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The Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection is the one-stop shop for the Torah inspiration shared by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in one simple feed. The Jewish Inspiration Podcast, Parsha Review Podcast, Thinking Talmudist Podcast, Living Jewishly Podcast and Unboxing Judaism Podcast all in one convenient place. Enjoy!
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Thinking Talmudist podcast.
Welcome back everybody. Good morning. It is so wonderful to resume our Thinking Talmudist series. Last week we talked about the sensitivity that is required when someone gives charity. If you remember, it was a story about the great sage Marzutra who would give charity to a poor person discreetly, and one day that poor person wanted to know, who's that person putting the cash underneath my door?
See, he hid, he saw him, and he started running after him, probably to thank him, and he didn't want to embarrass him, so he ran, him and his wife, ran away from this poor person, and the only place they can hide was in a burning furnace. They ran into the burning furnace just not to embarrass the poor person who was the recipient of their charity. The Talmud says Noach lo l'odam sheyim sor atzmo l'toch kifshan ha'esh
It is better that a person should surrender himself into a fiery furnace, v'al yal bim pnei chavei barabim, that he should not shame his fellow in public. There's something magnificent about this, is that we need to remember that someone else's dignity is worth more than anything. The Talmud is teaching us how concerned we need to be about somebody else's dignity. When you shame someone, when you embarrass somebody in public, there's nothing more damaging to a person. There's nothing more damaging than
embarrassing them in public, and if a person is indeed going to be embarrassed, do anything you can not to hurt them publicly. So now the Gemara continues and shares a few more stories about this topic. So the Gemara relates another incident about Mar'ukvah's act of charity. Mar'ukvah hava anya b'shibivusah. Mar'ukvah had a pauper living in his neighborhood. Dehava rogil le'sheidurei le'arba me'o zuzi kol ma'alei yomadikipura. Who would be accustomed to send 400 zuz every Yom Kippur to this person. Yom achado
shadrin hu nahalei biyad b'rei. One day he sent the money to him with his son. Osa amar le lo tzarekh. But Mar'ukvah's son returned and said to his father, he doesn't need the money. You're giving him money. You don't need the money. He doesn't need the money. Amar may chazis. He says really, what did you see that tells you that he doesn't need the money? He says chazai diko me'zalfei le'yayin yoshan. I saw that he was aromatizing. He was, you know, swigging around really expensive aged wine.
Amar mefana kulei hay. Mar'ukvah said to his son, is he so pampered that he is drinking such expensive wine? I'm giving him charity thinking he's a poor person and here you go. You see him drinking this fine wine. He must need more money than I have been sending him. That's what he says. He says he must be needing more money. Ay finu vichadrinu nahalei. Mar'ukvah therefore doubled his contribution and sent it off to him.
What are we talking about here? What is Mar'ukvah thinking? Why is he doing this? Our sages tell us something really incredible. We learned this last week and we need to repeat it. The verse in the Torah. The verse in the Torah that talks to us about giving charity says as follows. Deuteronomy 15, 8. Ki patoach tiftach, ki pasoach tiftach, rather you shall surely open your hand, esyad chalo, to him, to the poor person, v'ha'abey tabitenu, and surely inspect dei machsoro,
sufficiently for his need, asher yachsalo, what he is lacking. See we think that charity is we have a line of poverty and that poverty line, as long as he's above the line, we're good. Sages say no, we have to do better than that. What does that mean better than that? What we need to do actually is see what he's lacking. This guy used to be chauffeured around in his Rolls Royce. He was the CEO of the company. He had people bringing him his coffee.
