Dcn Tom Lindell

My brothers and sisters,

When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you… Luke 14:12-15

In the above few verses of the Gospel for today, I was reminded of a poignant story that Rachael Naomi Remen told of her childhood that is about giving that she called “Getting It Right” from her book, “My Grandfather’s Blessing”[1]

In the Mishna Torah, Maimonides, the great doctor rabbi, describes eight levels of “charity,” or ways of giving to others. This was one of the many traditional teachings that my grandfather and I discussed and puzzled over.  At the time, he was an Orthodox rabbi, a lifelong student of the Talmud, and I was five years old.  When a text was as subtle and complex as this, he would simplify all of it but its most basic wisdom.  Here is the way he told it to me.

At the eighth and most basic level of giving to others, a man begrudgingly buys a coat for a shivering man who has asked him for help, gives it to him in the presence of witnesses, and waits to be thanked.

At the seventh level, a man does this same thing without waiting to be asked for help.

At the sixth level, a man does this same thing openheartedly without waiting to be asked for help.

At the fifth level, a man openheartedly gives a coat that he has bought to another but does so in private.

At the fourth level, a man openheartedly and privately gives his own coat to another, rather than a coat he has bought.

At the third level, a man openheartedly gives his own coat to another who does not know who has given him this gift.  But the man himself knows the person who is indebted to him.

At the second level, he openheartedly gives his own coat to another and has no idea who has received it.  But the man who receives it knows to whom he is indebted.

And finally, on the first and purest level of giving to others, a man openheartedly gives his own coat away without knowing who will receive it, and he who receives it does not know who has given it to him.  Then giving becomes a natural expression of the goodness in us, and we give as simply as flowers breathe out their perfume.

At the time, it was very important to me to be good and to do things right, and I listened to this description very carefully.  “I will only do it the right way, Grandpa,” I assured him.  He began to laugh, “Ah, Neshume-le,” he said to me tenderly.  “Here we have a special sort of thing.  Suppose we all gave to those around us as the first man does, begrudgingly offering a coat we have bought in the presence of witnesses to someone who has need and who asks us for help?  If we all did this, would there be more suffering or less suffering in the world than there is now?”

I thought for a long time, the need to do it right battling in me with the simplicity of my grandfather’s question.  “Less suffering, Grandpa,” I said finally in some confusion.  “Ah yes,“ he said, beaming, “this is true.  Some things have so much goodness in them that they are worth doing any way that you can.”

Unquestionably there are ways of giving that may diminish others, stripping them of their dignity and self-worth. We can learn how to give without taking something away, and often we may learn as we go. But according to my grandfather, it is better to bless life badly than not to bless it at all.

Go and do likewise…

—Dcn Tom

[1] Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessing, Riverhead Books, New York, 2000, p. 86-87.