- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Terumah
3297
The reason that there is so much charity in the world is that there is somewhere deep within our consciences and souls a steak of human kindness and goodness. We really wish to be charitable people. That is why the Torah is convinced that everyone will contribute according to the donative intent of one’s own heart and being. It is within the nature of all to be charitable. However since we have freedom of will and choice we can overcome our inner instincts of goodness and become miserly and even cruel towards others and to ourselves as well. Just as there are very base instincts that lurk within us and we possess within ourselves the freedom to overcome and deny them so too does this power of freedom of will and choice allow us to sublimate our good and charitable instincts. There is a well known statement of the rabbis that many people regret being put upon for a charitable contribution and yet feel a deep satisfaction within themselves after they have in fact made that contribution. It is that deep instinct towards being charitable that engenders the satisfaction within a person after having done a charitable deed or having made a charitable contribution. The Torah wishes to encourage our charitable instinct. It therefore resorts to making what is essentially a voluntary act one that becomes mandatory. It is a mechanism to allow the good within us to burst forth from within us. The holy institutions of Israel can only be constructed with the charitable instincts of the Jewish people.

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