Charity is a Torah commandment, one with which we can
empathize and claim to understand and appreciate. However, at the root of this
commandment is the bald fact that we are bidden to imitate our Creator, and our
definition of God is one of goodness and charity.
The Torah tells us that God is with the widow and the
orphans, even though we don’t know why He made them such. But it is our duty to
pursue goodness and charity as the Lord commands us to do. At the end of the
day, charity is an inexplicable commandment. The reason that there is so much
charity in the world is that there is, somewhere deep within our consciences
and souls, a streak of human kindness and goodness. We really wish to be
charitable people.
Since we have freedom of will and choice, we can overcome
our inner instincts of goodness, becoming miserly and even cruel towards others
and to ourselves as well. Just as there are base instincts that lurk within us,
and we possess within ourselves the freedom to overcome and deny them, so too
does this power of freedom of will and choice allow us to sublimate our good
and charitable instincts. There is a well- known statement of the rabbis that
many people regret being put upon for a charitable contribution and yet feel a
deep satisfaction within themselves after they have in fact made that
contribution. It is that deep instinct towards being charitable that engenders
satisfaction after a person has done a charitable deed or made a charitable
contribution.
The Torah wishes to encourage our charitable instinct.
It resorts to making what is essentially a voluntary act one that becomes
mandatory, being a mechanism to allow the good within us to burst forth. The
holy institutions of Israel can only be constructed with the charitable
instincts of the Jewish people.
Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein
