The Torah in Parashat Re’eh discusses the importance of charity, commanding us to lend assistance to the poor:
לא תאמץ את לבבך ולא תקפוץ את ידך מאחיך האביון. כי פתח תפתח את ידך לו...
Do not harden your heart and do not shut your hand from your brother, the pauper. Rather, you shall open your hand to him…
A famous pasuk in Mishleh teaches וצדקה תציל ממות – “and charity saves from death.” This pasuk has been understood in a number of different ways. One is that charity can save the recipient from death. Poverty can sometimes be a death sentence, either literally or figuratively, in the sense of completely ruining a person’s life and denying him any chance of happiness. So by giving charity, we save the recipient’s life.
This pasuk has also been explained as referring to the reward for charity – that even if has been decreed that a person should die, he can save his life by giving charity.
But there is also another way to understand this pasuk.
The Midrash observes that when a baby is born, his fists are clenched shut. The exact opposite happens when somebody passes on – at the moment of death, a person’s hands are wide open.
This means that we come into this world with a natural selfish instinct – to look out only for ourselves, for our own interests, to grab, and to keep everything for ourselves without sharing. But by the time a person leaves this world, it is expected that his hands open, that he becomes sensitive to the needs of others.
A huge part of the process of maturing is learning to open our hands, to share, to look out for other people and not only for ourselves.
The Midrash here is teaching us that the GOAL OF LIFE is to open our hands – to transform ourselves from takers to givers, to overcome our selfish instinct and be sensitive, compassionate and generous.
This is the essence of the mitzvah of tzedakah, which is why the Torah formulates this mitzvah as an obligation to open our hands: כי פתח תפתח את ידך לו.
In the Book of Shemuel I we read the story of Naval, a wealthy man to whom David sent his men to ask for food and provisions while they were are in the run. Naval rudely rejected their request. Soon thereafter, G-d killed him.
This was a man who lived with his fists tightly clenched, keeping everything he was given for himself, and refusing to share it with anybody. He did not deserve to live another day. His name was נבל, which means “repugnant.” Living with clenched fists is disgraceful. It is a betrayal of the very purpose of life.
This might be the meaning of צדקה תציל ממות. Charity “saves from the death” in the sense that it is the essence of life. When we give charity, we fulfill one of our primary purposes in life – to open our hands, to become generous. And so tzedakah is described as saving us from death.
May we all live our lives with open hands, generously and selflessly giving of ourselves for the benefit of others.