Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Maaser - The Source Of Great Blessings

today's topic is laws of tzedakah in general and math cept specifically so I'll start with a story there was once a priest he said you know what I would like to give charity so he took his money he went outside to the courtyard of the church he threw the money up and he said whatever lands in the circle way I'm standing he drew a circle he's gonna be mine whatever lands outside the circle gonna give a way to charity and that's what he did then there was a Muslim he went to the courtyard of his mosque and he drew a circle also and he threw the money up and he said whatever money lands outside the circle is gonna be mine whatever lands in a circle I'm gonna give to charity and then there was a rabbi he drew a circle in the courtyard of his synagogue and he stood and he said I'm gonna throw the money up whatever money God wants he's gonna keep now whatever lands it's going to be formula so what is the proper way to give charity and to separate Marcel so first of all it's a strange custom that we all are trying to get rich we're all trying to to have wealth and the tour is telling us that if you care for a poor person if you give some of your money to another Jew you're actually gonna have more money which goes against logic if you want to become more wealthy what do you do you charge your customers more raise your prices sell more merchandise find more clients bring more money in if you bring more money in you will have more wealth and here tour is telling you the opposite the pasok says assert yourself which means separate myself and the Talmud says a service-related a share separate Marcel in order that you should become rich so the Torah uses double language assert us a separate master it's the same root as a gift an tip a share oh sure wealth is the same spelling ion generation so give money give master and then you will become wealthy again that's not logical I'm giving away money I'm supposed to become more poor and the Torah says no you will become more rich how does the work there was once a wealthy man a businessman who every year received a phone call and a visit from a charity collector for a hashira in Israel and every year he would give him a nice amount of money once one year this the rabbi called him and he said can I come in and get a check from you again this year he said to him Baba I have to tell you business wasn't going well for the past year I'm struggling I didn't make as much money as in previous year so I'm for sure not gonna give you the same amount of charity as I did in the previous in previous years so okay no problem whatever you can so he came to pick up the check he got the check and you know it's not nice to look at the amount when the person is looking so he just put it in his pocket when he went out and what was going down the stairs he opened the check on looked he was surprised usually this person gives him thousand dollars and now he sees three thousand dollars he says must be a mistake he probably wanted to write three hundred and he by mistake wrote three thousand I'm not sure what to do so when he got back to his office he said you know what I can't just take this money because maybe he made a mistake so he called the businessman and he said I I realized that you gave me a check for three thousand years this must be a mistake because you used to give me a thousand and on when we spoke you told me that this year for sure you're not gonna be able to give him the same amount and as in the previous years so the businessman told him no don't worry it is correct when I told you I will not give you the same amount I meant that since I earned less money this year it's a sign from from Hashem that I need to do more I need to do more charity that's the way to become more wealthy so I told you for sure it is since I received the sign from a shame that I earned less for sure I cannot give you the same amount I have to give you more that's why I gave you three times more than in previous years so this business man understood that the money that he earns is not he's to use but rather it's compared to a bank Romania imagine you have money and you want to distribute it whether for your paychecks for employee employees whether for merchandise that you're buying so you put the money in the bank and you give instructions that send money to this guy send money to this guy and the bank listens and they send money to whoever you ask them to send it to now imagine if you give instruction to the bank please send this money to such a guy and the bank doesn't do it you call the bank why didn't you send the money oh we thought that you should try to keep the money in your bank account what do you mean I tell you to send the money I wanted to business this man is supposed to go for merchandise and you telling me you know better what you want the money for so what you're gonna do you're gonna choose a different bank the same thing with Hashem Hashem has a lot of money all the money in the world and he chooses different people he says this guy I'm gonna give a million dollars this guy I'm gonna give one hundred million dollars and I'm gonna give instructions whether it's gonna be a poor person who is gonna knock on the door and that's a message that Hashem is sending you give him some money whether you're gonna get email or a letter asking you for a donation that's a message from Hashem who is sending these people to you so that you