He was living a luxury life. Sadly, he lost his business. He lost his marriage. He lost his home. He lost his car. He lost all his privileges and now he's sitting at the Metro waiting for a bus. It's not that he's now living in a rental apartment instead of living in his palatial mansion in River Oaks. That's not the problem. The problem is he's humiliated every time he has to go on a bus. Like what's the big deal? He should learn. The Torah says be sensitive
to the standards that he was accustomed to. Be sensitive. Now that doesn't mean that you have to become poor so that they live their affluent lifestyle. No, that's not what it means. What it means is at least feel their pain. At least understand what they're going through. That means that even if I can't provide that for them, you know, the example that Rashi gives over there, Rashi says even if he needs a horse and a carriage and
servants to run in front of it, at least understand. It says habet tabitenu. Look, examine, evaluate, see at least the pain that he's enduring. Now again, I don't know anybody, we see here Marukva did do so, but I don't know anybody who's like saying, what? You know, I'm so excited that we can give them more money because they need more money to live on a higher lifestyle. It's like, come on, why are we giving them money if they're living rich?
I will tell you though a story. A friend of mine owns a pizza shop and he would get, he got a phone call from a certain organization that they were ordering like a bunch of pies of pizza from his pizza shop and he told his delivery guy, he says, don't charge them, don't charge. It's an organization, you know, what, 10 pies of pizza, 20 pies of pizza, just it's fine. And he did this for many years. Every week
they had this event or whatever they were doing for the employees, lunch provided, and this guy would just said, this is just, it's fine. Just like he wouldn't charge them. One day he didn't have a delivery guy. So he himself went to the organization to deliver the pizza. And he said that was the last time he gave it to them for free. He said, I looked at the place, the place is nicer than any, you know, they had the most decked out, most beautiful offices.
You know, top technology, everything was just on, you know, five star. He's like, these guys can pay for their pizza. Like, I don't understand. Like, now that's the opposite of Marukva, right? That's the opposite of Marukva, right? But still, it's very jarring for us to hear. What do you mean? This guy's living on a high standard. So now I have to give him more. It doesn't make any sense. Sages teach us, again, not that necessarily we have to now give more, but at least we have to feel
how big of a fall it was. So let's assume, we're assuming that everybody has to have a certain standard of living. So someone who was living at that standard, and they fell, okay, so let's get the math up there. But what if someone fell from here? So they fell all the way down. Now we say, okay, we're just going to put you here. But that's not where they're coming from. You understand what I'm saying? What the Torah is teaching us, have sensitivity from where they come from. Charity is not
a one-size-fits-all. Charity is very subjective to the individual who needs the charity. So the guy used to drive his four-by-four Dodge Ram pickup truck. You understand? It's very different for every person. That's why we need to learn. What the Torah is telling us is not, what the Talmud here is teaching us, is not necessarily how to give charity. It's how to feel the pain of another person. At least understand where they came from. Ha'abet tabiten was a double terminology. Ha'abet, look, you shall look.
Inspect, you shall inspect. What are you doing? Why does the Talmud say, why does the Torah say that? Because you have to look behind the surface. Look deeply. Look, inspect what's going on deep in their private life. Look how much they lost. Now you'll understand that the standards are different. This guy used to drink fine wines. He used to eat his aged steaks. Now he's what? He's back to rice and beans. You have to understand where they're coming from.
Okay, it's a very important thing the Talmud's teaching us. Mar'ukvah's final act of charity. Ki konicho nafsheh, when Mar'ukvah was dying, omar aisuli cheshbonai tzedaka. He says, bring me my records of my charity. Ashkach dehav eksivbeh, he found written therein, shivas alfei dinori si'ankeh, that he had given 7,000 si'ankeh dinars. Okay, what does that mean? A dinar is a currency. These dinars were so-called after their locale. According to the to the version of our text found in the Shi'iltos, they are Caesarian dinars.
And that would be the equivalent of 119 000 standard dinars. To understand how large of a sum that is, it should be noted that in several places in the Gemara referring to a huge fortune was called a hundred moneh. Mar'ukvah's contributions to charity were more than 10 times this amount. Okay, he gave an enormous amount of charity. Okay, I'll tell you that. I have a friend of mine. We'll talk about this in a second. I'll share with you a great thing. Let's just finish this piece over here.
