 The devotee generosity is not simply a character trait, amida, to aspire to. What our sages teach us is that this is actually part of our spiritual DNA. All human beings obviously have a propensity, the potential for being generous, but our sages teach us that it is an essential part of the makeup of a Jew. And it goes back actually to the beginning of our narrative as a people. We know that when Abraham, the first progenitor of the people of Israel, so Abraham is known for his character trait of kindness, of extending himself to others. And when he was seeking a wife for his son, what he did was to send his servant, Eliezer, specifically to try and find a woman that would exhibit that character trait in particular. I mean that when Eliezer is going to be traveling halfway around the world to find a bride, what is he going to be looking for? And what we see in the Torah is that he sets up a test specifically for kindness, for generosity, for a woman that will extend herself towards others. And the Talmud says, the Talmud goes so far as to say, in tractate Yevamot 79a, that there were three signs that exemplify a Jew. Talmud says it is Baishanim, people who are bashful or shy, Rahmanim, people who are merciful, and Gomelah Hasadim, people who conduct acts of loving kindness to others. And the Talmud goes so far as to say that if you meet someone that does not have these characteristics, these character traits, you might even be able to question whether they really are a Jew. Now Rabbi Mordechai Becher, in his wonderful introduction to Judaism called Gateway to Judaism, writes that in 17th century Rome, 17th century Rome, the Jewish community only had several thousand Jews, it was a very small Jewish community. But even though it was a very small Jewish community, they had 23 Chesed organizations, 23 organizations that were set up to help people with different needs. There was organizations to care for the sick, for needy brides, for the schooling of poor people, there was a free burial society, there was a fund for the poor people of Israel. But they had 23 different organizations that were there working to help people. Now anyone that does a little bit of research into our wonderful community here in Toronto will find literally hundreds of organizations, some very large and some very small, that are set up to help others. And they're set up by people who are doing it simply out of the goodness of their hearts. I received this morning an email, I'm on an email list here in Toronto, and it was saying that someone has a gamach, gamach, the letters that stand for gimilut chassadim, really deeds of kindness. And there are, again, dozens and dozens of these gamach organizations here in Toronto. This was from someone who says the following, for those flying on Sprint, I'm sorry, for those flying Spirit, I guess that must be an airline, I have three custom fitted carry-ons to maximize your free luggage allowance. So he set up this organization, anyone, I guess it's flying this airline, he's willing to lend you for free this luggage that was custom fitted for this airline, available to borrow if you want. And there are literally dozens and dozens of similar, they're not organizations that are with a corporate structure. They run out of someone's apartment that I have someone's home. There are gamachs in Toronto for people that need a mezuzza. I actually had to avail myself of this a few summers ago. I was staying in a cottage for more than 30 days, and if you're staying in a place for more than 30 days, you should have a mezuzza on the door, and I didn't go up there taking all my mezuzzots from here in Toronto, so if someone had a gamach to lend the mezuzot, I was able to borrow them and put them up on the cottage for the summer. There's a gamach here in Toronto for winter gloves, shouldn't need it. For cell phone chargers, people for example that are coming from out of town that forgot their cell phone charger, that needs one, there are places here that will lend you cell phone chargers. There are GPS, several GPS gamachs. So if you're running around town and you need to find a place up in Richmond Hill, you can borrow a GPS. There's a stroller gamach, people that might need a stroller. There's an organization here called CHAPA Ride, where there's someone that will help you find a ride for people going to the States, people going to other places in Canada. If you either want to give someone a ride or you need a ride, this is a central booking agency all done out of the goodness of their heart to help people that need rides. There is an air mattress gamach in town, almost anything that you can imagine. There are people that are happy to lend it, and they organize this. It's done in an organized way. And so there are people who want to be generous. They want to be able to give. And that's really what we'll be focusing on tonight. Another thing that was discovered in some research done recently is that the United Jewish Appeal, which is the central Jewish charitable organization in almost every major city in North America. So they said that the UJA in North America raises more each year for charity than the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the March of Dimes, and the National Easter Seal Society combined. That was in a study that came out in the Wall Street Journal. So let's try to understand a little bit about why this media, this character trait of generosity is so important. Moses Maimonides, a very famous Jewish scholar, had a much less famous son named Rabbi Abraham Ben-Harambam, Abraham's son of Maimonides. And he wrote a very small, beautiful little book about the service of God and how to live a more spiritual life, where he explains that God is a giver. God, by nature, is a giver and he acts with tremendous generosity toward the world. The creation itself was an act of giving, because after all, God did not have to create the world. The Bible says, Olam Chesed Yibani, the world was created as an act of loving kindness. And it says in the book of Psalms, chapter 145, Tov Adonai Lakol, God is good to all. And so because God, by nature, is good and God does good, it's important for us to know that because one of the most central spiritual pursuits that human beings should aspire to is what the Bible calls going in the ways of God, the halacha bedrachav, to walk in the ways of God. The fancy Greek term is imitatio dei, to imitate God, to try to model our lives after God, to live the way God would act. The book called Chavo Televavo, the duties of the heart, writes that again, God did not have to create us. And yet, he continually keeps us alive. Every moment that we are living, it's because God is keeping us alive. It doesn't happen by itself. We are being kept alive every moment of our life by God. And this extends so far that the Kabbalistic Musa work called Tomer Devorah, the palm tree of Devorah, writes that God is so generous, so giving that he even continues to give life, to give breath, to give the ability of our limbs to move even when we rebel against God. The person who is sinning against God only has the power and the ability to do that, to commit these sins, because God gives them the power, the ability to breathe, to move their limbs. So God is incredibly generous, incredibly giving. So we can posture our lives to try to be givers. God is not a taker. God doesn't need anything. And so to orient ourselves in our lives, to try to be givers, to try to be generous, to try to go beyond ourselves, to get out of our often default position of being self-centered and selfish, and to get beyond that and to think of others and to act on behalf of others. What this does is it builds closeness and intimacy with God. We become closer to God by becoming more godly ourselves. The Muser work that I mentioned last week, the Orchatzadikim, the pathways of