can give out the money that Hashem deposited with you but what if such a person says I don't have money now for you this money that is for me shams gonna say I didn't give this money that it should sit in your bank account in your pocket in under your pillow so he's gonna find a different bank to deposit his money with and that's the idea by giving charity by giving masseur wish on Hashem that we are a good bang that when he gives us the money we distributed well and then he deposits more money he says this is a good investment he's gonna put in as much money as we gave out he's gonna put even more in but if a person is stingy he is very careful where he spends the money Hashem says okay you still have the money I'm not gonna put in a new deposit and if he sees that you're not using the money at all he's gonna say I don't want the money to be by user he's gonna withdraw the money so some people earn the money and then they separate the master and that's the proper way to do some people trust Hashem so much that they say I'm gonna separate myself before I earn it for example you're going to a business transaction and you know that if it goes through I'm gonna make a hundred thousand so you say why should I wait until I earn it and then give myself I'm gonna give master already now they write a ten thousand dollar check and then they go to the business transaction and then they see that yes they earn a hundred thousand and the check is already prepared they just mail it why because it's a guarantee that a service-related a share the show - which is the foundation of Shahana he writes that the devar but do Camino say it's a tried and tested matter that if you give you will for sure get bad you for sure get back not only what you gave but much more and he said not only that we see that communities where they preserve this custom to give Massa they remained wealthy and the wealth stayed for their children for generations to come and in communities where they ignored this custom and they stopped giving charity the wealth was lost in a tragic way not only they didn't become Moorish and not only they lost the money but they lost it in a tragic way hasta Shalom so alchemy and teach us that in pure kavod it says siog la rocha mass wrote see a glow show that Marcel is a preservative form for your wealth not only if you give mas'r you will get more but if you give myself it's gonna preserve the money that you already have otherwise a person might say you know what I earned a paycheck or money from business and now it's mine I can use it any way I want and then he wakes up and something unfortunate strikes him whether it is a ticket on his car whether it is a letter from IRS whether it is a robbery in her social on whether it is a doctor the doctor's bill whether it is his close relative gets in jail and he now has to bail him out so many stories we hear how people's wealth is just going to waste to tragic events whereas a person who lives with Emunah with understanding the Hashem runs the world Hashem gave me life he gave me wisdom he gave me understanding any invention I make Hashem gave me the idea any client that I have Hashem sent it into me any money that I make I shall arrange that that I should get that money so if Hashem sent me so much already why do I have to worry that by giving charity I am going to become poor the same Hashem who took care of me and my parents until now he's gonna continue taking care of I don't have to think that I'm the only source of my partners in the world if I don't do it where it's gonna come from in fact it says that kedusha amused to always wonder he says before a person is born certain things that decreed is decreed whether he's gonna be rich or poor tall or short healthy or sick live long life or short life and then there are some things that are not decreed whether he is going to be a Siddiq or hashanah so he says it surprises me that parents spend so much effort and money to make sure that their children have education and have partner sod to bring in the money when part NASA is decreed from before birth whereas whether the child is gonna be at a taqueria sure they say it's okay you know somehow he'll survive somehow he's gonna be okay something that really depends on you you don't spend so much effort and money for something that doesn't depend on you is gonna give be given to you anyway person spends years and years and years and so much money to guarantee something that he cannot guarantee it's not in his control so let's start with with the laws of sadaqa and master first of all there are two separate concepts first is sadaqa/charity every person is obligated to give charity whether he is rich or poor and this is a mitzvah from the Torah and what is the minimum and what is the maximum so for this the minimum is about a dollar a year between one to five dollars a year very small amount that's why even a poor person is obligated to fulfill the Mitzvah of sadaqa because everybody can give you know if you give one cent a day so by the end of the year you'll fall fill the mid-south sadaqa with just one cent a day however the Mitzvah of Marcel is already more complicated there's a market where the Marcel is from the Torah or it's rabbinic so there are three pinions some say the middle of Marcel is from the Torah and the source is because really you know olden times when the Jewish people lived in Israel and most of us were farmers we actually separated myself from our produce and that was mid or item and