TORAH PORTION I
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COMPLAISANT
Giving To Others Is
A Profound Blessing
MORTON F. YOLKUT
Special to The Jewish News
T
his week's Torah por-
tion contains the
beautiful and hallowed
"Birkat Kohanim," the priest-
ly benediction which begins
with the following words:
"Yevarechacha Hashem
Veyishmirecha — May God
bless you and protect you."
Commenting on this verse
the sages of the Talmud say,
"Yevrechacha b'nichashim;
veyishmirecha miyetzer
Shabbat Naso:
Numbers 4:21-7:29,
Judges 13:2-25
harah — May God bless you
with wealth; may God protect
you from the evil inclination"
(Bamidbar Rabbah, Ch. 11).
Wealth and the love of
money can often become ad-
dictive and corruptive. The
love of silver has been known
to "blind the eyes of the wise
and pervert the words of the
righteous" (Deut. 16:19).
Wealth has even been
known to affect ones per-
sonality and value system.
The nouveau riche often treat
their former peers with
disdain.
Chasidim tell the story of a
man wh suddenly became
very rich and very miserly.
He immediately shunned his
former friends and acquain-
tances. In fact, he became so
impressed with himelf that
he no longer had any con-
sideration for other human
beings.
One day his rebbe, who had
known him before his rise to
affluence, took him to the
window of his living room and
asked him to look out. "What
do yo see?" asked the master.
"People," replied the rich
pupil.
Next the rebbe took his stu-
dent to a mirror, with the
same question: "What do you
see?" "Myself," came the
reply.
"You see," explained the
teacher, "both the window
and the mirror are made of
glass. Yet the mirror is
covered with silver. As soon as
the silver is added, you stop
seeing others, and can only
see yourself."
While Judaism is not an
ascetic religion and certainly
does not .see wealth as im-
moral, it does denounce those
Morton F Yolkut is rabbi of Cong.
B'nai David.
. .
Specializing in
to whom material acquisition
has become the "raison
d'etre" of life. This ungover-
nable passion for wealth, as a
philosopher once referred to
it, does something to the in-
dividual who is cursed by it.
How tragic is the personality
whose god is Mammon and
whose gospel is greed.
What then does Judaism
teach us about handling our
wealth? We often speak of
"giving until it hurts," but
really tzedakah should never
hurt. Sharing our material
blessings with others can ac-
tually be a joyous affair.
There is an inner joy that is
bestowed on a person who
dedicates his wealth to the
good of his fellow man. Our
sages must have had that in
mind when they taught:
"More than the rich man does
for the poor man, the poor
man does for the rich man."
Who can measure the
satisfaction that comes to him
who has made another person
happy? Picture wealth pro-
viding the foundation for a
hospital that will relieve pain
and bring healing to the sick.
A yeshivah is endowed; a
library is built; an orphanage
is sustained. These are gifts
of the rich to the poor.
Simultaneously, however, the
rich are receiving abundant
dividends of joy, ample
rewards of spiritual
gratification.
And that is why the priest-
ly benediction states: May
God bless you with wealth,
but may he also protect you
from the evil inclination, so
that you use your wealth
wisely and constructively.
May you use your material
blessings to support good
causes and noble activities.
lb paraphrase the rabbis:
Giving to others can be an
enriching experience for
oneself. Indeed, it can be our
greatest and most profound
blessing.
Slide Show
Highlights Dinner
Young Israel- of Greenfield
will present a slide show on
the history of the Detroit
Jewish community from the
early 1900s at its 29th an-
niversary dinner on June 14.
The slide show was
prepared and narrated by Ir-
win Cohen, who spent a year
researching the early Jewish
communities.
For information contact
Young Israel of Greenfield,
967-3655.
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Wayne State University
A Remembrance of Holocaust and Genocide
Wednesday, June 1, 1988
Wayne State University
McGregor Memorial Conference Center
Ronald Grigor Suny
Andre Ungar
PROGRAM
9:45 a.m.
Complimentary Coffee Available in the Lobby
10:00 a.m.
Opening Remarks and Greetings
10:10 a.m.
Rethinking The Unthinkable: An Historian 's Reading of The
Armenian Genocide
Guest Speaker:
Ronald Grigor Suny, Ph.D.
Professor of History and Director,
Armenian Studies Program
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
11:10 a.m.
Musical Interlude
11:30 a.m.
Killers, Victims, Bystanders, Altruists: Holocaust Psychology
Guest Speaker:
Andre Ungar, Ph.D.
Holocaust Survivor
Rabbi of Temple Emanuel
Woodcliff, New Jersey
Slide Presentation:
Art of the Holadaust
Continuous showing-10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Free Admission
Sponsored by the WSU Office for Community Relations; Center for Peace and Conflict Studies; Departments of
Romance and Germanic Languages, and Slavic and Eastern Languages. For additional information call
577-2246.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
45