that the time to give tsedakah, the time to take action to help someone is before the person collapses, not afterwards.
I am sure that many of you, like me, grew up with the stories of those ridiculous people of Chelm. The Chelmites once confronted the situation of a steep mountain road with a dangerous curve; people kept falling over the cliff. So what did the foolish people of Chelm do? They built a hospital at the bottom of the hill. What they should have done was build a fence at the top of the hill.
We laugh at those Chelmites, but we do much the same. Learning about a person who has been hospitalized for an emotional breakdown, people will come to visit and try to do whatever they can, after she has collapsed. But all the time when she was heading for a breakdown, no one seemed to have time to notice, to pay attention, to reach out to help her.
It is true of so many other cases. We can raise funds for the victims of car accidents a lot easier than we can gather support for traffic lights or speed bumps which might prevent car accidents. We in Oklahoma always find room in our budget for more prison facilities in which to warehouse criminals - but it is so much harder to find money for Head Start Programs, for counseling programs, for good child care programs which might prevent so many people from becoming criminals. You know it is much easier to get a patient to agree to undergo treatment in order to overcome an illness than it is to persuade a person to give up the sweets, tobacco or liquor which are likely to cause the illness.
The second lesson on the art of giving we learn from this week's Torah reading is that the time to give is before the damage is done. Prevention is better, easier and less costly than rehabilitation.
So let me conclude with a lesson in the art of tsedakah which comes from an old movie which was made when the Israeli film industry was just starting. The movie is called Chamishia. It had five short, funny skits. One was a parody on Israeli bureaucracy. The government had passed a law that because of the shortage of meat and because of the shortage of grazing land, any cow which did not give a certain amount of milk each month was to be slaughtered.
A young boy had a cow which was not meeting its quota. This boy loved his cow and wanted desperately to save it. So he took his cow and went to Tel Aviv; the boy went from one office to another looking for help, but to no avail.
One of the politicians spoke to the cow and gave it a long lecture about the history of the Zionist Movement and how it was the cow's patriotic duty as a citizen of the State of Israel to give more milk. The cow did not give.
The boy then took his cow to a professor of economics who showed the cow numerous charts and graphs and explained to it how important milk was to the economy of the country. But the cow still did not give.
Then the boy took his cow to a psychologist. The psychologist listened to the cow and tried to determine if there were any inner problems, any repressed feelings left over from its childhood, any lingering resentments of its parents that were holding it back from giving milk. But the cow still would not give milk.
So the boy took his cow to a motivational expert. The motivational expert played happy songs in order to raise the cow's spirit. But the cow still would not give. It danced a bit, kept time to the happy music with its tail, but it did not give milk.
So finally the boy took his cow home and played sad music for it - and guess what? The cow immediately began to give. The boy was ecstatic and he said to himself - now I understand. This must be a Jewish cow.
Actually it must have been a human cow, not just a Jewish cow, because this seems to be human nature. We all give in response to tragedy, but we do not give early enough to prevent a tragedy. We all give when the music is sad enough, but not before. And it is not because we are cruel people. If we were cruel, we would not give afterwards either. I believe it is because we do not notice the pain around us in time. We are each so involved in our own affairs, our own lives, that we do not notice what is going on around us until often it is too late.
We are like the people in Chelm who travel on the edge of a cliff, and every day people fall off the precipice. So we build a hospital at the foot of the hill instead of building a fence at the top. We are like the people described in the commentary to today's Sedra who are too lazy to help a person stumbling and then are willing to pick him up after he collapses, when it is much harder to help.
So these are the two lessons in the art of giving that we learn from this week's Torah portion - first to give with sensitivity and with dignity and with the awareness that the poor person is our brother or sister, our neighbor, our kin; and, second, to give a helping hand before it is needed because prevention is always much easier and much less costly than repair.
We are our brother and sister's keeper. Family takes care of family, and we are all family. Only when we understand that and act upon it in a sensitive and timely manner can we hope that God will take care of us. Amen
I am indebted to Rabbis Michael Gold and especially Jack Riemer for the lessons embodied in this message.
