Small tidbits and Sparks of wisdom

To the Esteemed Giver,

The Torah commands us to give tzedakah with wisdom and order. The Shulchan Aruch does not leave the wealthy guessing; it lays out a structure of priorities, so that every gift is meaningful and properly directed. Below is the daily reminder:

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1. Sustaining Life Comes First

The highest obligation is to prevent hunger, homelessness, and suffering. That means food, shelter, clothing, utilities, medical bills, rent, or mortgage. If a Jew risks being without the basics of life, that need outweighs every other cause.

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2. The Responsibility of the Individual

When a poor person turns directly to you, you are first in line. Even the needy are commanded to give when asked — how much more so those blessed with abundance. Turning away is not just refusing a person, it is refusing the mitzvah itself.

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3. The Responsibility of the Shul and Its Rabbi

When one individual cannot meet the need, the synagogue and its members must step forward. The rabbi and gabba’im carry responsibility to ensure no Jew in their midst goes hungry.

> Highlight:
In our times, with dozens of shuls in one neighborhood, no single shul can sustain the entire city. Each community must first care for its own. The regular mispallelim — those who daven daily or weekly — form a family. Whether the gift is $20, $200, or $500, those members must support each other before anything else.

Not a political campaign, not a school outside your walls, not even a traveling scholar comes before the widow, the family, or the scholar who shares your minyan.

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4. Local Order of Priority

First: Your household, if they are in need.

Second: Your relatives — brothers, cousins, extended family. If you are booking a luxury vacation while your own family cannot afford Yom Tov meals, it is a huge neglect and a miscarriage of true priorities according to halacha.

Third: The poor of your shul and neighborhood.

Fourth: Local Torah scholars and Torah institutions.

Fifth: Broader communal kindness projects.

Sixth: National or global causes.

Last: Honor-driven gifts, plaques, beautifications.

This is the ladder of obligation. To skip rungs is to misplace the mitzvah.

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5. The Test of Wealth

Wealth is not a right but a trust. Each dollar can either feed vanity or become eternal merit. A coin that restores light to a dark home or saves a family from eviction is not generosity — it is justice.

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6. Helping Avoid Misdirected Charity

There is a tremendous mitzvah to support kollim — kollelim of married men learning Torah, or institutions where Torah is studied day and night. To give generously to Torah scholars is noble and carries eternal reward. However, if those scholars already have support and are not requesting further aid, this does not take precedence over neighbors who cannot pay their electric bill, rent, or tuition.

> Highlight:
A major problem of our times is misdirected giving: vast sums flow to established kollelim, while struggling families — not full-time learners, but drowning in bills — are left neglected.

Supporting Torah study is holy, but saving a family from eviction or hunger is the first halachic obligation. Only after survival and dignity are secured should funds be directed to strengthen kollelim further.

Your first obligation is to those who already live within your shul and city: to keep them alive, to sustain Torah scholars in true need, to preserve existing Torah institutions. Only then may your hand extend outward to outreach or expansion. For if your own house is in darkness, you cannot shine light to the outside.

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7. Wealth as a Guardianship & the Rabbi’s Role Today

Every penny you possess is not yours absolutely; you are a guardian, holding it in trust for the poor. You must keep what is genuinely necessary for your family and dignity — and the rest belongs to others. This is not a matter of percentages; it is a matter of conscience and truth before God.

> “The wealthy man is not the owner, but the trustee. His wealth is a sacred deposit, meant to be shared.”

In our generation, most people are too embarrassed to reveal their needs openly. They will not announce their struggles, nor write their debts on community boards. Instead, they come quietly, in shame, to the rabbi of the shul.

> Highlight:
This makes the rabbi the central guardian of distribution.
– He alone knows the true state of his congregants.
– He alone hears the silent cry of tuition debt, unpaid rent, or medical bills.
– He alone can direct funds discreetly to where they are needed most.

Do not bypass your local rabbi. Funds sent away to distant yeshivos, global causes, or institutions beyond your walls while your own neighbors quietly starve or despair are misdirected tzedakah.

Your giving must first flow through the rabbi of your own shul. That is where tzedakah regains its integrity: individual to individual, family to family, person to person. Forgotten money must be redirected to its true purpose — sustaining the lives and dignity of those closest to you.

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Conclusion

Tzedakah is not random generosity — it is ordered justice. In earlier generations, hunger was the loudest cry; today, Baruch Hashem, food pantries and communal kitchens have spread across every community. The crisis is no longer bread, but bills. The crushing burdens are utilities, rent or mortgage, health insurance, tuition, and personal debts. These are the quiet shames that break families, even when both parents are working full-time.

And yet, the trend has dangerously shifted. Large sums are being poured into “window projects” for the wealthy — plaques, buildings, banquets, honor-driven campaigns — while ordinary families in the pews of our shuls cannot cover the cost of Yom Tov or keep their lights on. This is not charity; it is misdirected giving. It is a miscarriage of halachic priorities to elevate prestige causes while ignoring living families who struggle to survive. Their dignity, their stability, and their future must come first.

True halachic tzedakah begins by paying the bills of your struggling neighbor. Only after this foundation is secured can one turn to higher levels — kollelim, global institutions, and beautifications. To skip the first steps is to lose the mitzvah at its core.

And always remember: the ability to give your money to a truly worthy cause is itself a gift from Heaven. In this world we can never be certain if our donation has reached the right hands, but one thing we do see clearly — when directors of charitable organizations live like wealthy businessmen while the poor remain neglected, something is deeply broken. Such misuse of communal funds is not righteousness but betrayal.

The daily test of wealth is not how much you can give, but whether you give it where Hashem intends. To restore integrity to charity is to restore justice to the community — and to restore blessing to your own life.

May your giving elevate you and your family, and may Heaven continue to bless you with abundance to sustain others.