Omar, Mar'ukvah remarked then, after seeing that he had given 7,000 dinars, My provisions are light and the way is long. He went ahead and lavished half his assets on charity. He gave away half of his charity, whatever was left. He gave away, meaning he felt that he was short. He was falling short of how much he should have given. And he gave half his assets away to charity. I have a friend of mine who told me he has two bank accounts.
He has his family bank account, and then he has God's account. He has God's account. Now, I want to just clarify that there are two different components that people confuse and conflate about charity. There's something called tithing. Tithing, a person earns $100, you give away $10, it doesn't belong to you. That $10 does not belong to you. You get $100, give away $10. It doesn't belong to you. It's a tithe. It's God giving it to us to be the distributors for him.
Charity is what we give above that 10%. Now, many people consider the 10% the charity, but that's not. That's not really the charity. That's the tithe. So, it's... Now, there's another responsibility. We'll see soon how much a person is allowed to give. The Talmud says that if a person gives more than a certain amount, he's considered to be reckless, because you're not going to have your own livelihood. You're not going to have your... you're not going to be able to take care of your own self
if you give more than a certain percentage. Now, there are people, I know people who were extremely, extremely, extremely supportive and philanthropic of many, many, many institutions. And what they did was they made a policy in their families, a big family that would give an enormous sums of money, their policy was they never give more than 50% of the organization's budget, ever. That was their policy. Why? They said, what happens if we lose our money?
If we lose our money, the organizations are all going to disappear. Therefore, their policy was they gave less than 50% of the budget, and organizations would come, they'd bring their budget, obviously, they'd verify everything, and they would then give 50% of the budget, less than 50%, 49%, whatever it was. But we understand that they gave an enormous amount, they gave to everybody. Now, I want to share with you something very, very special. So, the Talmud says, we learned this from the Torah,
that someone who is careful about tithing is guaranteed to not lose their money. Guaranteed not to lose their money. You will never lose by giving charity, ever. Well, we all know people who gave charity and lost their money, so how is that possible? Right? We all know those people who gave charity, and how is it possible? So, perhaps we can say, imagine the following, imagine someone calls you and says, Barry, can you be the executor for my charity?
Instead of people coming to me, I want people to go to you, you're the one who's going to give out the charity for me. Okay. You investigate, make sure they're for real, make sure they're genuine, these are the, you know, just, okay, these are the criteria. Fine. We're going to have a meeting every six months, we're going to evaluate, I'll keep putting money into the account, you keep giving it out, I can trust you. Okay, great. Six months later, we have a meeting,
and I find out that what is Barry doing, he's not keeping the money for himself, no, God forbid, he's very honest, but he's giving primary privilege, primary benefit to the institutions that he enjoys. My synagogue, my daughter's high school, my children's, you know, college, I'm giving money to their I say, one second, why are you giving money there? Why aren't you giving to the other places? Right, and I realize that it's because he has his own personal benefit. You can imagine that there's
a little bit of a tight rope there. It's going to be a little difficult to explain that. What do you mean you're, this is not you to create your benefit, so you're going to get a sign now, it's going to say the Barry, right, center for, that's not, you're using my charity to do your own benefits? That wouldn't be fair. Imagine God gives us money to distribute, and we are very, very selective about who we give to. That could be problematic, which is why it's important,
anybody who puts out their hand, our sages tell us, you give. It doesn't mean you have to give them the same amount, you can give a little bit more to the places that you enjoy or you appreciate, that's fine, but you give everybody. And that is the principle. We give to everybody that is, that is asking, that needs. That's an important thing. That's a very, very, very important thing. We're on a mission. We're on a mission. We're on a mission. We're on a mission.
