JACOB JR, MY JEWISH WORLD. THE JEWISH MISSION

TREBIC OLD SYNAGOGUE. TREBIC/CZECH REPUBLIC

Sunday, 28 Av, 5777. August 20, 2017.

Shalom! World.

A non-Jew (goyn) gives charity and a Jew gives charity. But they are doing two different things.

When a poor person comes to a Jew and asks for something to eat, the Jew is actually lowering himself to give the person a meal, because this is not his field. The person hasn't asked for spiritual nourishment, for Torah. He's asked for mundane, everyday, physical nourishment. Stomachs and food - where does that fit in? We're a G'dly people, we have G'dly souls. Our place is in Heaven, in fact higher than Heaven because Heaven is also a created place, and we are a part of G'd. When the Jews came to Moses in the desert and said, "We need meat," Moses turned to G'd and said, "Do you hear what they want from me? They want me to provide them with meat! I'm a teacher, a Rabbi, a prophet, and they want me to give them meat?! What has the world come to?" And G'd said, "Yes, give them meat."

So every Jew, when he is faced with someone who is hungry, could say, "This is not my business. My business is with G'd things, holy things." But G'd said, "Keep kosher, eat kosher animals, don't eat non-kosher animals. If you see someone is hungry, feed him. If someone needs clothes, dress him. If someone is sick, heal him."So we say, "Ok, if that's what G'd wants, we'll do it. It's not our line, it's not our field, it's not our place, but it's our mission. And because it's our mission, we will leave our place and get involved with physical world; we'll feed hungry, dress the poor, heal the sick and so on."

This explains why the first instruction given to the first Jew, Abraham, was that he should go away from his father's home and his birthplace, go away from his natural condition, tendencies and impulses. This applies not only to the first Jew but to every Jew, to every Jewish soul. Every Jewish soul is told by G'd, "You must leave your place with Me, your native home and go to the place I will tell you. Not to the place where you belong, but to the place where I will send you. Leave the place in which you belong and fulfill the mission for which you are sent to earth. That mission is to obey My commandments."

When a Jew gives tzedakah, he's basically a Divine being accepting human obligations; he is basically humbling himself, lowering himself in the worldly human condition. When a goyn gives charity, he is basically a human being trying to elevate himself to something more Divine. So are the Jew and non-Jew doing the same thing? Not at all. They're doing opposite things. The same act, but comming from opposite directions and accomplishing opposite results.

A goyn once heard this and he told me, "That explains something. I always wondered why Christianity is so unforgiving, so condemning. Whereas in Judaism, if you fail, so you'll do better next time, you'll try again. A Jew is a Divine being sent to do something for the world, to accomplish something, to bring some G'dliness to the worldly condition. By eating kosher food, he does something for the animal kingdom, he gives animals a purpose within G'd scheme of things. If he didn't keep kosher yesterday, what will happen? He will keep kosher today. If he doesn't do it today, he'll do it tomorrow. But he'll do it because that's what he's here for. For the goyn who makes it his goal to become Divine, well, if you didn't do it, you're not Divine. If you didn't arrive at some Divine condition, then you're nowhere, you're where you were before, nothing's been accomplished. And that's why no matter how much good you've done, if you still lust in your heart, then you're condemned because you're still human. What have you accomplished? Nothing's changed because you're still human. So unless you can stop lusting inn your heart, and become superhuman, you haven't accomplished anything at all and you're damned and that's the end of it."

Shalom! Aleichem.

Cultural Support:  Jacob Jr. B.A.C.E., avec L'Integration d'Association avec Israel et dans le Monde/Cz .