the just, of the righteous, writes that there are three kinds of generosity. I think there are actually many more. But he speaks about three kinds of generosity. Generosity with our money, which is often the impulsive way we think about it. Generosity with our body and generosity with our mind. It's interesting that when it comes to generosity with money, the very first fundraising project in the history of the Jewish people, we are known for fundraising. The very first fundraising project in the history of the Jewish people was almost as soon as we came out of Egypt. Can you imagine a nation of former slaves who are coming out and for the first time experiencing freedom? And soon after they leave Egypt, they're given the mandate to build a sanctuary, a spiritual house for God in the desert. And the Bible speaks about the incredible generosity of the Jewish people in contributing to this project. They didn't have to give anything. They were asked to give. They were asked to give. And what the Bible does is uses three different expressions for the generosity of the people. It speaks about those people whose hearts were inspired, those people who were generous of heart, and those people whose spirits motivated them. And that's what led to the construction of this proto-temple that was built in the desert. It's interesting that when God gives the command, the mandate to build this portable temple, so the Bible says in Exodus chapter 25, the Asulee miktash, you will build for me a sanctuary, the shokhanti betoham, and I will dwell among them. So God says to Moses, now the grammar here is a little bit off, because what it should say is, the Asulee miktash, they will build for me a sanctuary, the shokhanti betoham, and I will dwell in it, in the sanctuary. No. The scripture says that they will build for me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them, in them actually, betoham in them. And so what the Malbim, one of the great Torah commentaries points out is that this inner construction, meaning that when it speaks about us building a sanctuary and God dwelling among us, what our sages really say is that there is a physical sanctuary, there is a tabernacle in the desert. And yet we speak about the idea of each person building a sanctuary in their heart, each person transforming themselves into a human sanctuary, that each heart, every human heart becomes a sanctuary. And so the Malbim says that this inner construction, this building project where each person made themselves into a temple was done how? How did we do it? He says it was by perfecting our spontaneous generosity. It was by each person becoming spontaneously generous in the construction of this sanctuary that's what constructed this temple within the hearts of each person. It's interesting when you think about it, what else can we give God? What else are we able to give the Almighty than our overflowing hearts? We can't really give Him anything else because He owns everything else in the world. It says in the book of Chronicles, Deveree HaYamim, 1 Chronicles 29-14, it says, everything is from you. We say to God, God, everything is from you. And from your hand we have given to you, meaning any time we give something to God, we donate something to a worthy cause, we donate something to the building of the sanctuary, that's coming from God Himself. It's like when a little child puts a coin into the charity box, it's not their coin, they got it from their parents. So everything that we do, everything that we give ultimately comes from God anyway. And so the only thing that we really have that's our own is our own heart. And that's what we can give God. That which comes from our overflowing heart. For example, God does give us 613 commandments to perform. And yet one of the things that our sages teach us we should do is to try to beautify the commandments, to try to do the commandments in a beautiful way. And so we're actually enjoined to spend extra money on making the commandments that we do in the service of God more beautiful. So when we build a sukkah, sure we can just build a simple sukkah behind our house, but we're told to try and make it even more beautiful. When we buy an etch rogue, the four species, you can buy an etch rogue, but you should try and even make it a more beautiful one. Don't buy the simplest one you can buy. Spend a little bit extra money to make it more beautiful. When you buy a talit, a prayer shawl, spend a little bit extra more money. And that's a way of not just beautifying the mitzvah, beautifying the commandment. It's a way in which we are ultimately giving to God because we're serving him in a more generous way. We see by the way that this was something that plays out in the very beginning of the Bible when Cain and Abel bring sacrifices to God. So we're told that Cain just brought whatever he could bring. He didn't bring the best. He actually brought some sacrifices from not the best kind of produce he could have brought, from flax. Maybe he could have done better. We're told that his brother Abel, he brought from the fat of his flocks, from the best of his sheep. He didn't just pick any sheep from the flock. He went to pick the best. People that are generous, they go the extra mile. There's a wonderful book called Holy Brother. The stories about the life of Rabbi Shlomo Karlbach, who had a tremendous connection to Toronto. And in one of the stories Rabbi Yaakov Haber, who back then was a rabbi in Buffalo, New York, was trying to have a concert in his synagogue. And he booked a musician for the concert that ended up breaking his leg and had to back out of the last minute. And this was a concert that was planned. Advertising went out. The whole was booked. And he didn't know what to do. And someone suggested, why don't you try contacting Shlomo Karlbach? And so he did. He didn't think it would be possible, but he had nothing to lose at this point. And Shlomo Karlbach said, you know, you're in luck. Because I had another concert booked for the same night. But somehow the rabbi of the synagogue got into a fight with the canter of the synagogue about who was going to introduce me. And the whole thing blew up and they canceled the whole concert. So I'm free. I can come. And Rabbi Haber couldn't believe his good fortune. So he booked this concert with Rabbi Karlbach, and Rabbi Karlbach said to him, and knew, what about Parnassa? He said, meaning, how am I going to get paid, right? You know, it's funny because for years he wasn't very good at arranging to be paid. He ended up doing so many concerts for free. But he ended up, you know, getting into trouble. I mean, he can't live like that. So his managers were saying, then you can't do that anymore. You have to ask to be paid. So Rabbi Haber, he felt very bad. He said, listen, I feel awkward telling you this, but the previous performer wasn't an international star like you are. We only had reserved $500 for him. And I feel embarrassed to even offer you $500. And Shlomo says, I get a couple of thousand dollars to do a concert. And Rabbi Haber said, look. We don't want to cancel this concert. And so even though it was a fundraiser, what we'll do is at the end of the evening, all the proceeds, instead of taking the profit, we're just going to give you whatever comes in. And that was the arrangement. So they had a wonderful concert. And afterwards, you know, there are people who are waiting to speak to Rabbi Karlbach. And there was a young man, a religious man, who was waiting for a long time. I think he was probably waiting for everyone else to leave. And he's the last person to speak with Rabbi Karlbach. Rabbi Haber is still there. And he comes over and Rabbi Shlomo Karlbach says, how can I help you? He says, you know, very despondently, he needs a blessing for Shalom by it. There should be peace in his marriage. And so Rabbi