you could not eat from the wheat or barley or grapes or olives until you separate true ma4 cohan myself or levy myself Seamus irani for poor people and only then you can benefit from the produce in later years when when we are no longer farmers and we no longer majority of the Jews people normally live in the Land of Israel we don't separate myself from our produce outside of Israel but instead we substitute a tenth of our income so some say that this tenth of our income is equivalent to the tenth from produce from the Torah some disagree and say the the Mitzvah of Master does not apply to us according to Torah but rather it's a rabbinic decree as a remembrance memory of the Torah law and then the third opinion is that it's not a Torah law it's not a rabbinical but rather it is a custom that the Jewish people took upon themselves to separate tenth of their income to distribute to poor people and the halacha is that it is the third opinion that nowadays we separate myself as a mean hug and therefore we have some flexibility in how we separate on how we distribute it so it's advice that be four person starts to separate myself he says I'm accepting upon myself the mean hard to separate myself and I'm going to use this money for such-and-such causes if he doesn't make such a statement and he starts separating master then it's assumed that the money that he separates will be used only for poor people and it will not be a you will not then be able to use it for other means vote for example let's say you have a hospital and the hospital asks you for donation so technically you if you didn't make a condition that you can use it for all means thought you would not be able to give money to the hospital unless the hospital will tell you we're gonna use this money to treat patients who cannot afford but if it's just to make improvements and another facility you cannot give money or for example a yeshiva would ask you for money you would not be able to give it to them because the money is designated for poor people unless the achiever will tell you we're going to use it as a scholarship for poor people who cannot afford tuition but if they just say we want to build another building cannot give it to them that is why is it's good to say I'm going to separate myself as a custom and it will be used for all Mitzvah needs and then you will be able to give it to ya' vote hospitals for the for the [Music] Community Improvement and sponsoring events Torah learning that's the proper thing to do and it's never too late even if you already separated but for future from now on you can say that but what's the source you said before that if you die then yes that to two sources one in Hamas that says a Serbian did a share but it's a blessing it's not a commandment if you separate mass air you will become rich if you separate you become rich if you don't separate you're not going to become rich but there is no Avera there is no sin in not separating another source is a prophet Malachi says bring all the master to my storehouses and give it to the poor and I will shower you with blessing without end until you say enough so again that is speaking about myself of produce however half its crime says that it applies nowadays for those that give myself if you give mas'r you will get special blessing from a Shem shitty - air and baraja ad Billy died some say that since the word assert a serve is repeated twice that this brother only applies to people that separate 20% and we're going to see where the source for that is however it has been tried and tested that even people that separate 10% receive a blessing many many stories I can personally testify by myself that it works now how much master are you supposed to give so for that we said the minimum is between one and five dollars maximum however much you can afford what about myself so for my said since it's it's a mean hub if a person is poor he doesn't have to separate master the obligation only starts if you can afford it and if you can afford it there are many levels for example in the mitzvah to Roma giving the portion to Cohan who have a similar idea the Torah tells you give to man how much Torah doesn't say and therefore call to Torah even if you give one grain of wheat you fulfill the obligation however the ha ha Meem said they put three gradations a person who separates one fiftieth which is 2% is considered average person who separates one 40th is considered generous and a person who separates one sixtieth is stingy that's for true man similarly we have for myself a person who separates 10% is considered average for regular person who gets paycheck and he leaves he'll eat he lives from paycheck to paycheck he makes his ends meet and he has enough money to separate 10 percent so that's his obligation separate 10 percent and it's good you fulfill the obligation a person who finds it hard to separate 10 percent and therefore he separates only let's say 5 percent even though he can afford is considered stingy his toe fulfills the mitzvot it's good let him separate but he is on a stingy side and the person who separates more than 10% is considered generous now is there an upper limit for more than 10% no there is no upper limit even though the common expression is that if you give more than 20% you're doing something wrong 20% is the maximum that's not true 20% is maximum for a person who lives from paycheck to paycheck who relies on his paycheck and therefore it would be not wise for him to spend more than 