Generous Heart
Are we passing on a genetic predisposition of giving and being generous? Or is giving something that is learned?
I believe giving is a learned skill. But is the way we are teaching the topic heard in a way that changes our behaviors? Are we receiving the message, but not really understanding the importance?
Growing up I can tell you that I did not have role models who taught me how to give. I do, however, distinctly remember seeing a JNF blue tzedakah (charity) box on my grandmother's window sill, and I remember seeing my grandfather give dollars to strangers. And yet I had no context for either of these things.
Why isn’t everyone clamoring to give? I think that it is counterintuitive. We spend our lives accumulating, and it's hard to let go of all we have worked for. We tend to think, “Why should I reduce my wealth by giving it away?”
If we accept the idea that our money is not really ours but rather a trust granted to us in order to carry out the will of the One who entrusts it to us, our giving attitude changes.
Judeo-Christian tradition teaches: “Do not withhold good from the one who needs it when you have power in your hand to do it.” (Proverbs 3:27)
The Talmud, a written version of Jewish oral law, goes even further: "Tzedakah (charity) and acts of kindness are the equivalent of all the mitzvot (good deeds) of the Torah" (Jerusalem Talmud, Pe'ah 1:1)
Do you see the significance of that statement? The Rabbis call tzedakah equal to all other mitzvot. That’s big! The idea is this:
If you have money in your pocket, you give money.
If you have no money but you have food in your home, you give food.
If you have no food in your home but ideas in your mind, you give ideas.
If there are no words in your mouth but there is love in your heart, you give your heart itself.
Although we rarely consider it, the heart is an essential and powerful organ. It pumps oxygen and nutrients around our body constantly, never pausing. Powered by muscles and perfectly synchronized by electrical signals, it’s one of nature’s finest engineering feats.
The heart pumps out, and it pumps in.
It keeps our blood flowing.
If it only pumps out, we die.
If it only pumps in, we die.
The heart has to create a flow both ways. Flowing only one way doesn’t sustain us.
Just like giving. Our hearts, literally and metaphorically, must be able to give and receive in a constant flow.
I have heard time and time again from highly successful men and women in their 70s and 80s that they believe they were given as much as they have been because they always remembered to give their share to the community, to those organizations who are doing life-affirming work, and to those who are less fortunate. It was a constant flow to and from their hearts.
Consider this story told by the Ba’al Shem Tov, a Jewish mystic and healer:
In hell people sit around a great banquet table piled high with food. Each person is given a fork with a six-foot handle, far too long for them to maneuver it into their mouths. Consequently, they are starving.
In heaven, people sit around the exact same banquet table with the exact same forks. In heaven, each person feeds the one across from them at the table, and they are all filled.
Rebbe Nachman, a great-grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov, commented that the act of opening one's hand is spiritually transformative. Our external actions bring about inner change, which we can understand scientifically: our behavior gives us experiences that carve new neural pathways in the brain. Each act of generosity works to open the heart, like clearing a blocked stream, one pebble at a time.
I am not asking you for money. I am, however, asking you to consider your relationship with money and to challenge your thinking about responsibility and possibility. I offer five steps that you can take to cultivate a generous heart.
Recognize how much you have.
Give from the heart, with compassion not judgement.
Feel grateful.
Look for opportunities to be generous.
Learn Torah, specifically the wisdom and values our heritage has to offer around giving.
May we all merit to have the opportunity to exercise our philanthropic muscle while our hearts continue to beat with the life force of taking in and giving out.