Weekly Torah Portion

A seasoned rabbi I know is a renowned teacher and one of the country’s foremost authorities on many areas of Jewish law. In a typical year he gives hundreds of classes at his yeshiva and in dozens of places around the world. His summer schedule is active as well, usually including time teaching teenagers in Israel and helping lead educational trips in Europe.

So when he gets just a few weeks to himself at a summer cottage rental in upstate New York, it’s a true respite, a time to study by himself and to enjoy the countryside’s calmness and fresh air. Yet sometimes duty still calls.

A student was getting married in Chicago. The date fell during the rabbi’s precious time away, but he agreed to officiate. He asked the family to arrange travel from a nearby airport, but they instead booked a flight from a larger, regional airport farther away. Either way the travel would have been burdensome, but now it was to be a trip of at least a day and a half.

Somehow one of the yeshiva’s philanthropic supporters got wind of the inconvenient situation. When he next encountered the scholar, who was then almost 70, he said, “Rabbi, I’m not going to let you do that.”

At noon on the wedding date, a chauffeured car pulled up in front of the small upstate cottage and collected the rabbi. They drove a short distance to a small airport, where a modest private plane awaited its sole righteous passenger. Upon the wedding’s end in Chicago, the plane again carried the rabbi back to upstate New York, where the chauffeured car returned him home to his own bed for the night.

There are several observations one could make about this episode. The rabbi himself was appreciative of the philanthropist’s cutting his time away by two-thirds. Others might be awed by the sheer expense that must have been involved, all in behalf of someone quite used to flying economy class. One person observed to me at the time both of these factors, noting that the value of saving a full day of the important rabbinic leader’s time was certainly worth the funds involved.

But there is another important, if obvious dimension to the story: the extraordinary generosity involved.

In this week’s Torah portion we read about the call to donate to the Jewish people’s holy Tabernacle. It was open to all, “whoever’s heart is willing” to bring a gift. The invitation was not based on a person’s quantitative capacity but his interest and care. In sacred spaces scale is only valuable insomuch as there’s intentionality behind each piece of the investment. Being magnanimous is dependent on sincerity, not the size of a gift.

Our sages say that generosity can be a gateway character trait, that when one becomes thoroughly generous he will achieve refinement of his or her character in many other key ways, as well (Rabbeinu Yonah to Avos Ch. 2).

Working to ease another person’s hardship or just reduce simple inconvenience to whatever extent we can makes us better people. Likewise, when we support or volunteer for key religious causes like our Torah day schools and synagogues, we help build not just one another, but our national interests. Through true generosity at any level, we strengthen others, ourselves and even the future of the Jewish people.