Good morning, gentlemen. We’re continuing our study of Eshet Chayil (Woman of Valor). We’re in Pasuk Chaf (verse twenty). Yesterday, we were on a journey to describe and understand not a person who does chesed (kindness), but a person whose chesed is so much a part of him that if he doesn’t have it for a day, he feels starved. This is a very, very high level of chesed. When you starve, when you don’t do chesed, it means that chesed has become an integral part of you. That means chesed has become an integral part of your being, not just something you do, which is beautiful. When we speak about higher levels, we don’t mean to belittle anything else, but we must know that there are levels, and there is a level. That’s what the Torah really teaches about Avraham Avinu (Our forefather Abraham). The level he reached was that a day without kindness was like a day when we would fast for 25 hours. When we fast for 25 hours, we’re starving. We don’t have time to talk to anybody. We don’t have time to get involved in any projects. We need to eat. Avraham Avinu was at this level when it came to chesed: if he went for a number of hours without helping others, he literally felt weak and starved.
Now, Baruch Hashem (Blessed is Hashem), we’re around a lot of kindness and a lot of good that happens around us. But I don’t know that we’re yet close to this level. I think that even imagining that this level exists may be difficult for us, so the question is: How does a person get to this level? Everything in life has a formula for getting to this level, where chesed is so essential to your soul that you’re starving without it. Yesterday, we said that the formula for becoming such a person is to be involved in giving all day long, all day. When someone hears that, they say, “Well, how is that possible? I have to work. I have to take care of many things in my life. That’s not part of giving.” So yesterday we explained one very important principle: one tragic mistake of humanity is that people measure giving and taking by the direction of the hand, so to speak. They think that when they move their hand toward another person, that’s called giving, and when they take from another person, that’s called taking. They think giving is when the hand goes this way, and taking is when it comes toward them. This mistake is a tragedy for two reasons. Reason number one is, as we explained yesterday, that very often, when a person is giving, he’s actually taking. He may be giving to someone, even his own family and his own wife. He’s giving, giving, giving, giving, and in his mind he’s investing because he wants something back, so he’s involved in taking. A person can be giving charity and want something in return. Maybe he wants honor, recognition, blessings, or Olam Haba (World to Come). All of that is considered an involvement in taking. One tragic mistake that comes from not knowing what true giving is, then, is thinking that because you’re moving your hand toward other people, you must be giving. You can be involved all day long in your marriage, with your children, with your charity, with whatever people you help, and think that because you’re moving this way toward them, you must be giving. Then you wake up and realize, “Wait, that actually may all be taken.” That’s a tragic mistake.
The second part of this tragedy is that, since you’re measuring by the motion, you’re not realizing how much giving you could be doing during your day. As we said yesterday, you can be in business all day long and be thinking about giving. You’re selling product; you’re giving. Yes, you’re getting paid, but where is your focus on the payment? You’re allowed to make money, but is your focus on how much you’re providing for people who are going to enjoy your shoes, your socks, your dresses, your apartments? They’re going to enjoy your service. A person could actually do that. It’s not the American way. Again, you’re allowed to make money. This isn’t taking any money away from you. It’s just a question of where your focus is. But know that it is possible. Yes, it might be a little bit beyond our reality, but it’s very possible for a person to make his transactions transactions of giving, where the focus is there rather than on the taking. Again, nobody has to make a dollar less than they have. The question is, where is your focus? Where is your mindset? This is what we spoke about yesterday. In such a mindset, a person could be working and giving. Obviously, a person could be giving in his marriage. A person with children can be giving. The transactions that happen in a person’s life very much can be transactions of giving. That’s the second point a person might miss.
Today, we’re going to move on to a different aspect of being a giver, which will take the first area we spoke about yesterday and just now and cover all of our transactions. All of our transactions could be giver transactions. But today we’re going to cover even the times when there isn’t a transaction. Even then, you could be a giver. Now, that needs explanation. Are you following so far? We took all transactions and said we can actually make them transactions of giving, but we still have many times in the day when there is no transaction. So how can we take those moments and turn them into giver moments? That’s going to be a challenge you can’t even imagine. I’m going to tell you about a very important understanding of a certain principle of life. Here it is: Just as we know clearly that there are givers and takers, and they’re usually opposite each other, as we learned yesterday, it doesn’t have to be that way in reality. Both sides could be taking, and both sides could be giving, but in general, in the physical transaction, there are givers and takers.
