It's not easy to give -- or is it?

An Avot Mishnah for Shabbat (Parashat Ki Tavo)

This week’s perakim are Perek 3 and Perek 4. The following piece discusses a mishnah from Perek 3.

The importance of tzedakah (charity) within the life of every Jew is fundamental. Embedded in Tanach and in midrash, it needs no proof texts here. But how far should one go in performing acts of charity? At Avot 3:8 Rabbi Elazar Ish Bartota sets the scene by suggesting that there is no possession in our hands that we can ringfence or regard as sacrosanct, and exempt from the mitzvah of tzedakah, since whatever we have we hold as trustees of God:

תֶּן לוֹ מִשֶּׁלּוֹ, שֶׁאַתָּה וְשֶׁלָּךְ שֶׁלּוֹ. וְכֵן בְּדָוִד הוּא אוֹמֵר: כִּי מִמְּךָ הַכֹּל וּמִיָּדְךָ נָתַֽנּוּ לָךְ

Give Him what is His, for you, and whatever is yours, are His. As David says: "For everything comes from You, and from Your own hand we give to You" (I Divrei Hayomim 29:14).

Here Rabbi Elazar Ish Bartota is only telling us not to be too fond of our worldly goods. Elsewhere in Avot, at 5:13, we learn that a person who says “what’s mine is yours; what’s yours is yours” is a chasid—someone whose kindness exceeds the usual norm. The two mishnayot operate in different spheres: one speaks to a person’s relationship with God, the other to that person’s relationship with other people. It is possible to agree with Rabbi Elazar Ish Bartota that everything comes from God, yet focus one’s generosity on inanimate objectts such as the purchase of books or the procurement of a Sefer Torah, while contributing to neither public causes such as food kitchens for the poor, nor to the needs of individuals.

In life we can and do learn not just from what people say but from what they do. The Talmud supplies us with evidence that Rabbi Elazar Ish Bartota—who was not a wealthy man—was committed to helping his fellow humans. At Ta’anit 24a we learn how he was so generous with his assets that even the charity collectors would hide when they saw him coming.

As a contemporary slant on this ancient teaching, R’ Yisroel Miller (The Wisdom of Avos) adds a practical note:

“We live in an age of generational decline and verbal inflation. Whereas the term “mesirus nefesh” used to mean literally sacrificing life itself for Hashem (e.g. choosing death rather than worship idols), today the term is commonly used to praise anyone who gives up much time and comfort for Torah and mitzvos. Praiseworthy as such sacrifices are, Rabbi Elazar is saying that is can be made easier if we develop the attitude that ‘sacrifice’ is not actually sacrificing anything at all.

Imagine someone who truly thinks of their own bank account as belonging totally to Hashem. The Divine Owner graciously allows him to take whatever he needs, but asks him to generously distribute a portion to other needy people as well. With that attitude, giving tzedakah is not a ‘sacrifice’ but a naturally pleasant activity.

Such attitudes are not easy to develop, but many people adopt the stratagem of putting a percentage of every paycheck into a separate tzedakah account. Once deposited, it is no longer seen as ‘mine’ and is much easier to give away wholeheartedly”.

The fact that so many people today run charity accounts is a positive endorsement of the wisdom of R’ Miller’s words—though a cynic might comment that these charity accounts are generally tax-efficient, which makes it even easier to give one’s money away wholeheartedly.

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Good eye, good heart

In my previous post (“Finding that elusive good path”, 5 December 2022), I discussed the mishnah (Avot 2:13) in which Rabban Yochanan asks his five leading talmidim to “go out and take a look at the good path to which a person should adhere”. Rabbi Eliezer suggests a “good eye”, Rabbi Yehoshua “being a good friend”, Rabbi Yose HaKohen “being a good neighbour”, Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel offers “ability to see what’s coming” and Rabbi Elazar ben Arach proposes “a good heart”. Rabbi Elazar ben Arach’s answer is preferred to the other four on the basis that it is broad enough to embrace them too.

To the modern English reader, if the terms “good eye” and “good heart” are taken literally they convey no relevant meaning in this context. I therefore explained “good eye” as “generosity” and “good heart” as “spirit of magnanimity”.  Eagle-eyed reader Claude Tusk swiftly spotted that, in an earlier post, I had explained that the term “good eye” referred to "magnanimity".  I had indeed done this because I was struggling to find blanket terms both for “good eye” and “good heart” in such a way as to enable the first of these terms to fall within the scope of the second.

I’ve just been looking at what I wrote in my book on these two concepts. First, there is the “good eye”, which I describe in terms of both generosity and magnanimity:

The “good eye”

Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus’ recommendation for the good path was that a man should have a “good eye.” This phrase probably means that he should view others in a generous and magnanimous way, sharing their happiness at their good fortune rather than being jealous of it and, when judging their actions, giving them the benefit of the doubt. The opposite of this expression, a “bad (or evil) eye,” is the term used by Rabbi Eliezer’s fellow talmid Rabbi Yehoshua to indicate ill-will towards others. That same term is also employed in a later Mishnah to describe both the attitude of someone who wants to give to a charity but does not want others, by giving too, to share the reward for their generosity, and to someone who wants others to give so generously that he need not give at all. It is possible that, in making this suggestion, Rabbi Eliezer was looking not out into the wide world but deeply into his own soul. From what we know of him – which is a considerable amount more than we know of most Tannaim – magnanimity and generosity were not among his defining characteristics. Identifying this, he may have proposed the path of the “good eye” out of recognition that this should be his own personal route to redemption [emphases added; footnotes omitted].

 I then turn to the “good heart”:

A “good heart”

If the words of Rabbi Elazar ben Arach are to be given their literal meaning, they must be interpreted widely enough to embrace the words of all four other talmidim. On this basis, the “good heart” may refer to the heart as a metaphor for the focal point of a person’s disposition, just as in English one might describe a person as being “good-hearted.” Rabbi Elazer’s suggestion would therefore be a counsel of perfection: in short, the best path is to do what is right at all times in a warm, friendly and accommodating manner, being slow to anger, quick to forgive, willing to share, foresighted and prudent in all his dealings, and as happy at the good fortune of others as he would be at his own [footnotes omitted].

Rabbi Reuven Melamed (Melitz Yosher) mentions a comment of the mashgiach of Ponevez, who treats “good friend” and “good neighbour” as meaning having a good friend or neighbour rather than being one. If one wishes to maintain one’s relationship with such a person, one will be influenced by that person into following their path. In contrast, the advice of Rabbis Eliezer and Elazar appears to be to follow a path of moral excellence that is not determined by others. This is not however the case, he adds, since it is only by learning from the example of others—presumably good friends and good neighbours—that one is able to latch on to the virtues of generosity and magnanimity which those rabbis prescribe.

There should be no doubt that magnanimity is a broader category of good-heartedness than is generosity. For example, where two protagonists are engaged in a game of chess, if the loser can feel genuine warmth towards the winner and share the latter’s happiness at winning, he is said to be magnanimous in defeat. To say that he is generous might rather suggest that he gave the game away.

As ever, readers’ comments and perspectives are welcome.

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