This Shabbat:

Friday Candle Lighting: 7:04 pm
Shabbat Ends: 7:59 pm

Torah Message:

In G-d We Trust

“You shall open your hand to your brother, to your poor, and to your destitute in your Land.” (15:11)

Sign seen hanging in a store:

“In G-d we trust, everyone else pays cash.”

A philosopher once asked Rabban Gamliel, “Your Torah commands you over and over again to give charity, and to not be afraid of its affecting your financial security. Isn’t such a fear natural? How can a person give away his money without worrying that perhaps he should have saved it for a “rainy day?”

Rabban Gamliel asked him, “If someone asked you for a loan, would you agree?”

“Depends on who that someone is,” replied the philosopher. “If it’s someone I didn’t know, then yes, I would be afraid of losing my money.”

“What if he had guarantors?” asked Rabban Gamliel.

“Well, if I knew I could rely on them, I would agree.”

“How about if the guarantor was the President, how would you feel about that?”

“Well, of course, in those circumstances I would have total confidence that I’d get my money back.”

“When someone gives charity,” said Rabban Gamliel, “he’s actually extending a loan to the ‘President’ of the Universe. It says in the book of Mishlei (Proverbs), “One who gives graciously to the poor extends, as it were, a loan to G-d, Who will pay back all that is ‘due’.”

G-d pays us back in this world by making sure we get back what we loaned Him. And, in the next world, we get the full reward for our loan.

No one is as trustworthy as G-d; if He guarantees to return our money, why should anyone have the slightest hesitation in giving charity?”

• Source: Based on the Midrash