Episode 655 - 22 Elul (Regular Year) - Do You Still Have to Give Charity if You Are Poor?

0:00Hi, this is Cereet Sweatser and welcome to the It Is Tought Podcast. A podcast devoted to the teachings of Rabbi Schneir-Zalman of Liyadi as recorded in his most famous work, The Tanya. My hope for this show is to make these teachings accessible and relatable to the average person, regardless of prior Jewish education or affiliation. The episodes follow the prescribed daily study portions on our meant to serve as practical lessons in how to live your life as your true self and develop an authentic and powerful relationship with your creator. I have personally experienced the effects the study of this work has had on me and I'm excited to share what I can of this knowledge with you. So please join me on this journey of learning, self-growth and connection with your source. Hi, and welcome to the It Is Tought Podcast. This is episode 655 for the 20 seconds of L.O. in a regular year.

1:02So today we're going to start off with an ethical thought experiment. So imagine for a moment that you were stranded in the middle of the desert, God forbid, I don't wish this on any of you, but imagine for a second that that was the case. And you were walking together with a friend, both of you guys were stranded there for a while. And you've been walking for a while, no sign of civilisation and sight, you ran out of food, you ran out of water, you only have one cup of water left. And this cup of water was only enough to either keep you alive or to keep your friends alive. So you guys were really at your wit's end. And it wasn't enough for both of you. It's not enough for both of you. It's you or your friend. So what are you ethically obligated to do? Is there an ethical obligation? Are you obligated in this case to give the water to your friend and save your friends life? Are you obligated to say, you know what, let's be fair and just nobody gets the water? Do you share the water? But then it's not going to be enough for either of you guys to survive. What do you do?

2:08So the Gomara actually brings up this exact quandary, this exact situation. And the Gomara rules in Bavumatiya page 62A, interestingly, that the obligation is actually the rule, the ruling is that you should drink the water and not give it to your friend. Meaning to say the larger kind of teaching from all of this is that your own life takes precedent over somebody else's. So while guests were supposed to do everything we can in our hands to save a life, our own life takes precedent over saving anybody else's life. It kind of reminds me a little bit of like when you're on the airplane and the stewardess tells you, you know, that you have to in the event of some kind of emergency, blah, blah, blah, whatever you want to put the mask, oxygen mask on yourself before helping someone else. So there's this idea of needing to help yourself before you can help someone else that's needing that you need to be in a place that's solid in order to be able to help anybody else.

3:10And before you're in that solid place, you are not under any obligation to help another person. So with this teaching in mind, and the reason why we're bringing it up today is a person might then think to themselves. And this was actually an assumption that it sounds like a lot of the ultra-bass chasadam did back in the day that if they are poor, God forbid, let's say, you know, they're not really making a lot of money. They're not really where they want to be in life. They're really struggling financially. Then maybe they are exempt from the mitzvah of giving charity from the commitment to give charity. So this makes sense logically, right? Like if you don't have enough for yourself to be comfortable, then how can you start giving to other people? And this is a very valid argument. If somebody comes up to you on the street and asks you for money or an organization or someone you know that's really deeply in need, you might really want to help them. But like if you can barely sustain yourself, then how can you start giving to other people?

4:10So the ultra-bass is going to address this point today. And he's actually going to address these very people because back in the day, what with ultra-bass chasadam were very few of them were people of means and the vast majority of them were these struggling, impoverished people. And he's actually going to tell them that this actually does not hold true. That for these people in this situation, they're still obligated to give charity. Anybody who's still poor is still obligated to give charity in the vast majority of circumstances. Why? Because in the vast majority of circumstances, when we're talking about people who are poor, maybe you can think of yourself, you know, the last time that you struggled, you were a little late playing your bills, paying the rent, that kind of thing. Yes, that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate to be in that state of poverty. But chances are there's someone below you who's struggling even further, who doesn't have enough food to eat. My mother actually witnessed this when she was a volunteer for Yad Ali-ezar, an organization that raises money for Jews in Israel. And she went to visit homes in Israel of these really impoverished people who the mother would actually ration out rice for the children.

5:20Or there was like, I think one situation, there was like, there was one, the fridge, all it had in it was one little serving of yogurt that was it. And the mother was stopping the kid from eating that yogurt because that was the only food in the house and they had to save it. So it's like, that's poverty. That's like really poverty, you know? So if you're in that state, that might be a different story. But if you're just the type of person who can't afford the luxuries of life, who can't afford all the things that you would like to get, you can't get a new pair of shoes this season, a new coat this season, you can't go to that concert that everybody's been talking about that you really want to go to because you just don't have the budget for it. Your friends are going out to eat at the latest restaurant and you really just can't afford it. And it's really annoying. Everybody's going to be out there having a good time except for you. Yes, that's annoying. And I empathize with you and the ultra empathizes with you. But you're not really impoverished to the point that you can't give. So if you're in a situation where you're struggling financially, you still need to give charity. So that's the answer. The answer is that even if you're poor, yes, you still need to give charity. So that's what we're going to do.

6:30That's what we're going to learn today. And this is going to be in the form of an epistle that the beginning of an epistle that the ultra bit gave over to his to his community to his chasadam. This is the beginning of a pistol 16 from Igarza Kodesh. And so the ultra bit starts off and he's he addresses this to the members of the community. And he says my beloved, my brethren, my friends, who are like my own soul. So it's that he addresses everybody in a very loving manner. So it's not in a harsh way, but with a lot of warmth. He said, these hard times are not hidden for me in which the livelihood has dwindled. So he's saying, basically, I'm aware of the fact that people are struggling financially, especially those to me, those people that are known to me within the community who have their hands have faltered, meaning that like they're really they don't care about the world. Really, they don't have any kind of pernossa, any kind of means of sustains at all. And they don't have any providers at all. They don't have any work. These are people. So this is really intense. These are people who are without work.

