DEUT761 Because of the extreme importance of the mitzvah of gemiluth chesed, we have devoted much attention to the need for everyone to set aside a larger or smaller sum for a permanent Free Loan Fund in his own home. Yet obviously not everyone can afford the money. Others again cannot afford the time the performance of the mitzvah entails. For those unable to establish such funds privately, the best advice is to ban together to form a Free Loan Society to lend money to others in their hour of need. Indeed, it is it has been the custom throughout all the scattered Jewish communities to organize such a society in every city. To evaluate the greatness of the mitzvah performed by the members of a community in setting up such a fund is quite superfluous. Our introduction and many of the subsequent chapters have pointed out the grievous sin committed by anyone closing his fist against lending to others and a great reward earned by whoever fills this method. Naturally, then, no one with any intelligence will rest until he sees a Free Loan Society existing in his city to lend to the needy. In this way, his fellow citizens and he himself will avoid the possibility of committing a grave sin. For it could conceivably happen that a poor man would take his security pledge and approach several people for a loan. Each would offer another excuse for refusing. Then the poor man would return home crushed. He would cry out and remonstrate with God against his evil lot. And we know what Scripture has to say on the subject [this verse]. The guilt will fall on everyone's neck since, on account of the frequency of such needs, all are duty-bound to prevent such incidents.

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DEUT763 We must refrain from slandering a poor person to whom we did not give charity. This verse warns against two things: not giving charity to a needy person and having an evil eye against him. The Dubno Magid explains the latter point in the following manner. The Sages (Pirkei Avos 5:13) state that someone who does not give charity himself and stops others from giving is wicked. Very rarely will someone explicitly tell others not to give charity. But in view of the above-mentioned verses, we can understand how the statement of the Sages has a wider application. There are people who are miserly and do not want to give to the poor. They are honest about their stinginess and will openly admit that they do not want to part with their money. There are other miserly people who are embarrassed to explicitly say that they are stingy. They therefore slander the poor person and say that he is unworthy of receiving help. The difference between these two is this. If someone admits that he is stingy, others will have mercy on the poor man and will give him financial assistance. But if someone slanders the poor man, others might believe him, and although they might have previously been prepared to offer assistance, now they will refuse. It is these misers to whom the Sages refer when they say that someone who prevents others from giving charity is wicked. This is alluded to in our verse: "Your eyes be evil against your needy brother," meaning that you will maliciously slander him and tell others that he is unworthy of receiving charity. (Ohel Yaakov, on this verse). Rabbi Shmelke of Nicolsburg said, "When a poor man asks you for aid do not use his faults as an excuse for not helping him. For then God will look to your offenses, and He is certain to find many of them. Keep in mind that the poor man's transgressions have been atoned for by his poverty while yours still remain with you." (Fun Unzer Alter Otzer, vol. 2, p. 99)

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DEUT762 Said he [Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai] to them: Go out and see which is the good way to which a man should cling. Rabbi Eliezer said, A good, kindly eye; Pirkei Avot, Perek II, mishnah 13. In the next mishnah (14) they seek to describe "the evil, bad way" which a person should strongly avoid. Rabbi Eliezer answers, An evil eye. This implies envy, jealousy, constant discontent, and a niggardly spirit which abhors sharing with others or serving others. With "an evil eye" a person will say, "What I have is never enough, and what the other has is always too much." This is what the Torah warns against: "Beware lest… your eye be evil against your needy brother, and you give him nothing" [this verse]. The person with a "good eye "finds deep gratification in teaching others and in helping others. As we find in the Book of Proverbs, "He who has a good eye will be blessed, for he gives of his bread to the poor" (Proverbs 22:9).

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DEUT764 The celebrated case of prosbul (B. Gittin 36a) [Normally, a sabbatical year cancels debts, but when Hillel saw that people were not lending, thus violating a biblical imperative, he created a system known as prosbul by which loans are transferred to the court for collection] easily lends itself to explanation in terms of internal values that coincide with universal ones (the passage states the biblically declared value of people being willing to lend money [this verse]). Likewise, laws whose stated rationale is tikkun olam [lit., "repair of the world" - AJL] , darkhei shalom (the ways of peace), kevod ha-beriyyot (human dignity), derakhehah darkhei no'am (ways of pleasantness) -- these are based on certain Jewish values, even if the latter coincide with universal values and serve as "a conduit for moral considerations." [Lengthy footnote with sources omitted]. Once armed with the distinction between internal and external values, we can declare also that the impetus behind limitations that authorities impose, based on their interpretations of the relevant laws, upon mamzerut, the stubborn and rebellious son, and Amalek, and their hesitation about applying certain laws altogether, was not external values but rather internal ones such as the value of life and the principle of just desert. [Lengthy footnote with sources omitted]. (By David Shatz, "Ethical Theories in the Orthodox Movement"