Karlbach said, what's wrong? He says, you know, my wife and I got married. We had a great marriage, wonderful life together. And then a few years ago, we decided to become religious Jews. We decided to start keeping kosher and observing the Sabbath. And he says, once we decided to do that, I kept on getting fired from every job that I had, because they wanted me to work on the Sabbath. And he said, you know, I just can't hold out a job now. And it's causing a lot of financial difficulties. And it's putting a strain on my marriage. And so without batting an eyelash, Rabbi Karlbach pulled out all the money he was just given, $2,700. And he gives it to the person right away, everything. All the money he was getting for the concert, he just gives to this person. All the person did was really come and ask for a blessing that Rabbi Karlbach should give him a blessing that he should have peace in his marriage. But Rabbi Karlbach understood that that's not what he needed. He needed money. He didn't just need a blessing. And so without pausing, without skipping a beat, he just gave him all the money that he himself desperately needed. Being generous really means looking beyond the surface and trying to understand what is really needed in each situation. It's easy to sort of react superficially to situations and give what seems to be necessary on a superficial level. There's a famous story where someone came to the brisker of, the rabbi that was the head of the town of Brisk before Passover and asked him, is it permissible to use milk instead of the four cups of wine for the Passover Seder? It's a pretty unusual question. And the brisker of basically had his assistant give this person a tremendous amount of money for the Passover Seder. And the person was very, very grateful and he left. And the assistant said, you know, he only came in here asking if he can use milk for the four cups of wine. You know, he obviously felt he couldn't afford wine, milk is cheaper. So the brisker of said, you know, if he was considering serving milk at the Seder, it's obvious that he couldn't afford meat either. He wasn't going to serve meat at the Seder where he was having milk. So he realized this person needed much more than just money to pay for the wine. He was someone that was able to penetrate and to see beyond the surface question. Aside from giving our money, we can do generosity, be generous with our bodies as well. I'll just tell you another story that I happen to have personally witnessed with Rabbi Shlomo Karobach when I was living in New York City. I once arranged for him to come to Queens College to play a concert around Hanukkah time. And to me, the fact that he was going to do a free concert itself, but this is before he, I guess he was trying to, he was being pushed to charge for his concerts. But that's not why I want to tell you this story. The fact that he agreed to do a free concert is not the point of the story. So he happened to have been earlier in the day in Pittsburgh, playing a concert in Pittsburgh, and he was going to come in from Pittsburgh to New York to play this concert at Queens College. I was there getting set up, and I had a very sick feeling in my stomach. Because as the time for the concert was approaching, they were only about six or seven people in the audience. This was an entire auditorium. It wasn't a beautiful day in terms of weather, but there were only six or seven students there. And I was saying to myself, Rabbi Karobach is schlepping in from Pittsburgh to play this concert that he's willing to do for free, and six people are going to be in the audience. And I just felt sick. Of course, Rabbi Karobach had a habit of not showing up on time. We had to wait for about an hour and a half. I was praying that in that time maybe somewhere people would come. But no, we had just a half a dozen people. But what happened amazed me because he came in and he played a full concert as if there were a thousand people in the room. He gave himself fully, he gave himself fully to what he was doing. And that's one of the critical elements of a generous spirit, to give ourselves fully to what we're doing. It's probably not unusual for people to receive a phone call. Maybe someone is calling them that needs some advice or someone needs a good ear to listen to, and while they're on the phone, they're checking their email or they're checking their Facebook posting. They're not really fully giving themselves over to the person that needs their attention. And so the generous spirit is the one that gives themselves fully to the people that they encounter. One of the ways in which we can be generous and giving with both our bodies and our money is with the beautiful mitzvah, the beautiful commandment of Hachnasat Orchem, of welcoming guests into our home. I often meet people that are incredulous when they find out that in the Jewish community, people often feel that their Sabbath table would be empty and naked if they didn't have guests. I often deal with people that are in the process of converting to Judaism. And I tell them about the importance of living in a Jewish community. And one of the reasons that's so important is that you can spend Shabbat in the community so that people will invite you to their homes for lunch, for dinner, for both, to sleep over, and they can't believe it. They say that people are going to have me over on a stranger. They don't know who I am. They're going to invite me to their homes. And so this mitzvah of welcoming guests into our home is for many people something that they cannot have a Shabbat or a holiday meal without guests. To not have guests at their table would mean that their table was incomplete. Their home was incomplete without having guests. The Talmud says, gedola hachnasat orchem, yoter mikabalat pnehashrinah. Tractate Shabbat says that welcoming guests into your home is even greater than receiving the presence of God, the divine presence. Where do we learn this? We learned this from the story of Abraham. And Abraham shortly after his circumcision, we're told that God comes to visit him in the 18th chapter of Genesis. God appears to Abraham. Why does God appear to Abraham? Nothing is said between them. Usually in the Bible, when God appears to people, he speaks to them. And in this chapter, we're told that right after his circumcision, God appears to Abraham. Why? So the rabbis teach us that God came to visit the sick. Abraham is sick. He's recovering. He's recuperating from his circumcision. God comes to pay him a visit. And yet we know that Abraham was sick if he didn't have guests to take care of. We're told that on every day he would go out in front of his tent in the middle of the desert and look to see who's coming in the desert. Who we can welcome into his house. And we're told that in order to make sure that he would not go out and look for guests, God made the sun shine very, very bright that day. God figured, if I make it really, really hot, maybe guests are not even going to go walking in the desert that day. Maybe Abraham will stay inside. But no, Abraham is outside looking for guests. And finally, God realizes that Abraham is so upset that no guests are coming. So God sends three visitors to go past Abraham's tent. And in the middle of his conversation with God, God is now speaking with Abraham, the Bible tells us that Abraham sees these three wanderers. And he basically says to God, I'm sorry, God, I have to put you on hold. He basically says to God, I have to put you on hold. And he runs to take care of these three guests. So based upon this story where God basically is put on hold, and Abraham runs and takes care of the guests, the Talmud said, you see from this that welcoming guests into your home is even higher than conversing, than greeting and spending time with the divine presence. The reason, by the way, is not