A Message from the Kalever Rebbe |
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Jews are doing Chesed without expecting any repayment |
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"You shall love your fellow as yourself — I am Hashem." (Vayikra 19:18) |
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The Counterfeit the Yetzer Hara Hands Us |
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Since the birth of Democracy, and the world's adoption of a culture of "freedom" and equal rights, the yetzer hara has been using this against us. |
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Jews are by nature kind and baalei chesed, and the yetzer hara leverages that — he tempts us to be inspired and drawn in by the non-Jews' seeming acts of kindness and righteousness. He shows this to us so that we begin to feel a sense of camaraderie and kinship with them, drawing us closer and closer until we start assimilating, picking up their culture and their customs. And in the process, we begin to slacken in our Yiddishkeit — slacking in our Torah study and in our fulfillment of mitzvos. |
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But the truth is as Chazal tell us (Bava Basra 10b). On the pasuk "tzedakah teromeim goy" — "righteousness uplifts a nation" (Shmuel II 7:23) — Chazal teach that Klal Yisroel is raised in stature over all the other nations through the mitzvah of tzedakah, which we fulfill sincerely and without any consideration of our own benefit. |
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A thoughtful person can see this with his own eyes. Look at the large-scale acts of kindness performed in the world at large — most of the time, the goal of the giver is not really to help the other person. It is to help himself. Either he wants to be honored and celebrated, or he wants something in return. |
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It is exactly like paying for a delicious meal, or like spending serious money on a fine suit for the pleasure it brings — and for how good he will feel when other people see him wearing something so exquisite. In the same way, people are willing to work hard and pay handsomely to receive the honor that goes to those who perform acts of chesed and tzedakah. |
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"That Is Not Ahavas Rei'im" |
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A group was once founded in Yerushalayim, whose purpose was that each of its members would help the others in the group whenever help was needed, and so on in turn. |
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The Yerushalmi maggid, R' Ben Tzion Yadler zt"l, went in to the gaon R' Yehoshua Leib Diskin of Brisk, and asked his opinion: was this a proper undertaking, given that its foundation was the mitzvah of "V'ahavta l'rei'acha kamocha" — "love your fellow as yourself"? |
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The Gaon of Brisk told him: "This matter has nothing to do with V'ahavta l'rei'acha at all. It is ahavas atzmo — self-love. This member worries about his friend now because his friend will worry about him later. That runs contrary to the mitzvah of the Torah, which is that a person must love every single Yid — even one who is not a member of this group. And even regarding someone who has wronged you, the Torah says lo sikom v'lo titor — do not take revenge and do not bear a grudge — and you are obligated to do good to him as well." |
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One of the clearest ways to tell the difference between the chesed of the nations and the chesed of lomdei Torah, is to watch what happens when the recipient is someone the giver does not know at all. Only shomrei Torah extend their chesed to anyone and everyone. |
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This stands out most clearly by the tzaddikim of the world, who would quietly send enormous sums of tzedakah to people they had never even met, without anyone knowing about it. |
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On this subject I heard from the chossid R' Wolf Freund a"h, who heard it from his father-in-law, the chossid R' Leibish Lefkowitz a"h, the following story. |
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One erev Shabbos kodesh, the Rebbe of Gorlitz zt"l noticed, that his father, the Divrei Chaim of Sanz zt"l, had sent out a registered letter with money in it. The Rebbe of Gorlitz followed the person carrying the letter to see where it was going, and saw that it was addressed to someone in Berlin. Inside was a sum of three thousand krone — an enormous amount of money at the time. |
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Many years later, the Rebbe of Gorlitz happened to be in Berlin, and sought out that address. He found a very large store and asked for the owner. They took him for someone seeking charity and told him that the owner only distributed tzedakah on Thursdays. He told them to let the owner know that he was the son of the Rav of Sanz. The baal habayis immediately came out to greet him warmly, and brought him into his private room. The Rebbe of Gorlitz told him he had not come for money at all — he only wanted to know what his connection was to his father zt"l. |
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The owner answered: "Once, I saw that between my whole store and my entire business I was facing a massive shortfall. I had only one option — to declare bankruptcy. But this would have caused a tremendous chillul Hashem, and I decided to take my own life, rachmana litzlan. I shared my decision in secret with one man, and he said to me, 'Why carry this burden alone? In the city of Sanz there is a Rebbe. Travel to him, and he will give you a brachah.' I knew that if I left the city for twenty-four hours there would be an upheaval on the part of my creditors, who would assume I had fled. So I wrote the whole matter down in a private letter to the Rebbe of Sanz. With remarkable speed, I received back a letter containing three thousand krone. It was not enough to cover the entire shortfall, but it was enough to hold things together — enough that I could keep going and, little by little, put the business back on its feet." |
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Chesed That Stays Within the Circle |
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This kind of thing you only see by Yidden who are shomrei Torah. In the world at large, the pattern is the opposite. Even people who perform acts of chesed and give enormous sums to their own society, their own party, or their own country, will turn around and refuse to give to someone outside their circle who wouldn't give them back any honor or other benefits. Very often they will even go out of their way to persecute and oppress those others. |
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We find this idea in Parshas Shemini. Among the non-kosher birds listed there is a bird called the chasidah. Chazal (Chullin 63a) teach that it is called chasidah because she does kindness (chassidus) with her friends. The question is asked: if she has such a fine quality — performing acts of chesed — why is she a non-kosher bird and not a kosher one? The Rebbe of Ruzhin answered: the nature of this bird is to perform gemilus chassadim only with her own kind. But birds that are not of her species, she tears apart and kills. And for that reason she is tamei. |
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With this in mind we can offer a pshat in the pasuk before us: |
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"V'ahavta l'rei'acha" — love your fellow Yid, do chesed with him, "kamocha" — just as you love yourself and do good for yourself without expecting any repayment from yourself. |
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And then, "Ani Hashem" — I am Hashem, the One Who is faithful to pay reward for good deeds. So in the end you will truly lose nothing of what you gave over — of your money or of your time — to another Yid. Just the opposite: you will come out ahead. |
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