That's a very, very, very important thing. We're on 67B, Intractate Ketubot. So the Talmud says here that he went ahead and lavished half his assets on charity. The commentaries here say that he said, I did not give enough to charity to sustain me for the long journey beyond death upon which I'm about to embark. Although his contributions amounted to a colossal sum, they were not commensurate in his view with his ability to give.
So it's not based on what everyone gives. It's based on what your abilities are. So for example, imagine Elon Musk, who's the wealthiest man on earth today. He's almost a trillionaire. Okay, trillionaire. Imagine he gave 50 billion dollars to charity. That's, yeah, that's like, it's like, wow, he's so, that's not even a tithe. You realize that's not even a tithe. His tithe would be a hundred billion dollars. A hundred billion dollars. That's not even a tithe. So it has nothing to do based on relative to other people.
Right? For someone who earns a hundred dollars and gives twenty dollars to a poor guy, he gave more than Elon Musk giving 50 billion dollars. Because to him, it's more than 10%. You understand? You understand how powerful that is? It's subjective to the individual. And here, Mar'ukvah felt it wasn't enough. Oh, you know what a sum he gave? It wasn't enough. So listen to what he did. He gave away half of his,
so now he said, the Talmud, the Halakha says that giving half of one's assets to charity at the time of death is like dividing one's own inheritance with one's ears, half to one's soul and half to the ears. Meaning the charity that you're giving is what you're giving to your soul. So you yourself are splitting your inheritance with your ears. Why? Because your soul is getting half with the charity that you're giving. And the Gemara asks, how was he permitted to do so?
Va'amah Rebbe Eloi, remember we said this, there's a limit to how much charity one is allowed to give. Rebbe Eloi said, Be'ushah hitkinu, in ushah they enacted a policy that hamebazbez alyebazbez yoser michomash. That one who lavishes money on charity should not give more than a fifth of his assets. So how is it possible that he gave half? It says you're not supposed to give more than a fifth. What's a fifth? 20%. So you're not supposed to give more than 20%.
Why did he give more? So the Talmud says, That's referring to one who's living. We're afraid that if he gives too much charity, he will become bereft of his possessions. One may make a bequest after his death. We're not concerned if they give more than a fifth to charity. The Gemara relates another incident of an Amorah who was careful not to embarrass the recipient of charity. Rebbe Abba would bundle money in his scarf, and he would sling it, his scarf, behind his back.
And he'd make himself available near the house of poor people. The poor would then untie the scarf and avail themselves to the money they found there. And Rebbe Abba would slant his eyes behind him to guard the money from swindlers. So he would make it, he would like drop, he would like put the scarf over his shoulder, and the money would fall out. And he would make sure that the poor people would get it. They think they found it on the street,
but really he left it there for them. And he'd make sure that no swindlers would get involved in this action. The Gemara relates another incident regarding a pauper with expensive tastes. Rebbe Hanina had a certain pauper, to whom he was accustomed to send four zuz every week for Shabbos. One day Rebbe Hanina sent the money with his wife. She came back to him and she says, he doesn't need your money. You're sending him four zuz every week for Shabbos, he doesn't need it.
He asks her, what did you see? That leads you to this conclusion. I heard him ask, upon what do you dine? Says, upon silver tablecloths or upon gold tablecloths. Replied, if so, that he is wealthy. This is an illustration of that which Rebbe Lazarus said, come and let us show gratitude to swindlers who pretend to be paupers in order to solicit charity. For if not for them, we would be sinning daily when we ignore the poor.
Beware lest there be an irresponsible thought in your heart and you will look malevolently upon your destitute brother and refuse to give him and he will appeal against you to Hashem and it will be a sin upon you. And Rebbe Chia, the son of Rebbe Diphty, taught in a bracer of Yeshua, Rebbe Yeshua said, whoever averts his eyes from charity is considered as if he worshiped idols. Why? Because it says, Beware lest there be an irresponsible thought in your heart.
