Shabbat Gathering: Charity and Shame

Dear Chevrei, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Here we go.

The other afternoon, I stopped by Willy Street Co-Op to buy some granola and prunes. As there is on many days, there was someone on the edge of the parking lot with a cardboard sign asking for money. I keep a stash of dollar bills in my car for just such occasions. I got out of my car with a dollar in hand and gave it to her. She said thank you and I looked her in the eyes and said “G!d bless you.” Rav Shai Held writes in his new book that an essential part of Tzedakah is “seeing” the person we’re giving Tzedakah, acknowledging them as a person and one of the generations of Adam that makes us all kin

Before I had the chance to talk with her further, a panicked middle-aged woman in expensive ath-leisure wear came rushing up. She blurted out that she had locked herself out of her car, that her wallet was in the car, and that she needed two dollars for bus fare so she could get home. I knew I only had a five and twenty in my wallet and I hesitated. But without hesitating, the woman I had just given a dollar to reached into her own paper bag “wallet,” pulled out two dollars and handed them to the ath-leisurewear woman. That Lululemon woman protested for a bit, accepted the two dollars, and rushed away.

I looked into the eyes of that woman with the cardboard sign. I tried to wordlessly communicate several things with her at once. Amazement at her instant generosity to someone who undoubtedly was driving an expensive car and lived in an expensive home. Admiration at her sacrifice. Shame about giving her only a dollar when I was about to drop $30 on granola and prunes. I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say, so I walked away without giving that woman with the $5 sign the $5 still in my wallet. I was simply stunned. I failed. I failed so dramatically the memory has haunted me ever since. I failed to help my sister in so much more need than myself. I, who have just bought a six room condo at Arboretum Co-Housing, just for myself to live in. I, who was going into Willy St. Co-op to buy items I could get for far less at any grocery store in Madison. Shame.

Tzedakah (along with Tefillah and Teshuvah) are three mitzvot we will repeat over and over again at Yom Kippur. These three mitzvot are supposed to lessen Hashem’s harsh decree. I need to make an act of Teshuva (repentance) for what I did that afternoon. I don’t know if I will ever see that woman with the sign ever again, so maybe the next time I see one of my kin in desperate circumstances, I’ll give them more than a single dollar bill. I have it. They need it. And that’s all I really need to know.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.