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SHORT-CUT TO BLESSINGS
B.S.D.
Rabbi David Aaron
Excerpt from "Seeing G-d"
 Those of us who have yet to reach the level of a tzaddik may be wondering if there is some short-cut to the spiritual wealth of life. One of the most powerful and immediate ways to connect the circuit, switch on life, and let the blessings flow is tzedaka, that is, charity. It is no coincidence that this word sounds similar to tzaddik, as both are derived from the same Hebrew root. The Talmud teaches: "Tzedaka saves from death." When we need an incredible influx of life force-because we are
facing impending physical death or impending spiritual death, the act of giving to charity can be one of the most powerful antidotes.
As proof for the statement, the Talmud tells the incredible story of the daughter of the famous Rabbi Akiva, who lived some two thousand years ago. A stargazer told Rabbi Akiva that his daughter would die on the day of her wedding. Rabbi Akiva replied that just because it is written in the stars, it does not mean it has to happen, because we can make choices that overturn our destinies.
As it turned out, however, on the day of her wedding, the young bride was getting ready when, unbeknown to her, a poisonous snake slithered into the room and crawled up the back of her dress. Unaware, she continued to put on her wedding bonnet. In those days, brides wore elaborate headdresses affixed with large hat pins. The snake was ready to bite her just as she inserted one pin and pierced one of the eyes of the snake. Then she put in the other pin and it pierced the other eye and killed the snake. Still unaware of what had happened, she went out to greet her father, who was shocked to see a dead snake dangling from her hair. Realizing the narrowness of her escape, he asked, "What did you do that you succeeded in saving yourself from death?" She thought for a moment, then remembered that earlier in the day, as everyone in the house was busy preparing for the wedding, she heard a knock at the door. All the others were too preoccupied with their duties, but she, the bride, in the midst of beautifying herself, heard the knock and took the time
to answer. Standing there was a person asking for money, so she gave him a few coins. Rabbi Akiva nodded knowingly, "Tzedaka saves a person from death." Why should giving a few coins have the power to save a person's life? Why is tzedaka such an incredible connector of community consciousness with life, blessing, abundance, and goodness?
To begin with tzedaka is really not charity. Charity is doing something you don't have to do because you are being nice. You don't feel an obligation to give, but you want to be nice, so you'll give a few coins. That's not really tzedaka. Tzedaka really means "justice." According to justice, you must help someone who has less than you. It's not giving because you feel like giving and want to think of yourself as sweet and generous. Tzedaka is an obligation. By giving out of tzedaka, out of justice, we justify our existence. Without giving, there's no reason to exist. Only by being a contributing member of a community do we acquire worth. Tzedaka justifies our existence by demonstrating that we are a part of a community in service to a greater reality. At the same time, we recognize that what we are giving is not really our own. It's all Hashem's wealth. We're just passing it on. As we discussed, the function of consciousness is to acknowledge-in thought, speech, and action-the blessings of life's spiritual wealth and pass them on to the world. And
tzedaka fulfills that function. We give to each other, because we are all members of a community. Our higher purpose in being part of a community is to acknowledge Hashem as the source of all life and goodness and thereby enjoy the opportunity of being a channel for the presence of Hashem into this world. The simple act of giving tzedaka accomplishes that in an instant. Winston Churchill once said, "We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give." Tzedaka is not being
nice. Tzedaka is about being honest. You are saying, in effect, "It's not my money. It's for me to pass it on. And the more I give away, the more I'm going to get." Now, if you can't give it away, it's because you think it's yours and that you are the source of your wealth. When you know that it's not yours, that it's only entrusted to you, you have no difficulty in passing it on.
A stingy person is like a wire trying to hold on to electricity. But isn't that crazy? Why would a wire want to hold onto electricity? Its whole purpose is to pass it on, to be a conductor of
electricity. That's why a wealthy person is not a person who has a lot. A wealthy person is a person who gives a lot. A person who gives a lot understands that he is plugged into the source of all wealth. Hashem is the source of blessing and wealth. The more conscious a person is of Hashem as the source of wealth, the more he can become a vehicle to channel wealth into the world. But when a person holds onto money, thinking, "It's my money. It's just for me," eventually he will
lose his wealth. Maybe he won't lose his money literally, but he will lose the blessing of that money. That's why when people who are experiencing financial difficulties seek the advice of a rabbi, often he will tell them, "Give more tzedaka." It may sound odd. Here a person is struggling, unable to make ends meet, and the solution is to give what little he has away? But it works, because by letting it flow out one end, new resources flow in the other end.