Irresponsible men went out to entice the inhabitants of the city into committing idolatry. So it's using the same terminology. Over there, it's referring to idolatry. So to here, we say it's referring to idolatry. What is he saying here? He's saying we are concerned for people being dishonest. Dishonest in their request for charity. So if someone is doing that, you're not blamed when you don't give charity. That means it's a protective measure. Thank God there are swindlers. Because if not for the swindlers,
if we ignored, God forbid, a poor person would be held accountable. But now since there are people who are collecting charity dishonestly, then what happens? God doesn't blame you for turning away because you don't know if they're honest or not. That's why it's important. It's important to evaluate. And like you did last week, to consider all the options. To consider all the options. You have this charity, you have that charity. You have to know that it's going to good cause,
that they're not wasting it, and they're not building gold goblets for hobby. You have to know that it's genuine and that it's real. And when a person does that, hopefully they'll be protected from not giving to a cause that's not valid. Because there's nothing worse for a person to feel like they got cheated. They gave it with all their heart and it turns out it wasn't real. So that's why I believe that whenever an opportunity comes to a person,
a person has to do everything they can to give something. It doesn't have to be a lot. It doesn't have to be a life-changing sum. But to give something that way, if it is genuine, you had a part in it. If it's not genuine, okay, so someone cheated me out of the $1.50 I gave them. In charity, it's fine. It's not the end of the world. But at least if it was valid, I had a part in it. It's a special thing. Okay.
Yes, okay. So that we're going to get to when we study the Rambam. The Rambam gives the priorities of charity. Okay. So it always begins at home. Charity always begins at home. If you have either your own self or your own, I want to share with you an incredible story. Okay. I had a guy who came to my house. I said this story before. It's one of my favorite stories. I mean, I know. I know. One second.
I'm going to tell you. There's a guy who came to my house. I get a phone call. There's a rabbi coming to visit Houston. Can he stay in your home? Usually when that happens, it's someone who's coming to collect charity for whatever cause. This guy's coming from Israel. I came to my home. He stayed with us for Shabbos. He came to my classes. He loved it. He was so impressed. Great. After Shabbos, we're walking back from synagogue.
And I said to him after Havdalah, after we're done, you know, let's sit and talk about what you're here for. He said, what are you talking about? I said, you came here to collect money. He says, me collect money? No, no, I don't need anybody's money. I have plenty of money. But I want to share with you an incredible story. And he says the following story. He says, bring your family, sit around the table. I want you to hear the story.
When he got married, him and his wife lived in Jerusalem. And he was a scribe. Scribe, he would write mezuzahs. He would write scrolls for tefillin, for Torah scrolls. The biggest problem for a scribe is their drawer. Okay, if you have scrolls in your drawer, it's not good. Because that means you don't have a way to distribute them. You don't have a store that's going to sell them for you. It's a big problem because then the pile gets bigger and bigger. You keep writing.
It keeps getting bigger and bigger. And you have all this inventory and you have no way to get it out. And he said that drawer was filled. And he didn't have anything in his refrigerator for his family, for his wife and one child at that time. So he didn't know what to do. He said they were so poor. They were so poor. He says, you cannot imagine the poverty they were living with or living without and nothing.
So he went to his rabbi and he says to his rabbi, I want to know if I can get a reprieve from tithing. I'm so poor myself. I'm so poor myself, the charity should go to me. So the rabbi says, listen, this is too big for me to, for my shoulders. Go, there's a rabbi in Jerusalem. You should go talk to him. Goes to the rabbi, tells him his whole story. He says, I want to get a reprieve from giving a tithe.
The rabbi says, I'm going to give you a reprieve. But you have to promise me the following. You're not going to give a tithe anymore. You're going to give 20%. He says, I came to get off 10%, not to give 20. He says, make me a promise that you're going to give 20% and you will have the most incredible blessing. He goes home. He said, I have to talk to my wife. He goes home, tells his wife. His wife says, did you make a promise?