7:39These are people that need to the ultra bit says says need to literally borrow in order to eat. So this is not even the type of person that I was talking about before who can't afford to go to bison in Burban or like the latest restaurant or something like that. These are people who need to borrow in order to have food in order to have eat to eat. So he says Hashem should have mercy upon these people. And Hashem should bring them respite from all of this very soon. So he's giving them a brachha blessing. But at the same time, he says yes, like I'm empathizing with you guys and Hashem should bless you all so that there shouldn't be an issue anymore and everything on that. He says never the less it's not good. It's not right what they're doing to their souls according to the reports that the ultra bit heard that they closed their hands, which had in the past been open up until then. And they used to give with a full hand and a good eye like very generously basically to for all the things that were necessities for to the to the poor people to the here.

8:49So these poppers are referred to as the clean destitutes of Yolim Nakiim, the ultra refers to them who he says these poppers are looking upon us. And if we don't pity them God forbid who will pity that. So basically the ultra was saying that yes, you guys are in hard times. We see I see that I know that I'm aware of that. Nevertheless, there are people who are even more impoverished than you. There are real poppers out there and you need to look at them and you use you use to give to them and he's imploring his recitem to give to them once again. And he brings a citation from Raikrat to support this. This is from Raikrat chapter 25 verse 36. So that your brother may live with you. So so basically it's he's bringing biblical support for this idea that like you know you really have to watch out for your for your friends life and to share those things that are essential to life like if you have something and if you share it with your friends that's going to save their life you're obligated to do that.

9:51And then the ultra about brings up this teaching which I had mentioned in the beginning from Baba Bastra about this whole idea of Khayyeh Khakodamin that there's that your life takes precedent right so that you're trapped in a in a desert and you'll have one glass of water. You are obligated to drink that water and not give it to your friend. So the ultra by says this only applies in a case when all you have in your hand is a picture of water. Meaning to say that in that situation of the desert the two people you and your friends are in equal places with both of us. So they both are need have that same level of thirst and they both need that water in order to live. But however says the ultra about if we're talking about here a popper that needs a bread for their children and firewood and clothes for the cold and things like that like really essential things. Then all of these things take precedent over any kind of like honorable clothing that you want to get and nice food for your family like meat and fish and all kinds of delicacies that a person might like for their family.

11:03So sure we all want to live well we don't want to just like be like in survival mode all the time we want to have nice things we who doesn't want to have nice clothing good food things like that good warm heat at home and things like that. But those are about saying here is being really strict he says yes these things are nice and everything but they don't supersede actual food actual like you know water like livelihood that you're like if this popper is a need of actual sustenance then that takes precedence over your luxuries and he says that in this case the rule of Hayekha Kutme that your life takes precedence does not apply in this case because it's not really these things are not essential to life. Like fine wine good not even what fine wine any wine or meat or fish. We don't really need those things to live we can live like essentially on very little and so these things cannot be considered to be like really truly essential to life and the same way as they are for the poor and the ultra percent this is discussed further in the dark page 80 be so let's the end of the section today so just to kind of like bring it into modern terms and just to kind of like bring it home.

12:15So at the basic idea is that like even if you're struggling even if you don't like you're not where you want to be financially again let's say you can't afford the organic food you can't afford the the insta cart delivery fee things like that you know bring making it Amazon prime or whatever it's like that doesn't mean that that exempts you from giving charity to somebody else because at the end of the day it's like these things like like a poor person. The the the average poor person nowadays is living a lot richer than the average portion poor person was many years ago so that includes you that means that like if you're struggling it doesn't mean that your struggles aren't real and we should all have enough and more you know over abundance of wealth we should all have that but nevertheless just because you feel like that you're not in a place that you want to be financially and that you feel like you're struggling in some way even to the point that you're incredibly important. So that's the point that you're incredibly important because of these kind of things that doesn't mean that you're exempt from giving charity because there are people out there who have a lot less than you like severely less than you and it's like if you really thought about it it'd be a wake up call and it's you know especially true in Israel so in America,

13:30you know there are all kinds of social services and things like that in Israel it's not as great and the standards are lower so this is especially referring when the ultra-war talk about that he was referring to the funds for the line of Israel but of course any kind of stucca is good to give but if you want to really do that mitzvah to the utmost degree then you can really think about giving to the lines of Israel to different organizations in Israel. And so yeah so that's about the end of the section today so once again this is another one of those pistols that's really focused on giving charity on giving stucca it is just such an important thing to do and so go out there and give give give and yeah and that's it for today and we'll continue with this tomorrow when we conclude this a pistol I'll speak to you then. Thanks for listening to the It Is Top Podcast hosted by Sri Tspatar. This podcast is dedicated in loving memory of my maternal grandfather, Avraham Yetzalk Ben Biniamina Cohen of Blessed Memory, Music by Shoshana. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the show please share it with others and subscribe on YouTube, Apple iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure to leave us a five star review.

14:39To find out more about the It Is Top project including more information on my student speed publish book please visit our website itista.com. To catch the latest for me follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Looking forward to speaking with you tomorrow and until then have a great day. you

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