DEUT759 Parsimony. Some people avoid this mitzvah [i.e. charity - AJL] out of niggardliness (they begrudge others the use of their money). Chazal have already declared (Sotah 47b): "When the niggardly and plunderers of the poor multiplied, those who hardened their hearts and closed their hands against lending to the poor also increased, and they transgressed what is written in the Torah [this verse]: 'Beware that there be not a base thought in your heart…'" This is a very ugly trait. It leads one to refrain from giving charity and performing acts of chesed. It causes one to repress all feelings of pity and compassion--to stop up one's ears and to be deaf to the cry of the poor. Sometimes such conduct can even lead to bloodshed. So we find (Sotah 38b): "R. Yehoshua b. Levi said: The heifer whose neck has to be broken is only brought on account of niggardliness of spirit, as it is said (Deuteronomy 21:7): 'Our hands have not shed this blood.' Now, can it enter our minds that the elders of a Court of Justice are shedders of blood! The meaning is that the man found dead did not come to us for help and we dismissed him; we did not see him and let him go, i.e., he did not come to us for help and we dismissed him without supplying him with food; we did not see him and let him go without support (i.e. he needed food and could not obtain any. Seeing someone carrying food, he was driven by his hunger to snatch it from him. Thereupon, the other retaliated and killed him. [Rashi])." So if we see that a person approached his neighbor for some help and, because of this wicked trait of parsimony, the latter paid no attention to him, and the needy one died as a result, the Torah proclaims the refuser a shedder of blood.