The same exact idea takes place when it comes to obligations, when I have obligations toward people. For example, someone lent me money. When someone lends me money, I become obligated to that person to return the money, to pay it back. Opposite my obligation is somebody who has the right to demand the money from me. I have the right to my property. You have the obligation to stay out of my property unless I let you. I have the right to my physical body. Your obligation is not to hurt me. I have the right to my money. You are obligated not to take it. So we have rights and obligations. On one end, there’s a person who has the rights. Rights and obligations usually come together. My right is your obligation, and my obligation is your right. Good so far? Is that clear?
Now, if we look deeper into the concept of rights and obligations, we would realize that at their very core, they’re just another example of givers and takers. It’s not as clear, so people don’t view it that way, but it’s actually probably the most perfect physical proof of givers and takers. Because, as we said before, a person giving is not real proof that he’s a giver. A greater proof of whether he’s a giver is not what he does for others but, most importantly, what he does for himself. This will be the real test of whether you’re a giver or not. You see, a giver by nature doesn’t like to be a taker. Part of being a giver is that you don’t like to be a taker. Givers and takers don’t work together. They’re not like eating matzah (unleavened bread) and having bread together. Those could go together—not on Pesach (Passover), but they could. I can have matzah, I can have bread, no problem. They’re not a contradiction. They can be together simultaneously, in the same bite: a piece of matzah and a piece of bread. But when it comes to givers and takers, it doesn’t work. It’s exclusive. So when a person is a giver, part of that giver reality is that they don’t like to take. And takers don’t like to give. So now, what happens when a giver has to take from someone? He has no choice. He has to take. He hates to take. But he has no choice. The reality is that he needs to take. He needs money, can’t afford the rent, he’s stuck, he has a wedding, he has no choice. Sometimes in life there’s no choice. You have to take money, you have to take advice, you have to take someone’s time, you have to take whatever. Sometimes in life, everybody has times when they need someone for something. Nobody’s able to live a life on their own. They need somebody else to give to them. It’s part of the reality Hashem created.
So now, what happens when a giver takes from someone? What happens to him? He hates it. Takers like it, but givers don’t feel right. They don’t feel good. Now, a taker who takes from someone is not only okay with it; very often, he feels shortchanged. “You only gave me this? My daughter’s wedding—you only gave me five grand? What am I going to do with $5,000?” A taker very often not only feels that part of being a taker is that you expect; you feel entitled. “You’re lucky to give me.” A young boy sits down at the table and thinks that his mother is lucky to serve him. So when he eats, he’s like, “Here, Mom, I’m eating for you. You’re lucky I eat your food. Okay, I’ll eat tonight.” To you, so you’re the taker, and you actually think that you’re giving. That’s how sick you could become: you’re taking and making the other person feel like they’re lucky to give to you. There are different levels of takers, but a taker, by definition, at the core, feels deserving of other people’s money and time and whatever else can come their way. Therefore, naturally, if they receive, they don’t feel bad. They feel at home. They feel in the right. Entitled. That’s the definition of a taker.
