At Bagels and Bible yesterday morning the rabbi said, “Anything you do is better than nothing.”
He was talking about the good stuff we can do, not taking bribes, or shooting randomly into crowds of people. That is not better than nothing.
The topic was a portion of the Torah that says helping others is just as important as helping ourselves. It’s a fine message but not so easy in practice.
For example, I’ve been trying to find a church, synagogue, temple, mosque or firehouse that is collecting clothing for refugees and other immigrants.
Well, I thought of the needy Ukrainians and found a Ukrainian church in south Broward. I called them and after three tries got a person on the phone who didn’t speak English. Ok, I said, I’ll text you. Fortunately, iPhone can translate, so we had a conversation. He said, yes, they would take clothes but they were only there on Sunday morning.
It’s about 20 miles to the church which isn’t bad but the timing hasn’t worked out yet. Maybe,I’m not persistent enough but I don’t want to drive there with a car full of clothes and find no one is there.
This is not a big thing but it is something. Maybe I don’t know what “anything” is. It’s possible because I don’t know a lot of stuff.
Perhaps this qualifies as a small “anything.”
This woman in front of me in the checkout line at the grocery the other day was digging into her purse looking for money to pay the bill. She looked and looked but came up empty.
I asked the cashier how much the woman owned. She said six dollars. I told her just to add it to my bill and I told the woman that I’d take care of her bill. She thanked me profusely and I said it’s okay.
It was okay but for such a small thing I was kind of embarrassed. There must be bigger things out there. I’ll keep looking.
I’m sure that all of you have done some good “anythings” and never given it a thought. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Moses ben Maimon, aka Maimonides or Rambam (my favorite), thought giving was very important and had an order of the value of giving.
Number two, the second most important step on the ladder, is giving in where you don’t know where the benefit is going and the recipient doesn’t know you and vice versa. Maimonides says that is practicing the mitzvah of charity, doing a good deed for the sake of the mitzvah. You get no benefit, social or egoistical.
The highest of charity is making anonymous gifts. This isn’t my favorite kind of giving. I prefer to know where my money is going. I’ve done it before by picking up restaurant checks for people who look like they need help. They didn’t know who did it.
That the kind of charity that makes me feel good.
