D’Var Torah
Yom Kippur 5787

Today I am going to talk about a core Jewish value and practice: Tzedakah.

And – I am going to pose a strange question about Tzedakah – that I truly need your help to answer:

• What does Tzedakah smell like?

I personally have a poor sense of smell. Since I was a little kid, I’ve been allergic to a lot; Grass, trees, mold, dust, and dander. So my sinuses were always inflamed. This contributed to some asthma and to this day my sense of smell is not the strongest. I can smell something – but I know my experience of smell is more shallow than that of others. 

So, with that background I come to the strange question:

• What does tzedakah smell like?

This funny question is inspired by the metaphors of the mystics of our tradition.

The circles of Zohar and Hasidut shared words of Torah with each other that explored how people are capable of bringing sweet fragrance into harsh circumstances. Through their retellings of the stories of the Torah, these mystics portray how even under extreme circumstances we are able to be:

• Libsamei Dinei – to aromatize harshness
• L’hamtik et ha dinim – to sweeten the judgements

To sweeten the harshness of life’s decrees is considered a great mystical quest, a heroic endeavor of the heart and soul for the sake of contributing to the healing of the world.

In order to Fragrantly Sweeten the Harshness of life, 

We must honestly appraise the harshness of life’s decrees – 

That the events of this life often don’t seem fair at all.

Then, from that place of honesty, we can introduce sweet fragrance through more honesty.

When we honestly appreciate the value of life and love – in the face of harshness.

To put it in a much less esoteric way, perhaps the mystics are saying:

• Yeah, life is tough 
• But, enjoy this tough life
• You can still be sweet and loving – and savor the smells of life.

Through our response to the dinim and gezorot of life we can reshape them into tzedek 

Our tradition seeks to make justice from judgement – or lhamitk et hadinim – lmibsamei dinei.

Centuries before the growth of the Zohar and Kabbalah – from where we get the language of Libsamei Dinei – we find by the Amoraim of the Talmud a similar concept:

• Tzidduk haDin 

The halakha codified a standard prayer called by this name tzidduk haDin, to be said immediately after the burial of a member of our community. 

The language of the prayer is based on the parting words of Moses from the parsha of Shabbat Shuvah: 

הַצּוּר֙ תָּמִ֣ים פָּעֳל֔וֹ כִּ֥י כָל־דְּרָכָ֖יו מִשְׁפָּ֑ט

The rock whose ways are pure, for all G-d’s paths are just.

You may have heard me describe a framing with which I understand this prayer, within which we also find the words Baruch Dayan haEmes. 

Our tradition teaches us to appreciate the blessing of life – even in the face of the grief and harshness of death. 

The words of the prayer remind us of how lucky we are to live – and thereby seek to offer us a shred of comfort when our hearts are broken by grief. 

We could translate tzidduk haDin as justifying the ruling – explaining why an apparently bad outcome is truly a good one, but it may be more accurate to translate it as acceptance of life’s harsh decrees and, with keen awareness of them, the pursuit of tzedek (justice). 

Creatively, I would like to suggest we think of Tzidduk haDin as a model for how we can respond to harshness with tzedakah. Rather than allowing us to sink into an all encompassing pit of sadness, our tradition urges us to utter words of blessing in the face of grief – and to show up charitably, generously, and compassionately for each other from the midst of grief.

When we respond to harshness with movement towards tzedek – which is to say with tzedakah – we contribute to the transformation of a world of harshness and judgement into a world of charity and justice; we contribute to the sweetening of the harshness of life. 

Like the acts of love we perform for the dead and dying, tzedakah is a concrete way to contribute to turning judgement into justice. By definition, giving tzedakah will never be enough to make “things all better” or “ltaken et ha’olam.”

This is reflected in our High Holiday liturgy. Tzedakah is one of the 3 pillars of the imperative of the prayer: U’netaneh Tokef (which the cantor loves to sing). The prayer promises that these three pillars can help us move through the wrongness of our fate – the harshness of life’s decrees. 

In addition to Tzedakah, we also need Tefillah – clarifying our will for a better world, and Teshuvah, improving our behavior in this world. 

Tzedakah is the one of these three things we can’t actually do together while we’re sitting here in shul on Yom Tov. We can pray together. We can repent together. But we can’t give tzedakah together—not in this moment.

So perhaps that’s precisely why it’s important for us to talk about it together now: so that we can go out and practice it together throughout the year.

