DEUT691 If you ponder the eternity at the end of life's road, and you realize that indeed "you can't take it with you," learn from Scripture's law to convert your wealth [this verse] into currency that you can take along. If a country will not allow your money out, you may solve the problem by exchanging it for diamonds or platinum bars. Here too, convert your assets into the kind of currency that lets you "bind up the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord ... shall choose": Use your riches for Torah and good deeds. Support the Torah's scholars and their schools; spend for mitzvoth; give charity. Then you will not even have to take this currency along: it will be sent on ahead and deposited to your account to await your arrival.

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DEUT693 Separate the tithe for the poor. See [[EXOD709]] Exodus 22:24 lend CHINUCH 43-4

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DEUT692 See [[LEV316]] Leviticus 19:9 gleanings OXFORD 345-6

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DEUT694 (Continued from [[GEN429]] Genesis 3:19 sweat PATH 151). Consequently, they said (Midrash Shocher Tov 136:25): "[Is it correct to suppose that one's provisions would be given to him] even if he sits idly? Therefore it states [this verse]: 'In all your actions that you do.'" But this does not imply that one's efforts leads to results. Rather, the effort is a prerequisite. Once one makes the effort his obligation is fulfilled and it becomes possible for the Heavenly blessings to rest upon him. He has no need to spend his days in diligence and effort, as David HaMelech, may peace be upon him, said (Tehillim 75:7-8): "For neither from the east nor from the west, nor from the wilderness comes the uplifting. For the Lord is the Judge - He will lower this one and He will elevate the other." And Shlomo HaMelech, may peace be upon him, said (Mishlei 23:4): "Do not toil for wealth and refrain from your [own] understanding." Rather, the correct way is the one of HaChasidim HaRishonim [those who practiced piety in the earlier generations], for the Torah was of primary importance and their livelihood was subordinate to it, and as a result, they were able to [successfully] pursue both. For once a person has worked a bit, from then onward he has only to place his trust in his Master and he need not worry about anything that is of a worldly nature. His mind will then remain free and his heart will be ready for the true piety and the pure Divine service.

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DEUT695 See [[EXOD684]] Exodus 22:23 your OXFORD 39

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DEUT696 The tzedaka priorities listed above, such as donating to the poor of our city or those of another city, do not specify the religion of those in need, but Jewish law legislates that charity is to be dispensed both to Jews and non-Jews. Thus, the biblical verses that speak of helping the needy specify "the stranger [that is, the non-Israelite], the fatherless and the widow" (this verse; and also see Deuteronomy 26:12). In line with this, the Talmud ruled that "We provide financial support to the Gentile poor along with the Jewish poor…) (Gittin 61a) [Maimonides (twelfth-century) ruled that it is forbidden to turn away a beggar, Jewish or Gentile, empty-handed ("Laws of Gifts to the Poor" 7:7).] This ruling was issued a time when the non-Jews among whom the Jews lived were usually idolaters with values antithetical and often hostile to Judaism. That Jews were instructed to help needy idolaters underscores the even greater applicability of this ruling in contemporary times, when non-Jews and Jews in societies such as the United States generally live together harmoniously.

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DEUT697 See [[EXOD1030]] Exodus 34:16 compassion BLOCH 57-9

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DEUT698 The atmosphere in Jerusalem [during the festivals], says Rambam [Maimonides, would encourage public–spiritedness. Food would always be plentiful, since the fruit of trees in their fourth year, the tithe of cattle, and the corn, wine, and oil of the second tithe would all have been brought there. They could not be sold and they could not be kept for the next year; therefore much would be given away in charity, especially (as the Torah specifies) to "the Levite… and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow" [this verse]. Writing about America in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville found that he had to coin a new word for the phenomenon he encountered there and saw as one of the dangers in a democratic society. The word was individualism. He defined it as "a mature and calm feeling which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows and to draw apart with his family and his friends," leaving "society at large to itself." (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, abridged with an introduction by Thomas Bender (New York: Vintage Books, 1954), 2:104). Tocqueville believed that democracy encouraged individualism. As a result, people would leave the business of the common good entirely to the government, which would become ever more powerful, eventually threatening freedom itself. It was a brilliant insight. ... Where public–spiritedness is low, society fails to cohere and the economy fails to grow.… Loving God helps make us better citizens and more generous people, thus countering the individualism that eventually makes democracies fail.

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DEUT699 (Continued from [[EXOD389]] Exodus 8:9 labor COHON 179) Indolence on weekdays leads to the profanation of the Sabbath. Scripture says "The Lord thy God will bless thee in all the work of thy hands." [this verse]. "Shall I infer from this statement that the Divine blessing will come even to him who stays idle? Therefore the verse continues: 'which the doest.'" See Tahuma, Vayetze, 13. Where there is no labor there is no blessing. Hence the rabbis rated the merit of industry above idle piety. In the words of the Psalmist: "When thou eatest the labor of the hands, Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.--128:2. Ber. 8a. While there are drones in every hive who fatten on the work of others, they are to be pitied rather than envied. Idleness is a curse which leads to ill health and to immorality. Ketubot 59b. A good share of honest toil has recommended itself to moderns as a cure of many illnesses and as the best way out of mischief. "He who does not teach his son a trade is as if he taught him robbery." Kid. 29a. A person of sound health has no right to live on that which he has not earned. Adam, while still in the Garden of Eden, was not allowed to eat before he earned his bread by work. Ab. R.N., B, 21; A, 11.

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DEUT700 … one sees that the tendency of the rabbis was to revise the biblical law in light of radically different ethical standards. Radical revisionism of biblical texts usually reflects a large "gap" between the ethical setting of the Bible and its ancient near Eastern setting and the new ethical setting of Judaism in the post-biblical era. Other examples of this radical revisionism are reflected in the Taqanat Prosbul (literally: "a legal correction before the council" by Hillel and Rabbi Yohanan's abrogation of the "trial of ordeal" of the Sotah or "errant" wife. In both cases, the gap between the ethical setting of the Bible and that of the rabbis made outright abrogation or radical revision a necessity. In the case of the Prosbul for example, the change involved the common, Israelite agricultural setting of the Bible which demanded communal economic commitment and allowed for the cancellation of all loans at the beginning of every seventh, sabbatical year (this and following two versus). In the post-biblical, new political, social and economic reality of Hellenism this law no longer fulfilled its initial purpose and in fact seems to have created a reluctance among Jews to lend money in the years preceding the sabbatical year. Hillel created a legal fiction whereby the loans were not completely canceled in the seventh year and while this "correction" seems to abrogate the law it indirectly allows for its (at least partial) ethical fulfillment. Mishnah, Sheviit 10.3-4.

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