A giver, on the other hand, is very uncomfortable receiving anything from anybody. That uncomfortable feeling doesn’t end with being uncomfortable. A real giver doesn’t say, “Oh, I feel so bad you’re giving me. I feel so bad you came.” You might say those words, but if it ends with the words, you’re a fake giver. Got it? You’re a fake giver. It’s fake. He’s just saying it to look good. He’s no different; the guy giving pizza to get money may look like he’s giving, but he’s not the faker. Why? Because part of the human feelings ingrained in us—we can’t change it; it’s part of reality—is that when we really feel bad that we’re receiving and taking, something is automatically born in us. We give birth to a new feeling called, “I need to pay back. I have to do something to pay the guy back.” If your bad feelings don’t translate into “How do I pay the guy back?” then your feelings are merely external expressions and aren’t real. Because automatically, if I’m a giver and I take and feel bad, it needs to give birth to a reciprocation. I have to give something back. What can I give back? Now, sometimes you may have no idea how to give back. That’s what David says to Hashem: “What can I give you back?” But at least he’s thinking about giving back when he says, “Hashem, what can I give you?” That came from a very deep feeling of, “What can I pay back?” because I feel I’m taking all day long. So I don’t just say, “Oh wow, I can’t believe I feel so bad that you’re giving me.” No, that’s not sufficient. It’s not only not sufficient; it’s fake. The real, real giver would automatically be asking this question: “My spouse, my children, my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my rabbi, the people who work for me, the people I work for—what can I give them back?” That is the authentic reaction of a giver: when they receive, they feel obligated to give back. Again, they don’t always know what to give back, and they don’t always have what to give back, but the feeling is there.
That is a very big mistake in this area, a very big mistake in the Western world: when somebody does a favor for you, you tell him, “Thank you.” Thank you. So in your mind, you have fulfilled your obligation of reciprocation. Someone tells you, “Don’t you see what the guy did for you?” “Of course. I told him thank you.” Now, in the Western world, a thank-you is viewed as payment. And that is another tragic mistake. It’s not enough to tell someone thank you.
Imagine that you were driving a car and were about to go off a cliff. You didn’t realize there was a cliff, and someone went headfirst on your windshield to stop you. The glass broke. The guy is bleeding. He saved your life because you had to stop and didn’t go off the cliff. What a moment. Imagine you see the guy and say, “Thank you so much,” and go home. What would you say to that? How appropriate would that be? Someone says to you, “Don’t you know what the guy did for you?” “Of course I did. You didn’t hear me say thank you? I even said ‘so much.’” You and I would realize, everybody realizes, there’s something wrong there. What’s wrong? What’s the problem? The problem is that thank you is not real payback. Thank you is not called paying back. You tell your mother thank you; you did not pay her back. When you think that a thank-you is payback, it’s just another example that you’re not a real giver. But I say thank you to everybody. I’m not saying, by the way, that you shouldn’t say thank you. I’m just saying that when you translate thank you as payback, you clearly are not a giver. It doesn’t mean you’re an evil person, but you’re not a giver. I say thank you to everybody—the one who helps me, the one who gives me my parent—not real, real giving. Real givers, when they receive, of course, it depends on how much they receive and how much they owe back. The more you get, the more you owe back. The only way to pay back is that you need to do something for the person. It’s not enough to say thank you.
Now, why do we say thank you? That’s a good question. What’s the point of saying thank you altogether, if reciprocation is what’s needed and thank you doesn’t cut it? What is a thank you for? Thank you is for situations. This reality, if we actually lived it, would make us extremely, extremely motivated to be constantly thinking about how to pay back all the people in our lives to whom we still owe money or service. If someone lends me money, that means there’s something bothering me until I pay it back. And that’s why I need to pay it back as soon as I can. If I owe my mother, my father, my wife, my husband, I need to—there’s something constantly bothering me to do something. I may not always be able to do it, because the reality is I don’t have what to do, or the person isn’t here. But the feeling of obligation is the feeling of a giver. So long as I feel the obligation, I am involved in thinking about how to give. Again, I don’t always know what to give. I don’t always have what to give.
And of course, the greatest form of obligation that we have is toward the Creator of the world. If we were true givers, then every day of our lives would become another invoice, and we still haven’t paid the first one. The first day of our life, we got a very big invoice. The first shipment was very big. Then every single day of our lives, we get more invoices. We still, a hundred years later, haven’t paid the first invoice. The greatest feeling of obligation, from all those who give to us, is clearly toward the Creator of the world. The first invoice, from the day we were born, we still haven’t paid, and we keep getting more and more shipments. We’re trying to catch up.