Tzedakah is one of the most used words in Jewish prayer – 

In the piyyutim of Yom Kippur – and in almost all acrostic poetry in Judaism from the Torah to today – Tzedek or Tzedakah is used for the Tzadi line. 

In the spirit of Tzedakah, the Torah develops several systems of ma’aser, tithing, through which resources are set aside for the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, the widow, and the poor.

These gifts were distributed differently based on what year it was in the shmita cycle.

Part of this system was also Maaser Sheini – a part of the tithing cycle devoted to coming to Jerusalem and celebrating together with the needy and the cohanim. This tzedakah pilgrimage practice was designed to forge bonds of relationship, brotherhood, and generosity across real differences – differences of resources and class, of generation and occupation. 

In Devarim 15:11, we read

  פָּ֠תֹחַ תִּפְתַּ֨ח אֶת־יָדְךָ֜ לְאָחִ֧יךָ לַעֲנִיֶּ֛ךָ וּלְאֶבְיֹנְךָ֖ בְּאַרְצֶֽךָ׃

Open, open your hand to your brother, to your suffering, to your impoverished in your place. 

The verse repeatedly uses the possessive pronoun  “kha”” Your.

We are instructed to view each other as brothers and sisters –  as siblings – regardless of whether we are the one in need or the one who is able to give. 

We are urged to take responsibility for the people in need in our midst and to see each other as belonging to one another. 

We are all meant to cultivate the quality of giving to others and to support the community, in a way that is proportional to our finances. And, we are warned against the danger of clenching our first closed whenever someone comes to us asking for help. 

In the Talmud Bavli Masechet Shabbat, there are a remarkable set of stories told about the power of Tzedakah to save us from death, based on the verse from Proverbs: tzedakah tazil mimaves.

One of them is about Rabbi Akiva’s daughter. When she was a child, Rabbi Akiva was told by a fortuneteller that his daughter would die on her own wedding day – surely an unimaginably harsh fate. Rabbi Akiva hides this prediction from her. Then, on her wedding night Rabbi Akiva’s daughter generously shares her festive meal with a woman in need, a hungry woman who comes knocking on the door of the wedding hall. Through her charitable act of generosity, she is apparently miraculously spared from the fate of death.

I don’t believe that this story in the Talmud, or the others which precede it and share a similar structure, promise us a miraculous escape from death in exchange for acts of charity. Rather, these stories are meant to convey to us the natural power of tzedakah. 

Tzedakah can transform our lives and the lives of others. Tzedakah is capable of forging bonds of love and mutual-respect that support us all through the harshness and hardships of life.

Tzedakah changes the lives of people who give along with the lives of people who receive, as the sages in the Zohar remarked: sometimes the greatest gift one can receive is the opportunity to give to someone else, and vice-versa. 

In case all of this is not enough, tzedakah can be found at the heart of our high holiday prayers as the virtue through which G-d is made holy “hanikdash b’tzadakah.”

• This implies that in order for G-d to be truly present and palpable in our world we must be committed to sanctifying G-d through tzedakah.

So, to return to my opening question: 

• What does tzedakah smell like?

In the ancient days of our ancestors, Tzedakah smelled like Ma’aser with the wealthy and the poor, the land-owner and the immigrant rejoicing together over barbeque and wine. 

Today, tzedakah smells so many ways.

Tzedakah may smell like a check with ink drying on it. 

Tzedakah also smells like fresh produce in the VINES farm share distribution, local organic produce subsidized by some for the needs of others. 

Tzedakah smells like lochs and onions at a kiddush, where everyone is welcome to eat and enjoy together. 

And like a large pot of soup boiling at a soup kitchen and like the CHOW warehouse.

Tzedakah smells like food from the Kosher Korner being piled into a car by Jackie’s Kitchen volunteers to be delivered to members of our community. 

Tzedakah smells like cakes and lasagnas baked for people going through trying times. 

Tzedakah smells like shabbat meals shared here at the shul for all to enjoy; and like an invitation to dinner at someone’s home with whom you’re just starting to connect. 

Over this new year, let us discover what tzedakah can smell like together. Let us look for as many ways as we can to share our resources with each other and to lift up people in times of need.

Let us bring more sweetness and fragrance into each other’s lives. 

Through our tzedakah, we won’t be able to remove the harshness of the world – but we will be able to increase the sweet fragrance that can be found in this life. May our increased generosity inspire sweetness that can help us persevere through tough times. 

Shanah Tovah U’Metukah