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17 Ellul 5761 - September 5, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
Charity Begins in the Home --
The Family Gemach

Adapted from a piece by Chaim Walder

The Shaefers live in the central area of the country. They have ten children; the head of the family is in kollel, the mother teaches. Needless to say, they barely make it to the end of the month.

When their oldest daughter reached marriageable age, the parents released all of their savings and even went into debt in order to provide her with a talmid chochom for a husband. A secondary consideration was that a son-in-law of that caliber would add status to the family name. And so it was.

The second child was a son and the marriage expenses for him were only a fraction of what it cost them to marry off their daughter. Still, $25,000 is not a negligible sum for a family like theirs.

The same sum repeated itself for the third, a boy, and by now, the debts were puffing up and causing the father's blood pressure to rise. By now, he was a grandfather as well. When the matter became one of pressing concern, the three married children held a caucus and decided that they had to help their father in some substantial way. The question, of course, was how. They were in kollel themselves, with growing families. Wherever would they get the money to help their father?

The oldest sister suggested, "What about maaser money?"

They went to seek the advice of a rov, who clarified for them that in this case it was clearly preferrable to mobilize their maaser money to help their father. And so, they began to save. They set aside three hundred, five hundred shekel per month from their maaser money, without saying a word to their father.

*

Two and a half years later, it was the fourth child's turn to get engaged. The father, sunken deep in debt, informed the shadchon who came with a very likely match that he did not have a shekel to offer his son. Naturally, this angered the other side. "Let him give something! At least $10,000! What kind of business is it to marry off a child without any participation whatsoever?"

And they broke off the match.

The mother turned to the married children and they pressed their father to come up with something. He showed them the state of his debit finances and said, "I am under tremendous pressure as it is. I simply cannot produce any money, nor am I willing to go into further debt."

The children examined the state of their savings and saw that they were able to offer their father $10,000. They assumed a debt of another five thousand dollars and convinced the father to borrow the same amount, as well, and the match was able to go through.

I heard this story directly from the son who was married off in this manner. He specifically begged me to write it up in my weekly column, "In the Looking Glass." Since then, he tells me, eight of the children are now married, thanks to the combined efforts of those previously married. The joint maaser account now boasts a sum of $25,000 for the daughter next in line. According to their calculations, by the time she is eighteen, this sum will have doubled!

*

No one has yet looked into the phenomenon which causes people to help everyone in the world -- and forget about their own family, to be the good guy, the pleasant fellow, outside, among one's social milieu, and be sour and dour at home; to go out of one's way for other people's children -- at the expense of one's own. To lend a helping hand when friends are moving away -- and to be too lazy to pass the salt at the table.

This, of course, includes those who donate money for the whole world, and neglect their own family, immediate family included! How is it that people forget the halocha of "one who is very near comes first?" And certainly, parents should come before anyone else!

All things aside, such a person is liable to suffer from the resentment and anger of his relatives, especially if they see him seated at a dinner for a cause to which he has donated thousands of dollars, while he did not even give them and their pressing needs a second thought. It hurts.

When a person has means and does not share with his relatives, it says something about the motives of his charity giving (even though charity given under any circumstances is still considered charity).

*

It is strange that one must word this phenomenon in such a manner: if a person wishes to examine his character to see whether he is genuinely generous or stingy, if he is a baal tzedoka or merely one who pursues honor -- let him look at his close family and friends. Is he concerned about them? Are they able to turn to him for help? This does not mean that they should live at his expense, but it certainly includes his being sensitive to their needs. That he should care and be accessible to them, for in the end, what is a person left with if not his family?

A believing Jew sees the goal of his life as "providing nachas ruach to his Father in Heaven." But surely, he is also obligated to provide satisfaction to his father on earth. After marriage, this feeling is intensified and there is a strong desire to pay one's parents in kind for all the good they have done for him over the years.

The very fact that children mobilize themselves to help out their parents, who are usually steeped in debts and worries, provides a moral and economic backbone for parents. It is surely commendable for families to establish family gemachs, even if parents have already married off all of their children, or have the means to do so. A family gemach can offer help to outsiders if the money is not being used for its own members at a given period. Such an account can be handled by certain members of the family and be accessible (by right of signature) to all. Within a year, large sums can accumulate which can help the family greatly and can thus fulfill the express halocha of giving precedence to one's family when it comes to charity.

Charity begins in the home.

 

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