This feeling of obligation is within a person every second when it comes to the Creator, because every second you’re getting more. Every second you’re getting something undeserved. Every breath is undeserved. That means every second you’re feeling more obligated. And when you feel that obligation, this is an act of a giver, even though you may not be acting in that moment. But you’re waiting for the moment, for the opportunity to pay back. To live a life of obligation is to live a life of a giver. And when you live such a life, you’re giving all day long, every second of the day. You wake up in the morning, and the first word is Modeh—I’m obligated. That’s the first word a Jew says in the morning: Modeh ani lefanecha—I am obligated. And that is the great person’s life, constantly feeling the obligation. Again, I can’t always pay, but when I have a chance, I’m right there. I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about you and how I can pay you back.
So when the Creator says, “I want you to do this,” of course I’m in. I’m going to do it the best way. It’s my... “I can’t believe you told me what to do. Thank you so much,” because a person who feels the obligation wants to know what to do. It’s bothering you? Tell me what you want from me. Whether it’s toward the Creator of the world, whether it’s toward our parents or our spouse, our children—everybody is included in this. A life of a giver is a life of obligation. Any giver who doesn’t live with obligation is not a real giver, because obligation is a true testimony that you’re a person who is a giver. Because of that, you have a hard time taking. Because of that, born inside you is the need to give back.
In the Torah, we have many, many laws. We have in the Torah many, many, many, many obligations of what to do and what not to do. Compare that with the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution is called the Bill of Rights. Rights. You have a right to your property. You have a right to your image. You have a right to your money. It’s called the Bill of Rights. Notice that in the entire Torah, not one time does the Torah tell us about rights. Never. It doesn’t say, as an employee, you have the right to get paid. It never says that. It says, as an employer, you have the obligation to pay. Now, of course, your obligation to pay will create a right on the other side, and when it says you have the right, it creates an obligation the other way. So they’re both going to be there. At the end of the day, the question is: Where do you focus? Do you focus on your rights or on your obligation? A country focused on its rights becomes a selfish country. A nation focused on its obligations becomes a country of givers. Are you focused on what you’re supposed to get or what you’re supposed to give?
The Torah doesn’t say to a father and mother, “You have the right that your children respect you.” It doesn’t say that. The Torah doesn’t say you have the right to your life. You have the right to your money. It never says that once. It says, “Honor your parents.” You’re obligated to honor your parents. You’re obligated not to murder. You’re obligated not to steal. You’re obligated not to take someone’s property. It never says you have the right to your property. It’s an incredible idea. The Creator is trying to produce givers, not takers. It doesn’t mention our rights. The Bill of Rights talks about rights. That’s why you have people say, “You know what I do for you? You know what I do for this marriage? Don’t I deserve...?” We think that we say that because we actually think that, because in our minds we deserve so much. We have rights. A marriage built on two people thinking about their obligations is a different marriage. But an average marriage in this country, where two people are thinking about their rights—two people married and thinking about their rights—is about “my rights, your rights; what I do, I get enough, you don’t get enough.” Living with obligation is living a life of a giver. And if you lived such a life, then you would actually be involved in giving all day long, because even when you can’t give, you feel the obligation to give.
Such a person, getting to that level, will literally be a person who starves when that person isn’t giving. It becomes so much a part of your being. And you need to give. You need to give. You can only hold off for so long, saying, “Oh, I can’t wait for the opportunity. I need to give.” At some point, you can’t do it. A person is hungry, and he’s like, “I’ll eat in an hour.” Two hours, three hours. A person is like, “I have to give, I have to give, I have to give, I have to give.” At some point, you can’t do it anymore. You need to give already. This is what it feels like to live a life of a true, true giver. It’s not something you do on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. It’s not something you do for an hour. Anything that’s lacking for a certain period of time in giving to others would be considered starvation in your world. This is a way to live life. We owe tremendously to our Creator. We owe tremendously to our parents. We owe tremendously to the people in our lives. And such an attitude toward those who give to us will produce a very, very, very beautiful person, who will be a very holy person, or a person who is involved in giving all day long.