Terumah
The ability to part with one's wealth and possessions for a philanthropic
purpose is not easily attained and is also not easily maintained when
attained. The "normal" attitude towards wealth and possessions is
characterized by the great rabbis of the Book of Avot as being: "What is
mine is mine and what is yours is yours." The desire to have more wealth
and possessions is so intense that the Talmud sadly comments that "most
people are guilty of stealing from others." Since the drive to have more
material wealth and keep and conserve what is mine is apparently so
ingrained in our human nature, the Torah goes to great lengths to uproot
that characteristic - selfishness and miserliness - from our nature and to
turn us in the direction of selflessness and generosity. The Torah
therefore made the construction of the Mishkan, the tabernacle in the
desert, a human project rather than a Godly one. The Jewish people were
requested to donate from their own personal wealth substantial
contributions of materials in order to complete that structure. After
centuries of slavery in Egypt, after suffering impoverishment and want, it
would be only natural to expect that there would be a hesitance among the
newly-freed slaves to part with their only-recently-acquired goods and
possessions. The Torah boldly moves to counter that weakness of character
and demands immediately that the generation that only just left Egyptian
poverty and bondage become a nation of sharing and philanthropy.
The Torah however does not measure donations and giving by purely objective
standards. It is not merely the amount, important as that figure is, that
is being given that ultimately counts. It is also and perhaps even more
importantly in a spiritual and psychological sense than the amount of the
gift, the spirit and donative intent of the giver that determines the true
value of the gift and donation. The Torah records that the contributions
for the Mishkan were to be taken "from every person whose heart prompted
him to donate" to the holy project. And that, my friends, is a very
subjective standard, known perhaps only to the Creator of us all. When we
donate money, time, talent, effort to a good cause, there are usually a
wide variety of forces and influences that motivate us to do so. If we can
examine our motives and impulses to give to charitable causes and "improve"
on those motives to raise them to a more selfless and less complicated
level of our being, the gifts that we give will have far deeper meaning and
effect upon our inner character, even if the amounts of the gifts basically
remain constant.
The great Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, the founder of the "mother" of all later
Lithuanian yeshivot, the yeshiva of Volozhin, employed fund-raisers to
travel in Eastern Europe to collect donations for the support of the
yeshiva. A wealthy donor to the yeshiva once complained to Rabbi Chaim that
he wanted his donation to go directly to the study of Torah and not be
consumed in the expenses of the fund-raising projects and employees. Rabbi
Chaim coolly answered him: "When Jews contributed gold to the building of
the Mishkan all of them undoubtedly wished that their particular piece of
gold be used in the creation of the Holy Ark itself and not dispensed for
other purposes connected with the expenses of that construction. Bezalel,
the builder of the Mishkan, possessed Divine inspiration and therefore he
was able to discern which gold was given with the purest and most selfless
of motives and which gold was donated because of other causes and
influences. The "pure" gold, given selflessly, without hesitation and in
fulfillment of God's commandment, found its way into the construction of
the Holy Ark, which housed the tablets of stone of Sinai. The other gold,
containing the dross of conflicting and varying motives for its donation,
was used for the other tasks necessary for the creation of the Mishkan. So
too is the matter regarding the donations to the yeshiva of Volozhin. The
purer the intent of the donor to only do God's will and to truly support
the study of His Torah, the more likely it is that his donation will be
used directly for the study of Torah itself and not be subsumed in the
expenses of the fund-raising operations of the yeshiva. So, it is the donor
himself, not I nor my staff, that will make the eventual determination as
to how and where the monies donated will be allocated and spent."
The Shabat that precedes Purim is Shabat Zachor. It is on this Shabat that
we commemorate the commandment of "remembering Amalek" by reading a special
portion of the Torah that describes that commandment of remembrance. In our
time it has not been difficult to remember Amalek, for he, wearing
different uniforms and guises, has ravaged us and destroyed Jews in the
millions. Yet, the commandment, and perhaps even more importantly, its
necessity and moral message has escaped the notice of many Jews. Jews live
in a just and fair world, according to God's view of things. We, with our
finite eyes and minds, on the other hand, perceive this world to be in the
main unfair and unjust. We therefore ignore Amalek and always assign him
the role of being the aberration in world society, the exception to the
rule, the mad murderer whose presence and behavior is always unforeseen and
unavoidable. However, the Torah does not quite agree with this description
of Amalek's presence in our midst. Amalek, and its evil, thrive on the
shortcomings of good society, so to speak. The Rabbis mention and Rashi
quotes the concept that Jews cheating on weights and measures allow Amalek
to spawn and grow and eventually appear in its destructive force. If a good
people, a good society, tolerates wrongdoing, corruption, cheating,
dishonesty and shameful behavior, then the bacteria of Amalek has a fertile
feeding ground from which its evil capacities will be nurtured.
In our time, the major killers belonging to Amalek - Hitler, Stalin, Mao,
Pol Pot -all were allowed or even encouraged, to continue to practice their
barbarities because of the tolerance, the "appeasement" extended to them by
well-meaning good people. If honest people wink at cheating, simply because
they mistakenly believe that it does not affect them directly, Amalek
certainly feels justified in cheating. If human life is not held dear in
good societies, and is subject to newly invented rights (right to my own
body, right to die when and as I wish, etc.) then Amalek on a frighteningly
grand scale will view human life as cheap and certainly secondary to
political and national concerns. The Rabbis taught us that the city of
Sodom was destroyed, not because of its millions of bad people but rather
due to the absence of ten good people in its midst. Good people would have
spoken up, would have been an example to others, would have introduced a
different moral climate into that city, and therefore they would have saved
Sodom from destruction. Amalek can be prevented and combated by the
presence of uncompromising good in society. It is the vacuum of the absence
of good that allows Amalek to arrive on the scene and flourish.
Shabat Shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
Text Copyright © 2000 Rabbi Berel Wein and
Project Genesis, Inc.