20% because maybe he's gonna get laid off maybe his extensive gonna increase maybe his is gonna decrease this and that since he's not the boss of his own business and he earns only enough money to to live for one month he has to be careful not to overspend not to overspend even for charity however a person who is wealthy a person who has enough money not only for one month but for much longer who has a well-established running business for investments that provide him with comfortable amount of income he has no limit whether he gives 30% 50% even 90% it's permissible not only that is even something called a 90% Club where wealthy Jews could choose to separate 90% of their wealth members off and it makes sense imagine you have somebody who earns a hundred million dollars a year would it be difficult for him to give away 90% of his income every year it would not be because even if he gives away 90% 90 million dollars every year to charity he still has 10 million dollars left he's not becoming poor anytime soon his family is not gonna suffer so such a person can give away 90% and it's going to be praiseworthy that's the proper thing for him to do in fact it says that money is everything in life is a circle it comes and goes so many times we hear stories of of rich people who after a few years of being wealthy they lost their money in fact I heard from one of my Rabindra by ezreal Talbert he he used to be a multi-millionaire maybe even a billionaire a very big investor in real estate and he eventually lost his money his was still well well-off for the rest of his life she's still alive but he was he probably lost 99 percent of his wealth but he said you know what I'm happy because I know that while I had the money I used it well I supported many she bought many colony many individuals and as much as I could I used my money so Hashem gave me the money I used it very well the community we benefited from my wealth then I shouldn't decide to take it away okay it's his choice but he said I have friends who were as rich as I was and who also eventually was their money and they were crying and they were depressed and they were feeling so sorry that when they had the money they did not use it for good causes imagine how bad it feels when people come to you and ask you for a good cause let's build a yeshiva let's help thousands of Jews come closer to Judaism let's help this poor family and you say no no not now let me invest it let me become more rich let me get to build millions and then let me get to billions and then I'll give you much more and then has shown such a person loses money and he lost all opportunity he comes to Obama by and Hashem says I gave you opportunity to do a mitzvah I gave you opportunity to earn great Olam haba and you lost it such a person will have tremendous regret so a person who has the means there is no limit for him as much as he is being asked he is supposed to give so each person is supposed to decide for himself where he stands if he cannot afford he doesn't have to give or he can afford to give 1% 5% 8% give that if you can give the average 10% good give more 20% 50% even better now the question becomes who should you give Marcel to what are the priorities as we said before the the standard understanding is that master charity goes to poor people and that's true helping poor is very important and earns you great reward it's it's almost like saving a life because without money people get depressed stressed sick and has a schlub even died there is another very important cause and that is supporting Torah Torah learning Torah education now if you combine the two that's the best if you find somebody who wants to dedicate his life to learning and spreading Torah and for that he needs support that's the best because somebody who dedicates his life for communal work whether it's to teach tour or to learn Torah he is taking upon himself to do for others and not for himself he's not going out to earn money for himself rather he is learning in order to help others so now he is willingly taking upon himself life of poverty and by supporting him not only you're supporting a poor person but you're also gaining part of his merit it's as if you help the poor person and it's as if you yourself went out and taught Torah to the Jewish people so if you have a choice you should give your master to Torah education those who learn or spread Torah that's number one then number two is poor people and general Torro education is about call the limb buildings for Torah study and then third is other mitzvot related activities and the monthly related activities we also have gradations for example if you have a choice in the community they need a synagogue and they need a mikvah so we say building a mikvah takes precedence because you can pray in the house in the basement anyway but a meekley is is needed for communal life so if a community doesn't have a mikvah the money first has to go to meat but not a synagogue it's very important to find out that your cause is a true cause because if somebody is taking advantage of you you will get a reward that you you were generous you worked on your character traits however you're not gonna get the benefit that you actually helped the poor person or that you actually helped somebody who is learning or spreading Torah so a person has a certain amount of responsibility to to find out if the cause is legitimate however it says that the fact that there are some people who unfortunately are fakers and they