Jewish Generosity Teachings -

Generosity Teachings From Our Tradition

Incense and the Sanctuary Ceiling
Read Rabbi SaraLeya's teachings from the ancient texts on how our a falling down ceiling gives us all an opportunity for generosity and holiness.

Tzedakah & Terumah
Torah teaches that each person’s wholeness begins with trust. To the extent that we have no trust in the Divine or other people, we fall into the belief that we have only ourselves to depend on, that we have to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps. Naturally, if that is our only belief, then we come to live only for ourselves.

But this need not be the ethos we live by. The Jewish path invites us to walk as brothers and sisters with each other and with the Divine. The Jewish path provides practices, “holy habits” that connect us with each other and the Divine. One of the most important of these practices is tzedakah. This word tzedakah comes from the root word for justice. It is an obligatory kind of giving that doesn’t require the heart to be moved in any way. Everyone is simply required to give tzedakah appropriate to his or her capacity.

What is at the heart of this practice? Midrash teaches: “When a person gives even a small coin, he or she is privileged to sense the Divine’s presence.” The habit of giving out of pure obligation somehow can work to bring our hearts along. As Alan Morinis writes in Everyday Holiness “By obligating ourselves to give according to rules and formula, we expose our hearts to repetitive acts of giving that leave their trace on our inner lives. The very act of giving itself ultimately makes us more charitable, merciful, and loving.” So, tzedakah itself is a gift, like manna, that teaches us to be more generous through the doing.

Terumah on the other hand, means “gift.” This is giving where the Holy One is the true model. The Divine
gives to us abundantly and terumah giving is our response, from the heart. When our hearts are so moved that we are joyful in our giving (of time, of money, of particular gifts we share with someone), this is terumah giving.

This type of giving is first learned when the Israelites undertake to build a sanctuary so that the Divine might dwell among them.

“From every person whose heart moves them you should take My gift ... And let them build Me a Sanctuary, and I will dwell in their midst.” (Exodus 25:1-2, 8)

And indeed, the people do build the sanctuary and there are so many gifts brought that Moses must ask them to cease from bringing because there is enough.

Like the Israelites who gathered more than one omer of manna, most of us have a hard time becoming truly open-hearted in our giving of anything that feels scarce. The obligatory practice of generosity through tzedakah is often the “training” that leads us to a more open-hearted giving of terumah. As the 13th century text Sefer ha’Chinuch says, “Our hearts follow our deeds.” It is by giving that we become more generous and open-hearted.

What is the blessing we receive by practicing generosity?
Kaballah teaches us that life is always operating on four inter-connected levels simultaneously:

On the physical level, our spiritual home is the place we congregate as a community. It gives each of us a setting in the world that we can count on for many of our needs.
On the emotional level, we experience a sense of belonging and participation in the creation of a loving, conscious and purposeful community. This makes the celebratory dancing and singing and the quiet meditation that we share on a regular basis resonate more deeply.
On the intellectual level, giving to our spiritual home is an avenue for direct application of our principles. We overcome the caustic effects of powerlessness and cynicism; instead, we feel genuine and a sense of integrity.
On the spiritual level, supporting our spiritual home brings us the blessing of yirah, of an on-going sense of awe that God is present in our lives. It is through the practice of tzedaka, through giving of our hard earned money, that we come to understand that all our wealth comes to us from the Divine.

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