Coining a Giver

I left the bakery, clutching the money. I glanced around the parking lot, wide-eyed, her money in my hand. A woman ushered her kids into her minivan, a store owner stood in the doorway of his clothing store directing some young men to the rack of suits on sale. Not one collector in sight. I waited for a few moments and then walked to the corner and checked down the busy street. Cars whizzed by, a group of girls in blue pleated skirts were coming my way, but no one appeared to be collecting. What to do with the money? I bit my lip and reluctantly went to my car.

As I pulled away, I decided to put her money, and some of my own, into our pushke at lichtbentshen. Perhaps being the woman’s shaliach would serve as the additional merit I needed right before Rosh Hashanah. After all, Hashem had chosen me to be there just then. I hummed as I thought about the incident, buoyed not only by being her shaliach, but by my enthusiasm for a mitzvah that wasn’t always easy.

In the very same parking lot, just seven months earlier, I’d been approached by a man asking for tzedakah. With a cursory shake of my head, I told him I didn’t have any money and went on my way without a second thought.

At 8:30 that evening, I made my way to a shloshim asifah for a family friend and community member, a healthy man who had passed away suddenly. His petirah had stunned our community, and the asifah was packed. The speakers recounted the many strengths of this man — his friendliness, his acts of chesed, and his Torah learning — and I, along with the women around me, cried unabashedly. The speakers also highlighted this man’s generosity. He gave tzedakah, a lot of it, and always with a smile, a kind word, an invitation into his home. I could picture his smiling face, could imagine how comfortable tzedakah collectors must have felt being greeted by such a countenance.