Learning How to Give
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5767
The Gemara records a number of conversations between our sages and what you might call, anti-Jewish antagonists. One of the most famous conversations involves Rabbi Akiva the and Turnusrufus (B aba Basra 10a)
Turnusrufs asked Rabb Akiva the following question: If God loves poor people, why doesn’t he provide them with food?
Rabbi Akiva answers: So that we should be saved through them from the judgment of Gehinom!
At its simplest face value, that read as follows: we need mitzvoth and poor people are there to provide us with an opportunity to do mitzvoth and thus we are spared punishments etc.
That can not be right for two reasons:
- It seems to be morally reprehensible
- If that really were the read than any mitzvah would do. There would be no need to have poor people. A proper explanation needs to relate to poor people.
To understand the answer fully let us turn to one of the central mitzvoth of this week’s parsha, the mitzvah of Shemittah.
Shemittah is the commandment to let the land lie fallow, unused, every seventh year. On Shemittah no one is able to sell their crops, the land, so to speak, returns to its original wild, state.
Shemittah also refers to a whole slew of related commandments. First, there is also a concept known as shemittat kesafim–on the seventh year, according to biblical law, all loans that were previously lent out are declared null and void. All debtors are absolved.
And there are other details relating to those 2 general categories,
This morning I want to focus on the land. What is the reason why we are not permitted to work the land on the seventh year?
The Sefer Ha-Chinuch (a thirteenth c. Spanish work, probably authored by R. Pinchas Ha-Levi of Barcelona) offers two reasons for this mitzvah of Shemittah both relating to the command to be mafkir (render ownerless) the land as well.
The reason for this mitzvah is so that humanity should remember that the fruits that are produced from the ground every year do not come from man’s power or even the power of nature, but rather there is a God and true master over the land.
The first explanation of this mitzvah according to the Sefer Ha-Chinuch is that its purpose is to cause us to understand that man is not the powerful one on this earth, but that God controls all power. We leave the land untouched as a demonstration of our weakness and as a sign of servitude to God.
This is what the verse means (25: 2), when it says ve-shavtah ha-aretz shabbat lashem, and you shall let the land rest, it is a Shabbat for God. Shemittah is a way of physically declaring that only God is the one who has power on this world.
Sefer Ha-Chinuch also continues with a second answer
Another purpose of this mitzvah is to attain through it the quality of yielding and relinquishing, since there is no one as generous as a person who gives with no hope of receiving anything in return.
That is an unbelievable statement!
According to this second approach, God commands us to relinquish all our possessions in order for us to understand what it means to really give. People don’t naturally know what it means to give charity; people have to be trained in this respect. So God commands us, every seventh year, leave all your lands open to the poor, (and the rich) cancel all your debts, release all your slaves. Learn from this example what it means to give to those in your community who are in need.
This is what the verse means when it says (25: 6), ve-haytah shabbat ha-aretz lachem, and the land shall rest for you. The land rests so that you, the people of Israel can grow and learn what it means to give and behave within a society.
Shemittah, according to the author of Sefer Ha-Chinuch, is an attempt by God to train us in these two areas: recognizing the power of God in this world and learning how to give to a community.
Those 2 concepts I believe are closely related. Once you understand what God’s role in the world is and our relationship to and dependence upon God and where your parnassah actually comes from you should then understand what man’s role in the world is and what should be done with that paranassah that God has helped to provide.
Yet the Torah understands that it is not a lesson easily learned.
It is not easy to see God’s hand in the world and in our parnassah- we have to learn and work on it.
And it is not easy to learn how to relinquish and give! That too has to be learned and it has to be worked on. And of course some learn faster than others.
So know that when I or someone else comes to ask you for money – we are doing it to help you learn how to relinquish and help others.
I want to conclude by answering the question with which I began. What is Rabbi Akiva’s answer to Turnusrfus? Why does God allow poor people to exist? Because in a world with no need, there would be no giving. We would never learn how to give of ourselves to others. And a world without giving is a world without redemption.
That is Rabbi Akiva’s response to his antagonist and that is a powerful lesson for us as well!