He said, no. He says, she says, you're an idiot. Why didn't you give a promise? The rabbi said, he's going to give you a blessing. She says, 20% of nothing is still nothing. So make the promise. You'll get the blessing. So he says, you know what? I'm making the promise. They stood there. They said, without an oath, because Jews were not allowed to make an oath. Without an oath, without a vow, we are committing that any dollar we earn,
we're going to give 20%. And the rabbi's blessing will rest upon us. He said, five minutes later, he gets a phone call. From the first rabbi. He says to him, where are you right now? He says to him, I'm home. He says, I need you in the yeshiva right now. Immediately, emergency. I need you here right now. He says, well, I don't have money for a cab. He says, go to your neighbor and borrow. You need to be here right now.
He borrowed money, 20 shekel. He told me he borrowed 20 shekel to go to the yeshiva to his rabbi. His rabbi is standing there talking to an old student from the yeshiva. And he says to him, here, this is the scribe. He says, this guy owns a very successful Judaica store in New York City. You guys should work together. This rabbi sitting in my house said to me, that was over 20 years ago. And I haven't had a single scroll in my drawer since.
And I asked him. I said, do you still give 20%? He says, I pledged it out before. And I looked at his scrolls. It was stunning, expensive. I said to him, can I buy one of these? He said, this scroll was already sold three years ago. I'm going to San Antonio to deliver it. That's why I came here. I came here to hand deliver the scrolls to the people who purchased them three years ago.
He says, I am sold out for the next few years already. So if you give me the money now, in a couple of years, you'll be able to get it. That's how sold out he is. He's never had a scroll back in that drawer. That's the power. When someone makes a commitment like that, right, it's guaranteed. The Go'onah Vilna says, it's a guarantee for enormous wealth. Right, we typically think the opposite. The more I hold on to it, the more I'll have.
The Go'onah says, it's just the opposite. The more you give, you're a good vessel for me giving. I'll give you more to give. Had a guy, and we'll finish off with this story. This is a true story. It happened with me. This guy randomly, totally randomly, sends me a check to the old torch center for like $13,542. I don't remember. It's a weird number. He sends me this check. Call him up and I tell him, you know, thank you so much.
But this is like, this is a lot of money. And it's a really odd number. Like what in the world is this? He said, I need to tell you the most incredible story. He said, I did not make enough money last year to cover my pledge. And I really felt bad. I wanted to, I said, you know what? I'm cutting the check to the exact number of what I owed you for my previous pledge. And I'm going to, I'm going to make it out.
I'm going to sign it, but it's going to still sit on my desk because I want to make sure that it won't bounce. He said, I got a phone call just a couple of days ago from my boss. And he says to me, I need to meet with you in my office. There's been an issue. He's like, oh, he's getting fired. So he comes into the office and the boss says to him, I need to apologize to you.
He said, we made our calculations and the bonus that you got last year was too little. We were $13,524 short of how much you were supposed to get. And he said, that's why you got that check. He said, exactly the amount we cut out for you was the exact amount that they left out of my bonus that I got as soon as I wrote out the check. Is that, it's like, it's unbelievable. It's like, it's, it's an amazing thing.
I have the letter still, by the way, I have the letter he wrote me explaining this whole, this whole thing. So you know what? It is only, Hashem gives us the opportunity. And when this is something we're studying in our Monday Night Musa Masterclass, we're in the middle of studying this magnificent book, The Gateway to Trust, trusting in Hashem, having reliance on Hashem. We like to be in control of everything. We're in a culture where everything is custom.
You can go to Starbucks and you order the double pump of caramel with a little bit of maple syrup and a teeny dash of sugar and a little splash of milk. And this and a half and a half, whatever it is, people, you can make everything custom. I'm in control of everything. There are 45 million varieties of coffee you can order at exact temperatures. We want to be in control of everything. Hashem says, let go and let me. Hashem should bless us all. Have an amazing Shabbos.
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