hard to understand. When God comes to your presence, when God comes to pay a visit, we understand what that means even, but God is visiting Abraham. Abraham is basically being passive. He's in the presence of God. It's a pretty amazing thing to be in the presence of God. But by welcoming guests, Abraham is now becoming active. He is acting in a godly way, in the same way that God nourishes and sustains the world, that's what Abraham wants to be. He wants to be acting in a godly way, where he is going to be like God. He is going to now nurture and sustain people. So that will get you to even higher levels of intimacy with God, not just passively being in the presence of God, but you yourself becoming a more godly person. The Talmud says in Haggiga that when the temple was here, when we had our temple in Jerusalem, the altar in the temple was part of the atonement process, the altar on which we brought our sacrifices. But the Talmud says that now that our temple is not here, the tables in our homes become like an altar. It's the tables in our homes around which we bring guests to our home. They become the equivalent of the temple altar. And this is so deep and so profound that Rebeno Bacchia says something incredible. He tells us that the pious people of France would construct their burial caskets from their dining room tables. The caskets in which they were buried were made from the tables in which they sat around with their guests during Shabbat and holidays. That's how precious and holy the welcoming of guests into our homes is. It's not just celebrating the Shabbat, but bringing people into our homes, nourishing them, sustaining them, lifting their spirits and going beyond ourselves. It's interesting that the Passover Seder that we have every year towards the end of the Seder, what do we do? We get up from our tables, we walk over to the door of our homes and we open the door and we say that we're opening the door for Elijah the prophet. There's a tradition that the Messiah will come around Passover time, just as we were redeemed from Egypt Passover time, so the future redemption will be Passover time. And we know that Elijah the prophet is supposed to return before the coming of the Messiah. And so as a sign that we really have faith that the redemption is at hand, we open our doors. But the commentaries explain that something deeper is going on. What it's saying is that what is it that brings the redemption? What is it that will bring the coming of the Messiah? It's when we open our doors. It's when we bring people into our homes. It's when we're hospitable. It's when we're gracious. It's when we're generous. That opening up the door of our home, that is what brings Elijah the prophet. That's what brings the redemption. As Isaiah says, tzion b'mishpat tipadeh, Zion will be redeemed with righteousness. I've often told people that one of the regrets that I have in my life is that I had tickets to the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, but I didn't go. I was 16 years old. I had my first summer job and the boss threatened to fire me if I took off. So like an idiot, I stayed there for two more weeks because the summer was over at the end of August. This was the middle of August. So anyway, there's something amazing that happened at the Woodstock Festival. As you know, they didn't expect a quarter of a million people and that's what they got. Half a million people. So they had a big crowd and they didn't bring enough provisions for the number of people that came. And so one of the stage announcements that was made from the stage actually reflects a very famous rabbinic teaching. When the rabbis try to explain how do we understand the nature of heaven versus the nature of hell, they tell the following parable, which I think also appears in other cultures too. So they tell a parable that what is heaven and what is hell? They say hell is a big palace and people come into this big palace and it's beautiful. And they come to a huge, huge dining room table which has the fanciest china and beautiful gold silverware and everyone's sitting around this table and on their plates is a gourmet meal, a delicious gourmet meal in the most beautiful setting you can imagine. And people sitting around this table put their fork into the food and they find unfortunately that they're not able to bring their forks up to their mouths. The fork basically is there stuck in the food and they're not able to bring their fork up into their mouth. And they say that's what hell will be like. You're sitting there for eternity with this beautiful gourmet meal that you're not able to taste. And so the question is what is heaven? They say heaven is the exact same place. It's the exact same palace and everyone is sitting around this big beautiful dining room table with the most beautiful china and gold silverware and a gourmet meal in front of them and their fork is in the food and they're not able to get their fork into their mouth. And that's heaven. What makes it heaven? Because everyone realizes in heaven that even though their arm will not move directly back towards their mouth, their arm is able to move to the side and each person moves their arm to the side and feeds the person next to them. And so at Woodstock, I think it was Wavy Gravy, one of the announcers says from the stage one day, he says, look man, we're in heaven. We're feeding each other. So he somehow learned this famous parable. And so by being generous both with our money and our bodies were able to reach an extremely high level of attachment to God. And of course, being generous with our minds, with our minds, with our expertise by giving advice. It's almost a lost art how to give advice in the world today. But doing it in a gracious way and doing it in an intelligent way is a way of being generous with our mind, obviously with our time. Using our minds to influence others in ways where it will help them. Again, influencing them in a way where it will be effective in wielding our influence. We're told that Abraham is not just concerned with himself. Abraham was concerned with the entire world. And he sought to influence the entire world to connecting with God. He did whatever he could to bring people to a knowledge of God. And so by using our minds properly to help influence other people, to offer advice is a way of being generous. Now what is the opposite of generosity? In Hebrew it's called sarot ayin, a narrow tight self-centered focus. A tight eye, a narrow eye in the book of Ruth. Naomi's husband, Eli Melech, was a very, very wealthy person. And we're told that in his days there was a terrible famine in the land of Israel. So what did he do? He took his entire family down to Moab. He left the country and traveled to Moab. Why? Because he feared that during the famine everyone was gonna come knocking at his door. He didn't want people knocking at his door. They didn't have to nourish everyone else. He had plenty. He was very wealthy. And so his stinginess led him to go to Moab, the country of Moab. Then the great irony is that Moab was a nation that God said that they could never marry into the Jewish people. These people would never be able to join with the Jewish people. Why? Because when the Jewish people left Egypt they did not come out to meet us with bread and water to greet us and to sustain us and nourish us. They were cheap. They were stingy. So Eli Melech, when he's stinginess he goes down to the most stingy nation in the world. The Bible says that there were different kinds of Soraas. Soraas is translated as leprosy. It probably is not the kind of leprosy that we're thinking about. But it was a skin ailment that people got. The sages tell us that they would get it if they spoke negatively of others. But the Bible had not only a leprosy of the skin there was also something called the Soraas of the