pretend they need money but really they don't lets us be at ease because if we go to shaman a sham asks us why didn't you give to every person that came to you you will have excused because you will be able to say to a Shem I wasn't sure if he truly needs if I really see his suffering and I see that he really needs for sure I would give but because somebody just came and ten people come to me every day and I don't know who is honest and who is therefore I was a little bit hesitant and I didn't give to some of them so you'll have an excuse ideally a person should give to everyone if you don't trust somebody give them a small amount someone approaches you and he doesn't look so reliable give him a quarter give him a dollar someone comes and he looks more respectable with with a great cause but you still don't you don't have a chance to check out his references okay give him $10 $20 and somebody who you really know somebody who you checked out and you identify with the cause then you can already give a large amount as far as if few people approached you who do you give first so we say that the closer the person to you the greater your responsibility to him is for example members of your family come first if you happen to have poor family members you have to help them first before helping anyone else in the world if members of your community come to you and members from other communities you have to help members of your community first if residents of your city come to you and residents of other city or another country come to you residents of your city come first if two different countries come to you if one of them is Israel that comes first for example Jews from Argentina and Jews from Israel ask you for charity you descend to Israel first these are basically the ways who to start with and to continue if you have $100 to give and you have a choice a hundred different organizations send you letters or approached you in a synagogue should you give a dollar to each one of the hundred organizations or should you rather say you know what what this dollar is gonna do nothing let me just take this hundred dollars and give it to one at least I'll be able to do something useful with it what should you do so it depends sometimes you should rather give two hundred different causes and sometimes you should give to one where you know that this amount of money can actually make a difference in this person this organization it's better to give to one why because by distributing to so many you not gonna accomplish much but by let's say the person approaches you and says I know somebody who is going to be thrown out on the street unless he pays rent or unless he pays his mortgage and by giving him a thousand dollars you're gonna save his house or you're gonna say the family they're not gonna be on the street so then for sure it's gonna it's good to give this thousand dollars to them and you know you accomplished something significant however if it's a hundred people that are all collecting for approximately the same thing we're just raising certain amount of money to help organization or poor people and your donation is not gonna make a big difference in any one of their budgets so then it's better to give one dollar two or whatever amount small amount to each one of them why because in addition to helping others the second aspect of the Mitzvah of the sadaqa is improving your character becoming a more kind individual and how do you do that by practicing acts of kindness by opening your heart multiple times by opening your wallet opening your hand many times and by saying yes I'll help you and you reach out into your pocket or your wallet and you take out a dollar again and again and again it develops in you the the character trait of kindness now you will be more likely to help anyone in need just by practicing giving again and again and again and that's what we do with children in school every day they go they bring a penny what will penny do for anybody it will for the child because it will train the child to become generous to become kind every day they give a penny and they will know yes I have to give in life I have to give to others I have to help others so therefore if you have opportunity to do many small acts of kindness it's preferable than just one big act of kindness that's number one also you have to keep in mind that not all acts of kindness are created equal for example if you give with great advertisement with great publicity they put your name everywhere that you gave a million dollars you for sure get reward for sadaqa but the reward in the real world is limited because there was some payback already you already got some reward in this world by feeling good by receiving praise and appreciation from people and from the organization and if you add to it your own feelings of pride then the reward is going to be even less to the point that if the person is only doing it for himself for his name to brag to then for the rest of his life to say to people you know how much money I gave you know how great I am then his entire reward may be used up in this world however if a person gives charity anonymously that's much greater and the greatest a if the recipient doesn't know who gave him and that the person who gives he himself doesn't know who the money went to you give to a fund let's say and the fund distributed so the people who actually receive the money they don't know who who donated and you don't know who it went to because even if the