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DEUT765 Advice for Giving to One Who May Be an Imposter: it cannot be denied that not all people who ask for charity are genuinely in need of it. There are certainly some unscrupulous people who pose as poor people out of greed. Indeed if it were not for these people, those refusing to give charity would have unbearable guilt. As it is, people who refuse to give charity often excuse themselves by claiming that the supposed poor person might be an imposter. The following rabbinic passage explains how one should not use mistrust as an excuse for not giving charity. Rabbi Chanina used to send four zuzim to a particular poor man every Friday for the Sabbath expenses. Once he sent the money with his wife. She came back and told him: "That man has no need for the money." Rabbi Chanina asked her: "How do you know this?" She replied: "I heard his family asking him on what kind of tablecloth he would like to be served, on white linen or on colored silk." Rabbi Chanina told her: "Rabbi Elazar was referring to such as he when he said: 'Come let us express our gratitude to the impostors, for if not for them, would always have sin, as it is written, And he will call to God about you, and you will have sin'" (this verse). Our rabbis have taught: Whoever pretends to be blind, or that his belly is swollen from hunger, or that he is struggling in his legs in order to collect charity although he has not need for it, will truly fall victim to that condition sometime during his life [Talmud Ketubot 67b].

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DEUT766 Those who refrain from lending each other transgress what is written in the Torah, viz.: "Take heed unto yourself lest there be in your heart, etc." (Gittin 36a)

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DEUT767 See [[EXOD707]] Exodus 22:24 lend CCCBM 79

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DEUT768 We have learned (Kethuvoth 68a): "Anyone who shuts his eyes against charity is like one who worships idols, for it is written [this verse]: 'Beware that there be not a base thought (beli-ya'al) in your heart… and your eye will be evil against your brother,' and there (concerning the city where the inhabitants were guilty of idolatry--Tr.) it is written (Ibid. 13:14): 'Certain base fellows (beli-ya'al) have gone out.'" (The inference is drawn by Gezerah Shavah -- Tr.). Now it is known that [this] verse also refers to a person refusing a request for a loan, as we find in Gittin 37a and Sotah 47b. Now let each person consider: Suppose someone called him 'Beli-Ya'al'. How much resentment would he harbor against the person who insulted him, even if the two of them had been alone at the time, and he therefore suffered no public embarrassment. How angry should a person be with himself, then, if he causes the Torah to call him by this name! How much shame and humiliation will ultimately attach to him in heaven! He should also be apprehensive because perhaps the person he wronged will cry out against him, as it is written [this verse]: "And he cry out against you to God and it shall be a sin in you." One's entire situation might be changed, Chazal have indicated (Temurah 16a): "When a poor man approaches a rich man and cries 'Help me!' (i.e., prevent my falling by giving me a gift or a loan to make me self-supporting. [See Betzah 32a]), if he assists him it is well, but if not (Proverbs 22:2) 'the rich and the poor meet together and God is Master of them all.' He who made this one rich can make him poor, and He who made the other poor can make him rich." (Continued at [[DEUT1547]] Deuteronomy 28:47 serve AHAVCH 104).

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DEUT769 In this instance the biblical law which was circumvented [by Hillel's institution of the Prozbul] was in itself obviously motivated by the high ethical principle of giving one's fellow man a chance to start anew and not to be crushed forever by a debt which necessity had forced him to assume. But the facts of life indicated that this highly ethically motivated law harmed the very ones it was intended to help. Hence Hillel decided that it was preferable to circumvent by a takkanah the law of the remission of debts rather than encourage the violation of the ethical injunction requiring one to come to the assistance of his fellow man. In this he was true to his fundamental understanding of the Torah. It was he who had said that the essence of the Torah is contained in the commandment, "Do not do unto others what you would not have others do to you." Shabbat 31a Hence, when he saw that in the changed times and conditions of his day, the observance of the ethically motivated biblical law would result in a violation of the biblical ethic, he did not hesitate to set the ethical above the legal.

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DEUT770 Do not refrain from lending money at the approach of the Shemitah year. Key concepts: Instill into our hearts positive traits of mercy and benevolence, and distance us from stinginess. Nothing does more to promote these goals than to lend one's money to the poor close to the Shemitah year, knowing full well that the loan might never be repaid. All who know very little about the ways of the Torah realize that when a Jew gives money for such needs, he winds up with more money, and if he refrains from such acts of kindness he only loses. As is known, Hashem judges a person according to his deeds, and He bestows His blessing upon him according to the degree that person is benevolent towards others. If a person acquires the trait of stinginess, it throws up an iron wall between him and blessing from Heaven.

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