Those who give charity motivated by pride ruin everything

Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto’s talks are known throughout the Jewish world. They combine chassidic teachings and philosophy, along with tips for a better life. We have collected pearls from his teachings that are relevant to our daily lives. This week he comments on the Torah section of Vayikra.

"And God called to Moses, and God spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying" (1:1).

The letter aleph in the word that opens the Torah section of Vayikra and the book of Leviticus is written small. The commentators explain that since Moses was more humble than any other human, he did not want to write in normal-size letters that God had distinguished him by calling to him personally, so he wrote the word with a small aleph.

We can pose a question about this. In the Torah section of Mishpatim, it also mentions "And He called to Moses on the seventh day from the midst of the cloud" (Exodus 24:16). God’s calling out to Moses appears there with a normal letter aleph. What is the difference between God’s calling Moses at the beginning of Leviticus, which was written with a small aleph, and that of the Torah section of Mishpatim, which was written with a normal aleph?

The Gemara says in the tractate of Nedarim (38a): Rabbi Yochanan said, "God only rests His Presence on one who is strong, rich, wise, and humble, and we learn this from Moses... Our sages explain that Moses became rich from the debris of the Second Tablets. When Moses hewed the Second Tablets, God told him to take the pieces that remained from the valuable sapphire stone they were made of. This is how he became wealthy.

In the Torah section of Mishpatim, Moses was not wealthy and therefore thoughts of pride did not occur to him. Moses felt that he was nothing special; he had no wisdom, strength, humility or wealth to speak of. He thought he had nothing. But in the Torah section of Vayikra, after Moses had become wealthy, he was concerned that he might be affected by pride. That's why in Mishpatim the aleph is normal while in Leviticus, after Moses had attained additional levels of perfection in the areas of wisdom, humility, strength, and wealth, he wrote a small aleph.

The lesson to learn from this is that a person should constantly evaluate himself. He should search himself for flaws, and shouldn’t assure himself that it is enough that he was good in the past. Every day he should check himself how he is today and consider how he will be tomorrow. He should take responsibility for his behavior and actions at all times.

In our Torah section we find another lesson of humility. The Torah teaches us in this Torah section and the following sections how to offer a sacrifice to God. We might very well wonder -- isn't God compassionate, caring and merciful? There is no one more merciful and caring than God! So what pleasure and gratification does God have when an animal is slaughtered for His sake? Wouldn’t it be better to leave the animal alive? Why does God require a person to slaughter an animal to attain His forgiveness for the person’s wrongdoings?

Our sages say that the whole point of offering sacrifices is so the person should picture in his mind that everything done to the sacrifice - being slaughtered and all the subsequent actions of dividing the animal’s internal organs, skinning it, and burning sections of it in fire - should have been done to him. The sacrifice atones for him and instead of the person suffering the same fate as the sacrifice, everything is done to the sacrifice.

The whole point of bringing a sacrifice is to humble and subdue a person’s mind, and deflate his ego. God accepted Abel's sacrifice and did not accept Cain's sacrifice, because Abel brought his sacrifice humbly with all his heart from the best that he owned, while Cain brought it from the most inferior crops he had produced with an attitude of pride. He did not bring his sacrifice with a humble spirit. If you do not bring a sacrifice in humility, God will not accept the sacrifice because the whole point of the sacrifice is to bring it with a contrite heart.

That is why in our Torah section, when the Torah commands us to bring a sacrifice, the Torah opens the parsha with a small aleph, indicating that the heart’s humility must accompany it.

There are people who give charity and study Torah motivated by their self-pride. If pride is intertwined, the commandment can not be rectified. The essence of the sacrifice and the purpose of the sacrifice is for a person to become humble and subservient. A person who does any commandment with pride, has ruined that commandment.

Unfortunately, people who give charity motivated by pride have ruined their charity. People who study Torah motivated by pride have ruined their Torah study. When a person does something good, he should do it with a small aleph, with humility. 

A person who brings a sacrifice should do it out of humility. If he does it out of pride, he will ruin everything. Cain who offered his sacrifice out of pride ruined it, Abel who offered his sacrifice out of humility and subservience elevated his sacrifice to a great place.

A person who humbles his heart and knows that the purpose of a person is to make himself humble before God and be a vessel to receive God’s blessing - is the one who the Holy One, blessed is He, favors and loves.

This article was written in cooperation with Shuva Israel