Exodus 25:1-27:17
I Kings 5:26-6:13
by Rabbi Pinchas Lipner
There are some mitzvot about which we are told to feel that but for the Torah’s commandment we would never consider depriving ourselves. An example is kashrut. We are told not to say, “Pork is disgusting to me. I would never even want to eat it,” but instead to say, “I’m sure it would taste delicious, and I would indulge, but my Father in Heaven forbids it, so what can I do?” The stress here is on one’s divinely ordained obligation.
The approach does not apply, however, to mitzvot that demand altruism, such as acts of kindness, tzedakah, or building the Mishkan (Tabernacle) or the Holy Temple. These mitzvot are designed to bring G-d’s presence to dwell among His people. It is wrong to perform these mitzvot from a sense of duty or under duress. Here, we should not say, “I really don’t want to part with this money, but what can I do? The Almighty commands me to do it.” Two completely different approaches.
In Parashat Terumah, it says, “And let them take for me a gift, from every man whose heart motivates him, you shall take my gift” (Exodus 25:2). The word “take” in this verse suggests that donations for the Tabernacle were to be taken by force, but we will see that in actuality the donations were given with willing hearts, and more was given than was even required.
So why does the Torah seem to suggest some kind of coercion? The answer may be that when presented with these types of mitzvot, we need to force ourselves to arouse within us a positive desire to give. Often this necessitates a struggle not only to get the better of our yetzer hara, our evil inclination, but also to coerce it to actually consent to the generous attitude we are striving for.
This is the deeper significance of “And let them take for me a gift.” We need to propel our yetzer tov (good inclination), the Torah we have learned and the merit of the good deeds we have done to affect basic changes in our very nature, to force ourselves to want to be generous and giving. So the compulsion hinted at in this verse is to be used to prevail upon our yetzer hara to accede to the attitude of generosity we are developing.
There is another very profound lesson to be gleaned from this verse, from the fact that it does not say, “Let them give,” but “Let them take.” G-d only wanted gifts from those who believed the money they had belonged not to them but to Him. Only people who consider their money as a kind of restricted endowment fund established for them to be used in the ways that G-d has designated may have the merit to share in the building of the Tabernacle.
Accordingly, when someone gives tzedakah with the proper attitude it is not as if he himself is giving. Rather, it is as if he is simply allowing those who collect it to come and reclaim something that is not his but is put into his safekeeping for a time. When it came to the Tabernacle G-d was unwilling to accept donations from anyone who felt that he was giving from his own money. Epitomizing this ideal, King David said regarding the building of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem “and from Your hand we have given it to You” (Divrei Hayamim I 29:14).
In today’s culture where we expect at least a plaque if not a testimonial dinner in return for our contributions to tzedakah, this concept has an alien ring to it, no doubt.
We tend to view giving as very optional. Tzedakah, unfortunately, is frequently translated as charity that may be viewed as optional, but the word tzedakah really means justice, which is never optional.
We need to force ourselves to internalize this concept so that the struggle to give will no longer be a struggle.
Shabbat shalom.