"May G-d bless you and keep you..." (Num. 6:24)  G-d created everyone, and He gave us everything we have.   Because G-d commands us to take care of the Jewish needy, we should give to others less fortunate than ourselves.

        The best way to give charity is so you don’t know whom you are giving it to and the person who is getting it doesn’t know whom they are getting it from. This way the giver doesn’t feel overly proud and the receiver doesn’t feel overly embarrassed. This is called giving “anonymously.” A charity in Jerusalem, called Od Yosef Chai, created an even better way. They find a person who is poor and then they find where that poor person works. Then they arrange for the boss to give the charity funds to them as a bonus or a raise. This way the person not only doesn’t know who gave the money, he doesn’t even know that it is charity.

        There is a heartwarming story, which relates to this idea: There once was a man who was poor but was too proud to take money from anyone. One of his friends really wanted to give him some kind of charity but the man would not take it so his friend went to the store and bought a whole bunch of cans of really expensive, good quality fish for a total of $100. Then he went home and crushed each can of fish with a hammer. After  he was done, he went to the mans house and told him that the cans got crushed on the way over to the store so the manager sold them really cheap and you can buy them all for $20. The man took them and thanked his friend. So, as you can see there are many ways to give charity without the receiver knowing.

        The two episodes from the Torah I am about to share with you show examples of giving charity. The first story is called Noah’s Ark. In this story the land was about to flood. Noah built a boat and let animals on, two by two. Noah gave them food and shelter and was always kind to them. Even though the job was demanding and he was very tired, he made sure to know every animals feeding schedule and made sure to feed them at the right time – day or night. We learn two things from Noah.1.you should work hard, not just rush to get the job done and 2.You should think about what the person really needs and how the person feels and give charity in a nice way.

        There is a famous joke about a Boy Scout Troop. The leader asked his troop to gather in the middle of their town. He told them all to go out and do a good deed and come back in 15 minutes.  15 minutes passed and all the boys came back except for one.  Three hours passed before the boy finally came back.  The troop leader asked what took him so long and he said,” I was trying to help a lady cross the street.” The leader asked” Why did that take 3 hours?” The boy answered, “She wouldn’t go.”  The lesson learned is that when you help people, you should do it the way they need it not just the way you feel like doing it.

        The second episode is about a man named, Eliezer. He was traveling through a hot desert and came across a girl named Rifka. He asked her for a cup of water because he was so thirsty. She came back with a cup of water for not only him but also all his camels. You have to realize that back then they didn’t have fountains that you can turn off and on, but wells you have to lower a heavy bucket into and it was not easy either.

        There is a great story about the Brisker Rav. There was a man who went up to the Brisker Rav and asked him if he can use four glasses of milk instead of four glasses of wine for the Passover Seder. The Brisker Rav not only gave him money to buy wine, he also gave him money to by Passover foods. One day another man came up to the Brisker Rav and asked him why he gave the man money to buy not only wine but also other foods for Passover when he only asked if he could use milk instead of wine. The Brisker Rav told him that when the man asked him that question he realized that he probably asked because he could not afford wine and if he could not afford wine he could not afford the other Passover foods either. [The above Dvar Torah is taken from the Bas Mitzvah speech of a brilliant young lady, Pamela Schwartz]