I remember a wealthy philanthropist I met in Los Angeles. He told me that when he sold the controlling shares in one of his businesses, he put in the contract that the new owners had to give 10% of all earnings to tzedaka. In the contract negotiations the prospective buyers objected,
"That's ridiculous! We've never seen anything like this. You can't put that into a contract. You're retaining only a small percentage of the shares. You can't dictate that we give away 10% of our earnings." The philanthropist retorted, "If you don't put that into the contract, I won't sell it to you, because you'll destroy my business. The reason I have been blessed with success is that my business is a vehicle for Hashem's wealth to come into the world. As long as it continues to dispense tzedaka, I know it's going to continue to receive wealth, because the more it passes it on, the more it gets. I know where all this wealth is coming from." The buyers decided not to mess with success and accepted his conditions.
A wealthy, very generous man named Joe Berman once told me something that made a deep impression on me. He said, "Very often, when people go through bad times, they ask, 'Why me?' Well, why don't people, when they go through good times, ask, 'Why me?' My whole life, I've been blessed with good times, and I've always asked, 'Why did it come to me? What am I supposed to do with it?' Because I could see that it certainly wasn't coming in just to make me rich." Very wise advice. We all have to ask ourselves this same question: "Why me? If I have this talent, why me? It's not for myself. If I have this beauty, why me? If I have this money, why me?"
We are each a unique channel for Hashem. Whatever gifts we've been endowed with, our job is to pass them on into the world for others. Therefore, when Torah enjoins us to serve Hashem with joy, it is not talking about some egotistical power that commands, "Serve me, or I'll punish you. And you better do it with a smile!" Rather, if you truly understand that serving as a vehicle for Hashem is the most self-gratifying experience a person can have, of course you will do it joyfully. You will
be actualizing what you have been brought into this world to be-a vessel and a vehicle for the presence of Hashem on earth, for the qualities of love and justice and truth and beauty and wisdom, all the qualities of Hashem. So you and others can see Hashem daily.
Another quick connector to wealth of life is saying blessings. When I say a blessing over a food, I begin with, "Blessed are You, Hashem . . ." Many people mistakenly think that these words mean that I am blessing Hashem, the Infinite One. But I am in fact acknowledging Hashem as the source of this food. When I eat an apple, I can just eat an apple, or I can, by saying the blessing consciously, make the apple into a conductor wire for channeling Hashem's presence, life force, vitality, goodness, and blessing. An apple can be a nutritious snack, or it can plug me into the source of all life force and nutrition. When the Israelites were wandering in the desert, Hashem fed them with a hitherto unknown substance called "manna." The people would go out of their tents every morning, and find this strange stuff lying there on the ground. The verse in the Torah introducing the manna says: "I fed you manna-something that neither you nor your fathers knew what it was-so
that you should know that not by bread alone does a person live, but by all that comes from the mouth of Hashem." Why did it have to be something unfamiliar? What would have happened if the Israelites would have woken up in the morning and found bagels all over the place? Imagine being in
the middle of the Sinai desert, and every morning appear these bagels, sliced in the middle, with two centimeters of cream cheese and lox. Now that would be a Jewish experience! Why did it have to be something that didn't look like food? Because if the manna did look like food the Israelites would think, Well, okay, the bagels did come from Hashem, the Bagel King, but the nourishment comes from the bagels. However, since the manna obviously could not be nourishing in and of itself, the Israelites would necessarily learn an essential life lesson-all things come from Hashem, not just food, but the nourishment in the food.
The Israelites realized that this odd, gray stuff was not going to nourish them. Hashem was going to nourish them. The manna was just a vehicle for the nourishing love of Hashem. And then they realized that back in Egypt, when they had bread to eat, it was not the bread that nourished them. It was also Hashem.
To the extent that we realize that this bread is a channel for the nourishing energy of Hashem to enter the world, to that extent the bread becomes a channel for the nourishing energy of Hashem to enter the world. The Kabbalah teaches that if we eat without making a blessing, then the food feeds just our body. It does nothing for our soul. But when we make a blessing on the food, we transform
that food. It's not the same bread. It's not the same apple. It's not the same pretzel. The pretzel is no longer a pretzel-it's a vehicle for Hashem's presence to enter the world. The truth is that all the commandments of the Torah are powerful connectors of consciousness and life-malhus and yesod. Unfortunately, most people think that the commandments are good deeds that one does. They are more than that.
They are deeds that build community consciousness of Hashem and thereby channel Hashem's blessings and goodness into the world. By serving Hashem, I become a vehicle for the life energy to flow into myself and into others. When I serve Hashem it is not self-denial but self-fulfillment because I am actually serving to manifest the source of all life and thereby I am filled with life. I experience the ultimate joy of personal redemption, a feeling of ultimate usefulness and infinite value. And I feel an incredible sensation of freedom and personal liberation, because I feel free to be who I was meant to be. Having a lot of money doesn't make me feel completely valuable. Giving a lot of money, on the other hand, makes me feel valuable, because I feel that I am serving a higher purpose. This feeling, that I am channeling Hashem's life force, wealth and blessing into the world, gives me a tremendous sense worth.
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