house. Houses themselves could break out with these strange discolorations on the walls. And we're told that these discolorations, this thing called soraas abayit, the leprosy of the house, would afflict stingy people. Because in order to deal with this soraas of the house people would have to remove all their possessions and they would have to basically take apart the walls of the house. And when they removed all their possessions from the house they'd have to put everything out in front of their home and the whole world can see what they had. And now they would look really terrible because people used to probably come to them and ask for things they needed, support, they needed food, they needed clothing, they needed whatever and these stingy people probably said, I'm sorry, I don't have. And now they'd have to take everything that they denied having all those years and put it out in front of their homes they would be left very embarrassed. We're told that in Egypt there was a plague called the plague of darkness. And the Bible says that it was a terrible plague that for three days we're told there was a thick darkness in Egypt. The actual, the language of the Bible is strange. It says there was a palpable darkness. You can even touch it or feel it. That's how thick it was. And it says that it was so thick that it says no person could see his brother and no one got up from their place. That's what the Torah tells us. There was three days of this palpable darkness, no one could see their brother and no one got up from their place. And the Gararebi, one of the great Hasidic masters says that if you want to understand what is the worst darkness in the world, of course it was dark, you couldn't see. He said, but the worst darkness is where people can't see their brothers. People can't see the other. Meaning that there are people in our communities that are needy and we close our eyes. We don't see them. We pretend not to look or we don't notice but we're often blinded to the needs of others. And so the Gararebi said that this is the plague of darkness in Egypt and how is it described? No one could see his brother. He said, that's the worst darkness when you can't see the plight of someone else. And he says, what does the verse go on to say? And they didn't get up from their place. Meaning if you can't see the pain of someone else, you'll never get up from your place to lift a finger to help them. So the scripture here says that was the plague of darkness and we're told that it was palpable. It was thick. So the Talmud asks, how thick was this darkness? How thick was it? The Talmud says it was as thick as a silver pruta, as a silver coin. That's how thick it was. What is the lesson here? So we know that if you have a pane of glass, you can see through the other side and you can see other people. But what happens if you put a strip of silver behind the glass? It becomes a mirror and you could only see yourself. So what the sages say is that the thickness of the darkness in Egypt was the thickness of a silver coin. What they're saying is, what is it that often prevents us from seeing other people? What often is it that prevents us from getting involved in the lives of other people and feeling their pain? It's this silver, meaning when we have and we have plenty ourselves, we often get just exclusively involved in our own lives, narrowly focused into our own lives. We don't see other people and we'll never lift a finger to help them. There's an incredibly beautiful tradition we have that before a meal, Jewish law says that we are supposed to wash our hands if we're having bread. This is the idea of washing our hands if we're going to eat bread at a meal. And this is a well-known Jewish practice. But the Talmud says there's another time we should wash our hands and that's at the end of the meal. It's not as well-known. It's called mayim achronim, the last waters, the final waters. And the custom is at the end of the meal to take a little bit of water and to pour it over your fingertips. So why do we do that? Why is there a custom to wash our hands at the end of the meal? So the Talmud gives a strange reason. The Talmud says because at the end of the meal there is something called sodomite salt. There's salt from sedone. And the Talmud says if you get it in your eyes you'll go blind. Now what is that talking about? What does that mean? So first of all, the idea of salt in the Talmud is always the idea of flavor or taste. What the Talmud is saying is at the end of the meal is a flavor. Sodomite salt is a flavor of sedone. Flavor of sedome. At the end of a meal. What was sedome? So we know that sedome was one of the four cities that was destroyed in the very beginning of the Bible. What was going on in sedome that was so terrible? So actually the sages say something interesting. Our sages tell us that the sodomite had a philosophy. The philosophy of sedome was Sheli Sheli Vashelcha Shelcha. What's mine is mine and what's yours is yours. That was their philosophy. Which actually people would listen to that and say what's wrong with that, it makes sense. What's mine is mine and what's yours is yours. That was their philosophy and they lived it to a fault. And so they had a philosophy that if you didn't have something that was your problem. So in sedome not only did they not take care of people that were needy, they institutionalized greediness. They institutionalized not giving charity. You were not allowed to give charity. They felt that if you didn't have, maybe it's because you're not working hard enough. They were totally opposed to any kind of welfare. What's mine is mine, what's yours is yours. So that was the philosophy of sedome. And so the rabbis tell us that at the end of our meals there is this salt, the flavor of sedome. And what will it do? It will blind your eyes. The rabbis tell us that before we eat our meal, before we eat our meal, we have two hearts. Before we eat, we have two hearts. After we eat our meal, we have one heart. What does that mean? Before you eat your meal, you're hungry. You haven't eaten yet. You yourself are hungry. And if you're hungry, you can empathize with someone else that's hungry. You know how it feels. There are two hearts before the meal. Your own heart, you know how it feels to be hungry. You are hungry. And because you're hungry, you can feel the hunger of someone else that's hungry. But the danger is after the meal, you only have one heart. Because now you're satiated. You've eaten, you're full. And once you're full, you are no longer able to feel the pain and hunger of someone else. And so that's the danger. The rabbis teach us that after a meal, there's a danger that the flavor, the salt of sedom will come. Meaning this philosophy of being selfish. And it'll blind your eyes to the needs of the hungry. That's the danger at the end of a meal. At the end of the meal, when you're no longer hungry, you might become desensitized to people who are doing without. And so the rabbis tell us, take some water and just wash this buildup that congeals our hearts. Just wash it off our fingers as a way of sensitizing us to the fact that even though we've eaten and we're no longer hungry, we need to be sensitive to the needs of others. How is it that we can cultivate generosity? So we've mentioned before that according to Maimonides and others, the best way of sensitizing ourselves and really acquiring any positive trait is through acting in that way, through habitual giving. The more we give, the more we will become generous. Maimonides says it's better to give a small amount of money to 100 people and to give a large amount of money to one person because it's the repeated acts of giving that will transform us. By giving, we become givers, we become generous. Norman Deutsch, who's a famous psychiatrist from here in Toronto, wrote a book called