The man who stood outside my front door at 9:30 in the evening that cold night, looked fraught and exhausted. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked for help to buy food and we’d always given him something, but this time his plea was more urgent and his request was for a lot more money. He told me about a medical procedure his wife had to undergo abroad and he needed the airfare and other money. I didn’t know what to do. On the one hand we knew he had financial troubles but this was something else entirely and I remember learning that we shouldn’t just give unless we’re fairly sure it’s a legitimate cause.

As if reading my mind he suddenly threw out "Ask Dr X, he’ll tell you. Please, please help me.”

I gave him some money and told him I’d speak to my husband and I’d be in touch with him if we could manage to give him any more money.

The strange thing was that we did have more money at that moment put aside for tzedakah. My husband had received a small inheritance and the ma’aser money , the 10% that is required to give as tzedakah had been put aside but not used. Had this man been sent to us because we had the money?

I called my husband and told him the story. “Try and check it out,” he requested. “ We must, before we give him such a large amount.”

But how on earth was I going to find this doctor?”

I suddenly remembered that he’d once told me the name of the clinic where his wife was receiving treatment, so I "googled” the clinic’s name and clicked onto it’s website. I couldn’t believe it. The first name that appeared on the screen was the doctor he mentioned. Not only that, but underneath was a cell-phone number with the comment that if necessary it was perfectly all right to contact the doctor any time of the day.

My skin was tingling. I could feel Divine assistance pushing me along. It already seemed clear that God wanted us to help this man and his wife but I still called the number and left a message asking the doctor to return the call.

An hour later he called back. I told him that I didn’t want him to betray any patient confidence but Mr. Y had given me his name because he needed money and I then went on to relate the story. I asked him only if he was prepared to confirm the story. He confirmed it. I called Mr Y and gave him the money.

The mitzvah of ‘maser kesafim’ giving 10% of your net income to tzedaka is one of the mitzvot that many people have heard of, but I don’t think that people really keep it.

A neighbor once came to me and said, “You know the Cohen family’s house was badly burned in a fire last week and they need to replace almost everything, so we’re collecting money for them. Can you help?”

“Yes” I replied. “We’ve got some tzedaka money left over so I can let you have some right away.”

“What do you mean left over? How can you have tzedakah money left over? Either you want to give or you don’t.”

“Well,” I started to explain, “We don’t just give when we feel like it. We try and put aside 10% of what we earn for ma’aser, money to give to tzedaka, and we haven’t used up all of what we put aside this month.”

There was a long pause.

“You mean people really do that?” she asked quietly. “That’s amazing.”

Like many people I sometimes used to hesitate to give money to strangers at the door. Who knows if they are genuine. But my attitude changed when at a Torah class I was told that, just as we treat others, so we will be treated in Heaven. If we don’t check up too much on other people’s backgrounds and credentials, so too, maybe God will be prepared to overlook our shortcomings. Now, whenever I’m approached at the door, I always give a small amount without scrutinizing their letters too much.

But just as we have felt Divine help distributing money, it has also worked the other way as well. When our first daughter was getting married we booked a modest wedding in a small hall. But even so we had no idea how we were going to pay for it. We had been contributing for several years to a local simcha-gemach (a gemach gives an interest free loan) which was building up a fund so that it could eventually lend money to people making a simcha. Just a month before our wedding the gemach started functioning. We were their first recipients.

Eighteen months later our second daughter was engaged. We were still paying back loans from the first wedding and didn’t see any way we could take on more debts. Shortly before the wedding we had a call from someone my husband had done some work for. They had been checking their accounts and they appeared to have underpaid my husband by several thousand dollars. For me this was doubly astounding. First there was the serendipity of this discovery happening just when we needed the money and secondly because I’m the book-keeper in the family and I couldn’t believe that I would not have noticed such a mistake.

But they were right. – obviously my eyes and calculator were led to make the mistake so that when we needed the money it would be available to us.

When our children were young we always used to involve them in the mitzvah. If someone came to the door I would give one of them the money to pass on. And when we were out, especially at the Kotel, I would give them some money to distribute to the various people collecting there.

Now one of our greatest sources of nachat (pleasure) is seeing how even on a one-income plus kollel stipend, our children are meticulous about giving tzedakah. On more than one occasion one of them has given me an envelope to pass to one of their siblings who they realized was going through a rough time financially. They know that the halacha stipulates that in order of preference your family comes before anyone else.

We are now asking for God’s forgiveness for our shortcomings and we know that one of the ways of averting any evil decree is through giving tzedakah. Maybe it’s a good time to check that we’re not short-changing Him in this mitzvah .


Ann Goldberg is a freelance writer in Israel