July 31, 2020
The Ultimate Tzedakah
Vaetchanan, 5780
The spring has passed and the summer is nearly over but we have not yet been saved.
Why is there no cure?
Why is there no medicine?
Why is there no doctor for this disease?
Why has a healing not come to our people?
These are words that many of us utter every morning and every night in frustration with the corona virus epidemic.
But these words are not original to us or to our situation. These words were uttered by Jeremiah the Prophet in a prophecy delivered more than 2500 years ago, which we chanted in the haftorah of Tisha Be-Av morning.
Jeremiah said:
The outcry of my poor people From the land far and wide: “Harvest is past, Summer is gone, But we have not been saved.” Because my people is shattered I am shattered; I am dejected, seized by desolation. Is there no balm in Gilead? Can no physician be found? Why has healing not yet Come to my poor people? (Jeremiah 8:19-22).
The words of Jeremiah pierced my heart this year as I was struck by how relevant they were to our situation.
Although I read Jeremiah’s words as literally applying to us, Jeremiah meant them metaphorically. Jeremiah was not talking about a physical virus, but an imminent invasion from the Chaldeans. He was not asking for an actual medical cure for society. Instead, he was reflecting on the devastation that he would witness in the land of Israel in his time and that there was little that could actually be done to prevent it.
Jeremiah said that Gd will send a terrible affliction upon us via a snake:
“For behold I will send upon you snakes and serpents that cannot be charmed and they will bite you, so says Hashem” (8:17).
In the time of Jeremiah there was nothing that could be done to prevent the snakebite. But in the time of the Talmud, the rabbis suggest two ways of defeating the harmful potion of a snake.
In this past week’s daf yomi we learned that when Eve interacted with the snake in the Garden of Eden that the snake injected her with a spiritual stench known as zuhama. This stench was passed down from generation to generation and only exited our bodies when we stood at Sinai. The spiritual power of Sinai removed the zuhama from our body and soul (Shabbat, 146a).
Reading this Talmudic text in the context of Jeremiah’s prophecy we can read it as a commentary on Jeremiah’s prophecy.
Jeremiah says that Gd will send a snake to bring destruction. The rabbis counter that we can counter this destruction with a spiritual response—the Torah of Sinai. By committing our life to Torah we will gain the strength to deal with any devastation or infliction. The Torah will give us perspective and courage. Gd gives us the antidote to a snake bite. It is Torah and its study. The more we study, the stronger we are. The more we commit to Torah, the less we will fear from the “snakes” of the world.
In two passages in the Talmud that our daf yomi group will arrive at this week, we see another way of defeating the snake. The Talmud records two stories in which a person is miraculously saved from a snakebite on account of their devotion to charity.
The Gemara relates that Shmuel and the gentile sage Ablet were sitting, and they saw these people were going to the lake. Ablet said to Shmuel: This person will go and he will not return, because a snake will bite him and he will die. Shmuel said to him: If he is a Jew, he will go and come back. As they were sitting for a while, the person they discussed went away and then returned.
Ablet stood up, threw down the person’s burden, and inside he found a snake cut and cast in two pieces. Shmuel said to him: What did you do to merit being saved from death? The person said to him: Every day we all take bread together and eat from the bread. Today, there was one of us who did not have bread, and when it came time to gather the bread, he was embarrassed because he did not have any to give. I said to the others: I will go and take the bread. When I came to the person who did not have bread, I rendered myself as one who was taking from him so that he would not be embarrassed. Shmuel said to him: You performed a mitzva. Shmuel went out and taught based on this incident that even though it is written: “And charity will save from death” (Proverbs 10:2), it does not only mean that it will save a person from an unusual death but even from death itself.
And from that which transpired to Rabbi Akiva as well it can be derived that there is no constellation for the Jewish people, as Rabbi Akiva had a daughter, and Chaldean astrologers told him that on the same day that she enters the wedding canopy, a snake will bite her and she will die. She was very worried about this. On that day, her wedding day, she took the ornamental pin from her hair and stuck it into a hole in the wall for safekeeping, and it happened that it entered directly into the eye of the snake. In the morning, when she took the pin, the snake was pulled and came out with it.
Her father Rabbi Akiva said to her: What did you do to merit being saved from the snake? She told him: In the evening a poor person came and knocked on the door, and everyone was preoccupied with the feast and nobody heard him. I stood and took the portion that you had given me and gave it to him. Rabbi Akiva said to her: You performed a mitzva, and you were saved in its merit. Rabbi Akiva went out and taught based on this incident that even though it is written: “And charity will save from death” (Proverbs 10:2), it does not mean that it will save a person only from an unusual death, but even from death itself (Shabbat, 156B).
In both stories the two heroes—the unnamed Jew and Rabbi Akiva’s daughter—are saved from certain death via the bite of a snake. The Talmud attributes this salvation to their generous charity and cites the verse, “tzedakah tatzil mimavet, charity saves from death” (Proverbs 10:2).
This is a second way that the rabbis are suggesting we can save ourselves from the destruction of a snake. The first is through Sinai; i.e. living a life of Torah. The second way is through tzedakah.
The concept of tzedakah tatzil mimavet does not mean to me that if we are facing a dire situation we can simply give tzedakah and expect an immediate salvation. Rather what I think it means is that if we life a life of tzedakah then no matter the situation we are in we will have life, and not death. A life without tzedakah is not life. It is death.
Indeed this is what Jeremiah himself said. After he predicts that a snake will come and bring destruction on the people. He turns to the people and says: “For I Hashem act with kindness, justice, and tzedakah; for in these do I delight” (9:23).
Although Jeremiah is often called a prophet of doom, it is more accurate to call him the prophet of how to respond to doom. He teaches us that the only way to respond to devastation and destruction in our midst is to respond with tzedakah—with inspiration, with giving, with kindness, with charity, with pure spirituality. If we respond in this manner then we will be bringing life to this world.
This is what our rabbis meant when they said that tzedakah saves us from death. A life of tzedakah will surely conquer death.
This week I had a moment in life where I felt the impact of the enormous amount of tzedakah that exists in the world.
Several months ago I decided that I would like to volunteer for a clinical study to help find a treatment for coronavirus. Around 6 weeks ago I saw a notice that Moderna was seeking volunteers for a vaccine and I immediately contacted the company and offered my services. This past Friday I heard back from them and they invited me to come in on Monday and receive my dose of the vaccine or placebo. Here is a video of me receiving the dose.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/8b4e18ef-5697-41bd-8ec4-4ebd5e0d383c
You may notice that I grew teary and emotional when I received the shot.
At that moment I was thinking of all the enormous amount of effort that went into producing this vaccine. I was thankful to Hashem above all. I was also thankful to the scientists, technicians, delivery people, and workers up and down the process who dedicated many hours to produce this vaccine in a record amount of time. I prayed that the vaccine would work but regardless, I was grateful for their combined efforts. Their efforts were all put towards a common goal of helping the world. This for me is the definition of tzedakah. It is a powerful spiritual emotion to realize that I was the beneficiary of such enormous overflowing tzedakah. I pray that everyone else quickly and safely receive such tzedakah as well.
This tzedakah –the unity of purpose for a common good—is exactly what Jeremiah is telling us that we need to do in this world. Lets pray that this spirit stays with us long after the pandemic is a footnote in history.
Shmuel Herzfeld