The Brain That Repairs Itself. And he says that it's by taking actions repeatedly that we build pathways in the brain itself. Our brain itself changes through the behaviors that we make. So if we act in a generous way, even if we're not really generous inside, even if we're not generous people, but if we act in a generous way, we will become generous. Act as if we're generous. Well, we say in modern times, fake it till you make it. Now, one of the things that's helpful is to expand our vision of what generosity is. Again, it's easy to see generosity as giving money, maybe even inviting people to our homes, but there are other ways that we can be generous. And if we become aware of these, it's easier for us to incorporate generosity into our day-to-day lives. Nachmanides, Moses Ben-Nachman said that the commandment in the Bible of the Haftal Rehaka Mocha to love your neighbor as yourself is how do you do that? How do you love your neighbor as yourself? So Nachmanides says that you do that by rejoicing in the success of others. It's hard to do that sometimes. People are competitive, people don't wanna think about other people so much. But Nachmanides says that when the Torah tells us to love our neighbor as ourself, he says what it means is to take pleasure in their successes, to rejoice in their good fortune. That's a way of being generous. It's generous to show people that we appreciate their good fortune, that we take pleasure in their successes, because people often feel that we're jealous of them. That's what they assume. And that's why they don't wanna share their successes with others. They often wanna keep things to themselves because they feel I don't wanna provoke jealousy. And so Nachmanides says give them the opportunity, give them the opportunity to feel good about their successes by you appreciating their successes. One of my favorite stories which I tell frequently is an incredible story about how we can give in an unusual way. I'm not 100% sure this is a true story. It's not so important. It may be a true story. I've heard this actually might be a true story, could be a true story. So the story I'll try and make it brief that takes place at a time when the Jewish people living in Russia in the, I think it must have been the 18th or 19th century, they would often live in small towns where the local police officer was not just the police officer, they were the tax collector, they were the judge, they were the jury, they were the executioner, and they also minded the prison. And in this particular little town, the police officer for years and years and years was skimming off of the taxes they were collecting and not sending it back to St. Petersburg. And this is going on for about 25 years. And one day he gets a rude awakening. One day he sent a letter from St. Petersburg, they say, you know, we've been going over the records and there's about 25,000 rubles that you owe us. And that was a massive fortune. And he couldn't figure out where he's gonna get 25,000 rubles from. And so he did something which was very common back then. He kidnapped the first Jew that he saw and he said to the town, if you want this fellow back, you're gonna have to give me 25,000 rubles. Now this was a particularly poignant situation because the fellow that he happened to kidnap was a young man who was orphaned as an infant and he was basically raised as a ward of the city. He was basically raised as a child of everyone in the city. And he recently got engaged, he was about to get married and his wedding was coming up in a few days. And so here he's on the eve of his wedding and he's kidnapped and it doesn't look like he's gonna get out of jail because the town doesn't have anywhere near 25,000 rubles. And they all get together and they're trying to figure out how much do we have and what if we collected everything, what if we try to sell some things and with all their meetings and brainstorming, they realized they didn't have anywhere near the 25,000 rubles, nowhere near it and what are we gonna do? So it just happened that as this was taking place, there were three young rabbis who later became famous rabbis. They were passing through. There was Ravlava Yitzchok of Burditchov, there was Roshner Zalman of Liyadi and there was Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and these three young Torah scholars happened to be there when this is going on and they realized that they're in a stalemate and so Ravlava Yitzchok of Liyadi says, you know what, I realize what we have to do. He says, you know, there's this fellow that lives on the outskirts of town, a very, very wealthy baron and he's the one we have to approach and everyone else is saying to him, are you crazy? That guy, he left the Jewish community. He converted to Christianity. He doesn't want anything to do with us and as a matter of fact, he hates us so much that anyone in the past that's gone to him, he threatens to kill them. So Ravlava Yitzchok Zalman said, look, you're right, you're right, but no one else has the money. He's the only one that has the money and that obviously is where we have to go. So he says, I'm gonna go and ask him for the money and his two colleagues say to him, look, you're not gonna go by yourself, we're gonna go with you. And he says, fine, you can come with me, but I do all the talking, you guys keep your mouth shut. So they make their way to the edge of town and they go to this massive palace and they knock on the door and this baron opens the door and he's looking at these three young rabbis and he can't believe himself. He says, are you people crazy? I would normally shoot people like you. What are you doing here? So Ravlava Yitzchok Zalman of Liadi says, we have a terrible situation. This young orphan who just got engaged to get married, he was kidnapped, he's being held for 25,000 rubles ransom, we need the money. And he spends 15 minutes laying it on very thick, going through the whole tragedy that he lost his parents when he was a little baby and he was raised by the town and we had a very difficult life and it was very hard for him to find someone and he could marry as an orphan and he's very poor. And finally he found someone that would marry him and then right before the wedding he's kidnapped. Anyway, the baron, they finally, he gets through to the baron and the baron says, okay, okay, he's right here for one moment and he goes into a little side room and in the side room there's a table, there's a desk and he pulls out the top drawer of the desk and he pulls out a coin and he tosses the coin to Reshneer Zalman of Liadi. Reshneer Zalman picks it up and it's an old, dirty, rusty coin. It's a copic, it's not even a rubble. Like it's not a dollar, it's a penny. And Reshneer Zalman looks at the copic and he gets very emotional and he says, oh, this is so amazing, thank you so much. This is so generous of you, this is so kind that you're doing this kindness for this young man, I can't thank you enough and it's such an amazing thing that you're doing and thank you so much and he lays it on very thick and he says, it's tremendous, it's tremendous what you're doing but you know we need 25,000 rubles and he goes through the whole story another time, another 10 minutes of going through the whole story and finally the man says, okay, okay, okay and he goes to the desk again and he pulls out another coin and he throws it to the rabbi. At this point, the two colleagues are about to jump down this man's throat. Nerve, he's got nerve, he's mocking us. And Reshneer Zalman says to them like, told you, I do the talking, you guys be quiet. And so again, he thanks this man profusely, this is so amazing, it's so generous, it's so kind of you, thank you, it's so helpful, I can't tell you how helpful this is, it's so important, he says, but you know, we need 25,000 rubles. Anyway, this goes on for