recipient doesn't know but you know let's say you left an envelope under someone's door so the person doesn't know who gave him that's very good but you know and you have this feeling of satisfaction that I helped someone and I know who I helped that feeling of satisfaction already is a certain payback however if I don't know where my money went that's the ultimate however if that's not practical then try to the best of your ability conceal your acts of kindness by giving anonymously the only way the only place where it's recommended not to give anonymously is if by doing so you will encourage others to give for example now they say advertise on Facebook or other forms of media that you donated to this organization because your friends and family are gonna see and they will also donate so then it is proper to not donate anonymously because if you don't need an animus nobody's gonna know and nobody's gonna follow your your example so then it's okay to donate with your name attached and send it to all your friends encourage them and then you will get a reward for each person that donates because you encourage them in fact it says that somebody who encourages others to donate it receives more reward than the person himself the person who donated himself how can it be and now we understand because the person who actually donated he feels good about that he helped somebody he has satisfaction he feels proud proud whereas the person who encouraged somebody he didn't don't need anything he doesn't feel that look at me I help this person and therefore he's doing it morally Sheng shaman he's doing it more without ulterior motive his name is not gonna be put anywhere because he's not the one donated and therefore his reward is great now the last thing I wanna say is somebody who collects charity receives great reward as well for someone else charity collectors they get great reward why because they are the facilitator the middleman the shotgun between the wealth and the poor and not only that they also receive all the embarrassment they save the poor person from the embarrassment and they receive it upon themselves they go knock on doors and they get slammed their doors to do door slams in their face and they get screamed at why are you collecting why don't you get a job even though they're not collecting for themselves so if anybody wants to get great to the world you should sign up as a charity collector in fact there was a story once that there was an old man who collected charity for a yeshiva and he stayed by by by a certain person in the city for a few nights and one night it was cold and rainy and his host told him rabbi please don't go around collecting it's cold it's raining it's very hard you old already how much do you collect every day tell me I'll pay you for this night I mean this way you don't have to collect say okay you know I collected three hundred dollars a night so you said here have I take this three hundred dollars relax okay he went for to do his errands then at night he comes back and he sees that this old man also comes comes back home from from his collection rounds says rabbi I gave you the money why did you go collecting and the rabbi told him yes you gave me the money but you didn't give me the embarrassment so I went to collect the embarrassment and I want to finish with the final story again from the camera the camera says that rabbi yohanan ben zakai had nephews who are very wealthy and one night it was ed of rosh hashanah or on the day of Rosh Hashanah he had a dream and dreams of Rosh Hashanah are considered know that they can give you a message of what's going to happen in a year so he received a message in his dream that his that his nephews are going to lose a lot of money this coming year how much money they're gonna lose a thousand golden coins okay he didn't tell that to them but throughout the year he made sure to go to them and ask them for donations for various causes and they would give him so by the end of the year he was able to extract from them seven hundred golden coins then on the last day of the year the tax collector from the government came and they found out that something was wrong and they put a fine on them of three hundred four golden coins so rabbi yohanan ben zakai came to his nephews and he said don't feel bad that the collector came I had a dream last Rosh Hashanah that you're gonna lose thousand golden coins this year and that is why I came to you throughout the year and I collected money from you because I said better you give the money to the doctor then to tax collector so they said rabbi so why didn't you tell it to us we would have given you the whole thousand golden coins so he said I didn't want to tell you because if I told you then you would have given me a thousand dollars for a wrong reason you would only give it to me because you know you're gonna lose it anyway might as well give it but now every time you gave me another golden coin it was hard for you because you thought that you're actually giving your own money and now you get much greater reward so that's what we have to remember that the money that Hashem gives us is only a deposit he wants us to use it up for good causes for our family and for others that we can help he wants us to be generous develop the attribute of kindness he wants us to become more and more rich and he's just giving us opportunity to show him that we know how to use his money and bazzetta shall we should all see this blessing fulfilled in us