Test Me with This: Tzedakah and Bitachon

Q: How can we understand the Gemara (Taanis 9a) that says if you give ma’aser you will acquire wealth, and that you even have a right to test Hashem on this?

A: The Gemara is not the only place that says so. The pasuk says, “Uvchanuni na bazos — Test Me with this,” Hashem says, “when you give ma’aser, im lo eftach lachem es arubos hashamayim — to see whether I won’t open the doors of heaven for you and shower down blessings on you” (Malachi 3:10).

So the pasuk tells you that we have a right to expect from Hashem that in return for giving ma’aser, He will bless you with prosperity. Now, it’s talking there about ma’aser of your produce, of your crops, but the same logic is applied to giving ma’aser from money. The idea is that Hashem blesses a man in those things that he uses for the service of Hashem.

I’ll give you an example. In the times of the Beis Hamikdash, there was a mitzvah to pour water on the mizbei’ach — water was one of the things we offered up. The Gemara says in the name of Hashem, “Nasechu lefanai mayim bechag — Pour water before Me, kedei sheyisbarchu lachem gishmei shanah — so that the rains of the year should be blessed” (Rosh Hashanah 16a). The principle is that if you’ll use part of the rain in the service of Hashem — how much water do you pour, after all? Only a small amount — in return, Hashem says, “I’m going to pour down rains of blessing.”

Q: What’s a good way to motivate someone to give tzedakah?

A: There was a gentile queen named Helene, the queen of Adiabene, who was influenced by Sages passing through her land and became an enthusiastic convert to Judaism. “All that she did was by the word of the Sages” (Sukkah 2b). Her son, Munbaz, was a ger, too, and he became king after his father. He, too, came under the influence of the Sages. When he started spending his father’s money on charity, on tzedakah, all his relatives tried to tell him how foolish he was. “Your forefathers saved this money, and you’re spending it?! They were piling up money in the treasury for generations, and now you’re going to spend it all?!”

“My forefathers were saving money below,” he answered, “and I am saving money Above.”

This is what he meant: what happens to the treasuries of kings? Sooner or later, they fall into the hands of others. But Munbaz was depositing the money in a bank where the returns are guaranteed. He was putting it into the Bank of the Afterlife, the safest place and the one that brings the greatest returns (Bava Basra 11a).

And it’s not just for the wealthy: every Jewish home should have pushkas, charity boxes. There was a time when every home had charity boxes nailed around the kitchen door on both sides, up and down. Each box represented a yeshiva in the Old Yishuv of Yerushalayim. People in Europe were poor, but they made sure to have pushkas around. Once or twice a year, an elderly Jew would come for each box, which he would unlock with his key, and empty the contents onto the table. It was a ceremony to show the family how they supported Torah. The mother and children stood as this man counted the pennies (a five-cent piece was a rarity, because it represented a bus fare), wrote out a receipt, and nailed the box back in its place with his little hammer.

In this, every family felt they were in contact with Yerushalayim, the holy city, and its Torah scholars. The Jewish mother always dropped something into the pushka before kindling the Shabbos candles, and her daughters learned to follow her example. In this way, the children grew up with a sense of responsibility for the Torah institutions. Later in life, they answered the letters and appeals of yeshivos throughout the world, and some came to shoulder the duty of serving on the board of directors of Torah schools.

Such tzedakah, even a penny, is worth more than millions and millions of dollars invested in this-worldly things, because tzedakah is permanent. It continues forever and ever. It compounds interest beyond an amount anyone can compute.

When you put a nickel in the pushka in the merit of a loved one, not only does it stand in your merit forever, but for the loved one as well. They’re smiling for each penny. Think about that when you drop it in. You should picture a smile developing on the face of the deceased, who appreciates your deed in his or her merit, because that’s in fact what happens.

Each of us is here for only a short time. This life is short, like the summer that comes and goes. While we’re here, we must store up as many mitzvos as we can, because there will come a time when there are no more mitzvos to be had. There’s a “winter” coming. In the next world, you’ll look in vain for a mitzvah. You’ll look to give charity to a yeshiva. You’ll look for a collector, but it will be too late. Nobody will come by to collect a penny from you in the next world.

Now’s the time to build wealth. Real wealth. Wealth that isn’t transient. The pennies you drop in a pushka may look like they’re made of copper, but they’re really made of gold. On the Yom Hadin, they’re worth more than you can imagine — for your life in both this world and the Next.