about six hours where he comes back next time with five Copex and then he comes back with a rubble and then 10 rubles and then 100 and then 1,000. He finally gets the 25,000 rubles, great. So they bring the money to the warden, to the police officer and he frees the young man and they get ready for the wedding. Now, the police officer has 25,000 rubles. He can't believe it, he thought he was cooked, he thought he was in big trouble with St. Petersburg and now he's sitting on this fortune. So he makes himself a big party and he gets good and drunk and then he says, I can't stick around here, you know, they're gonna catch me. So he puts all the money in the back of his wagon and he whips the horses and he's racing out of town as fast as he can go. Meanwhile, they're having the wedding in the middle of the square and guess who shows up at the wedding? The miser. The miser who felt so great that he was able to save the day and he felt he had done this wonderful thing, he figured, why not? I'm gonna come to the wedding and rejoice with the bride and groom. So the miser's there, everyone's having a great time, everyone's dancing, everyone's extremely happy and while this wedding is going on, the police officer is tearing out of town as fast as he can, but he's very drunk and he's not able to steer the wagon so well and in the story, the wagon crashes into the bridge leading out of town. The poor constable goes flying out of the wagon, he drowns in the river, but all the money in the back of the wagon goes flying in the air and it lands at the wedding right at the feet of the miser. So the miser picks up his 25,000 rubles and he looks at it and he says to the bride and groom, here it's for you, you have a great life. It's a beautiful story, but why am I telling it to you? So while this is going on, the three rabbis are huddling for their post-game show. They're having a post-game show and the two other rabbis wanted to know from Shneer Zalun of Liadi, how did you know how to handle this guy? I mean, you knew exactly what to do. It's amazing, how did you get 25,000 rubles out of him? They still couldn't believe it. So he says, do you remember when he first gave us that first coin, it was an old rusty dirty coin? I said, yeah, that's actually what it was looked like. So he said, do you think we're the first people ever to go and ask him for money? Probably many, many people went to him that needed money. And you know what? He's a very sad character. You have to have compassion on him because even though he's very wealthy, all he could give is a penny. It's sad, but that's all he could give. And what did people do when they got this coin from him? They threw it back in his face. They threw it back in his face. He said, what I realized is that we have to be willing to accept what he is able to do. And so often in life, we are not willing to accept what people are able to do. We have our own expectations of what they should be doing. We have our agenda for people. And so the genius of Roshner Zalman of Liadi here was he said, you know what? We've got to deal with people where they are, not where we are. And he said, all I did was accepted from him what he was able to give. He could give a penny, I accepted the penny graciously and I thanked him profusely because that's what he was able to do. He was giving a lot of money for himself. It sounds crazy, but Nebuch we say in Yiddish, Nebuch, it's a tragedy. That's all this man could do. But once I accepted his penny, his Kopek, so I encouraged him and he was able to give more. Once he gave, he was able to give more. Once it was accepted, he was able to go beyond and to give more and more and more and more. That's a way of being generous. When we make ourselves into the kind of people who are able to and willing to receive what others can give, that's an act of generosity. Another thing about being generous, the Talmud speaks about maskel et hadal, to give with intelligence, to give using our brain. I'll share with you an amazing story that I heard once about the Satmerebi. The Satmerebi was not known for being a big Zionist. He's actually famous for being quite opposed to Zionism. And there's a story where a fellow came from Israel who was obviously by his look in his dress, he was not a Hasidic Jew. He was a Zionistic Jew. And he came to the Satmerebi because his wife was having a difficult surgery and he came, he needed to raise a lot of money. So he had an audience with the Satmerebi and Satmerebi said, how much are you looking for? How much do you want? And he said, you know, what I really need is $10,000. I need $10,000. So the Rebbe told his assistant to write this manate check for $1,930. So I'm sorry, $19,300. He needed, wait, I'm messing this story up. He needed $10,000. So he gave him $9,300, $9,300, $9,300. I think, or $9,700. He gave him a little bit less than the $10,000. My math is not so good tonight. I think he was asking for $10,000 and I think the Rebbe said, cut him a check for $9,700. And he received it, he was thrilled. I mean, you know, not every day you get $9,700 from someone. So the man left very happy. But then the assistant said to the Satma Rebbe, let me ask you a question. The man asked for $10,000 and you wrote him a check for $9,700. Why didn't you just write him a check for $10,000 at that point? So the Satma Rebbe said something amazing. He said, he asked for $10,000. If I would have given him $10,000, he would have walked out of here kicking himself that he didn't ask for more. So I didn't give him the entire amount. I gave him a little bit less. He wasn't gonna think about asking for more at that point. So here is someone that displayed incredible sensitivity, incredible sensitivity to how to give. Not just a matter of giving. It's giving in a way which displays a generosity of spirit because it displays someone that really cares. It's easier just to write a check. But here's someone that wrote a check and did it in a way that was very profound. Another way in which we can give to people is through giving the benefit of the doubt. This is an incredibly important thing that affects each of us in our lives day to day. There's an incredible story I read a few years ago about a family named Feingold from Ashdod in Israel. And they weren't well off. They were not a well off family and their daughter had gotten engaged and they were trying to make a wedding for their daughter. And they weren't able to afford the wedding by themselves. So they were trying to get help. They got help from neighbors, they got help from other people in the family. And there was people very generous to help them put together this wedding. People finally showed up at the wedding and they walked into the wedding hall and they couldn't believe what they saw. The wedding hall was decorated in the most opulent way you can imagine. There was very fancy, everything was to the nines. A six course meal, an eight piece orchestra. And people were upset. People were saying to themselves, they came around, they were asking for help to make a wedding and this is the kind of wedding they make. Obviously they had a lot of money if they could make a wedding like this. And they became the talk of the town and there was a lot of murmuring going on. And the family came to realize that they were, being badmouthed by everyone. And so the father of the bride went to see the local rabbi and he explained what was going on. He said, rabbi, we collect a little bit of money to make this wedding. We didn't collect a lot of money. But then when we went to the hall to arrange for the final arrangements, the owner of the wedding hall asked us if we have relatives in Germany named Feingold. My name is Feingold and the fellow asked me, do you have relatives in Germany named Feingold? And so I said, yes, my father was from Germany. His name was Feingold. So