More than the master of the house does for the poor person the poor person does for the master of the house. (Vayikra Raba 34)
By giving to the disadvantaged we’re filling a need that’s missing for them. More than this it changes us. By receiving from us they are making us into givers.
Money for the destitute, words of comfort to those suffering loss or teaching skills to the ignorant are all ways we are (in the words of the song ‘We are the world’) ‘saving our own lives.’
Aside from turning us into givers they are filling a need that we didn’t even know we had.
People endure many trials and tribulations that force them into a position where they have to either grow spiritually or wither up and die. There is no other choice. As my mentor Dr. Teria Shantall likes to say, life “corners you.”
If he has been attuned to the message he will have developed tenfold spiritually through his suffering.
Forced into the corner of “physically disabled” a person with a spinal cord injury will identify his self as spirit, not body.
And we who have well-functioning arms and legs (thank you very much) don’t need to identify our self primarily as spirit beings?!!
He got the message by being knocked on the head with it. We need to get the very same message through learning from him and contemplating the meaning of his experience.
Someone struggling financially is forced into the corner of maintaining faith that the one who gave and continues to give him life has not abandoned him. And we who are not struggling in this way don’t need to know that?!
Someone who is lacking in social skills or any kind of skill is humbled by it and aware that he has much to learn. And we don’t have much to learn?
In the act of giving we ‘straighten the lines.’ This is a Hebrew expression meaning that you get aligned with someone else. You’re learning from his experience what you needed to know for yourself, only without having to go through his experience.
More than what the master of the house does for the poor person the poor person does for the master of the house…