the owner of the wedding hall says, I can't believe it. He says, I was saved from the Nazis by your father. If it wasn't for your father, I would not be alive today. And he says, I never knew how to pay back your father for what he did. And he said, if you're from that family, I insist on making you the most beautiful wedding for your daughter. I insist, I'm paying for the wedding. And you can't tell anybody. You can't tell a soul. And so people walked into this wedding and they were shocked and they were scandalized. And this poor man couldn't tell anyone. He became the butt of everyone's anger. And so the rabbi said, listen, go speak to the owner of the wedding hall and ask him if he'll give you permission to reveal what happened. And so the rabbi ended up announcing to the entire congregation, the entire town, what had happened. And you can imagine that everyone felt so horrible for jumping to the wrong conclusions. But that's what happened. People saw something that looked suspicious. It looked unusual. It looked strange. It was provocative. And where did their minds go? Immediately jumping to the worst conclusion. And so one of the things that we can do is to go beyond ourselves and give people the benefit of the doubt. You know, one of the great Hasidic masters said that one of the reasons that a spirit of foolishness exists in the world is that we need that ability to sort of think in a really, really weird way sometimes. You gotta sort of act like you're out of your mind to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's often you're stretching your mind in ways that are very, very difficult. And so that's a way of being generous. When we live with people and we experience things that are provocative and they're disappointing and people let us down and people shock us and we can't believe sometimes the way people are behaving, it's easy to jump to the worst conclusion. It's an act of generosity to go beyond yourself and to try and think, well maybe there's another explanation. Maybe there's a way of giving the benefit of the doubt. So let's end tonight with a number of exercises for next week or for the coming months. Here's an easy thing to give or maybe not. Do you want to be generous? The alter of Kelm, one of the great Musser teachers, rebuked one of his students once because the student was walking around with a long face. He looked like he was depressed and upset. And so the alter is said to him, your face is a russus harabim. Your face is in the public thoroughfare. When you look like that, you bring other people down. You're a downer, that's where you are. And so when we realize that the way we conduct ourselves and the way we carry ourselves has an impact on other people, we don't have to act like clowns and act joyous if we're not feeling joyous. But when we're out in the street, out in public, to be sensitive and aware of the fact that the way we are carrying ourselves, the way we look can bring other people down. It's just a matter of having awareness. I was at a friend's home for Shabbat last week and they pointed out to me, they said, your posture is horrible. They told me, your posture is horrible. And since then, I've noticed myself becoming more aware of my posture. I'll notice when I'm slumping in the chair and slouching and I'll notice that when I'm not standing up straight. Now, it's not so easy to fix that at this age. And I'm seeing that it's difficult. But what's interesting is that just that one remark made me aware and I still have a lot of work to do, a lot of work, but I see that it kicks in. I catch myself, meaning that a few weeks ago I probably never caught myself unless someone else pointed it out. But this person expressed their concern. They said, it's just not healthy and explained why. And I found myself now catching myself more often. So if we're aware of the fact that looking like we're miserable when we don't have to, we don't have to convince ourselves that our lives are great if they're not. Sometimes we're going through a difficult time. We may not be feeling great inside, but at least not to walk around with a long face and bring everybody else in the world down with us. That's a way of being generous. It's a way again of going beyond ourselves and giving to others. Anyone here that drives has an incredible opportunity. I've spoken before about driving. I hope some of you are being more careful to stop at the stop signs. Ever since I've been teaching this, I find myself more careful. I don't want to get caught by any of my students slipping into the middle of the intersection. But one of the things that I strongly recommend, strongly recommend is using your time behind the wheel to drive in a more spiritual way. To drive in a more spiritual way. How do you do that? So what it means is this. It means that when you get into your car, when you do have to do this consciously, when you get into your car, you reflect on the fact that you want to drive in a more generous and giving way. You want to be more generous and giving while you're driving. Now what does that mean? So you'll probably recognize this. I mean, I've noticed that, maybe it's not only Toronto, but I've noticed this in Toronto, that people will often probably rather die than let you get in front of them. They probably would rather have root canal than let you get in front. I mean, I often experience this. I'm signaling. I'm trying to get in. I have to make a left-hand turn or a right-hand turn. And obviously I want to change lanes and people speed up. God forbid you should get in front of me. God forbid. So driving spiritually means that I'm actually looking. I'm looking for opportunities to be giving. I'm looking for opportunities to be generous. I'm looking for opportunities to be kind. And it comes up, if you're sensitive to this, it comes up every day if you drive. Even if you're driving for 15 or 20 minutes, you'll have the opportunity to be generous and giving and kind. I mean, what you're doing is, you're driving like God would drive, right? Ask yourself, how would God drive on Bathurst Street? How would God do it, right? I think he would let people in front. He would let people get in if they're signaling, right? When we do that, it's not a hard thing to do. But we're driving in a more godly way. And we're becoming ourselves more godly. So if I could recommend an exercise for next week, be conscious of your face. Be conscious of the way you look. You know, when you see people that smile at others, it makes them feel good. As a matter of fact, the Talmud speaks about the importance of greeting people with a full smile. It's an amazing thing. Every time you go to the checkout counter at a supermarket or a grocery store, that's a difficult job to have to be behind the counter and checking out people's groceries. People are very, very underappreciative and usually bark at them and why are you going so slow? And you know, it's not the most pleasant job in the world. And it doesn't cost anything when you come up to them online just to give them a full smile. That's all you have to do. You don't even have to say, I love your outfit, right? Did you lose weight? It's simpler than that. It's just giving a full smile. And that can literally pick people up, literally pick people up. So faces are very important. And so to be aware of our faces, how we conduct ourselves, how we show ourselves to the public, driving in a way which is more generous, more giving. And as I just mentioned previously, trying to judge other people favorably. If you just pay attention during the next week, how often we judge others? Think about how often it is that we judge other people. We form judgments in our head about other people. And how amazing it would be for our lives and for their lives to make the effort to give them the benefit of the doubt and to judge them favorably.