Dvar Torah - Re'eh - The Song of the Broken Step and the Smile

In this week’s parasha we find the mitzvah of giving tzedakah, giving charity to the poor[1]. We’re told what we must do for a poor person.

If you need to give him money, give him money, or if he needs a loan, lend him money. Whatever is appropriate to look after the needs of the poor person, that is what we must do.

The Gemarah[1] tells a story of an incident in the life of Rav Papa. He was climbing a ladder one day and his foot slipped on one of the rungs. He just managed to avoid falling off the ladder but was somewhat shaken by the episode. Realising that his slip was a message to him from Hashem he racked his brain to think how he had erred and so deserved this warning. Unable to attribute any particular shortfall in his behaviour, that would warrant this punishment, he turned to Chiya bar Rav of Difti to ask his advice. Chiya bar Rav suggested that perhaps Rav Papa had been approached by a pauper and had declined to help him. This is where the Gemarah’s recounting of this tale ends – so we are left to assume that indeed this must have been the misdemeanour of Rav Papa that resulted in his near fall. It was for this aveirah that he was being held to account.

It goes without saying that the Sages of the Gemarah were remarkably clever men and quite possibly had Ruach HaKodesh, but just what led Chiya bar Rav to the conclusion that Rav Papa was lacking in the way he gave tzedakah? Why did he focus on tzedakah and not some other mitzvah that perhaps Rav Papa hadn’t fulfilled appropriately? To this question the Vilna Gaon has a truly remarkable answer. Associated with each word in the Torah is a musical note – cantillation mark or trop. This trop was given to Moshe Rabbeinu by Hashem at Sinai, and subsequently recorded in our Chumashim by the Masoretes, the Master Scribes, of Tenth Century Tverya. The Vilna Gaon points out that the trop associated with פָתֹ֧חַ תִּפְתַּ֛ח, you shall open your hand is called דרגא תביר, darga tevir, meaning broken step (in Aramaic). So, says the Vilna Gaon, we can understand why Chiya bar Rava, focussed on the charitable activities of Rav Papa as a likely cause of mishap.

The late Rabbi Isaac Bernstein z”l of London asked a question about David HaMelech. The Gemarah[2] tells us that David HaMelech met his death when a step on a ladder broke and he fell. Based on what we’ve already learned, Rabbi Bernstein asks how David HaMelech was lacking in his tzedakah activity. He points to a pasuk in Divrei Hayamim relating how David saved money to fund the building of the Beit HaMikdash.

Based on a Midrash, Rabbi Bernstein suggests that not only did David himself go hungry as he saved for the Beit HaMikdash but in saving so much, he didn’t distribute tzedakah to the poor in need of it.

From the Vilna Gaon’s derasha we see that both Rav Papa and David HaMelech were held to account for not distributing tzedakah as they should have done. In both cases they slipped from rungs on ladders that were broken or lose. Then many hundreds of years later there was a similar happening in Tverya. It is related that Rabbi Yaakov Shimshon of Shepetovka, a leading European posek (halachic decisor) made aliyah to Israel and arrived in Tverya right at the end of the Eighteenth Century. While in Tverya he was approached by a local trader who was being taken to court by an Arab businessman. He feared for his livelihood and asked the Rav for help – the Rav advised that he should give generous tzedakah payments to those in need. On the day of the court case, the Arab was on his way to the Courthouse when he slipped on some steps and as he fell a bundle of papers with the evidence for the case flew away from him into the Kineret, where they were washed away, irretrievably. The trader was amazed and asked the Rav to explain what had happened. The Rav pointed to the darga tevir on the words פָתֹ֧חַ תִּפְתַּ֛ח, you shall open your hand.

The lesson we can learn from פָתֹ֧חַ תִּפְתַּ֛ח, you shall open your hand, is that someone who gives tzedakah can be protected with broken steps in just the same way as someone who doesn’t give tzedakah can suffer from broken steps. It’s worth checking that all our steps are sound, but better still is to check that our charitable contributions are sound.

There is a further lesson we can learn from פָתֹ֧חַ תִּפְתַּ֛ח, you shall open your hand. The Gemarah[1]discusses the size of a handbreadth, a tefach, and notes that there are two types of tefach, שׂוֹחֲקוֹת וְעֲצֵבוֹת, laughing ones and sad ones. A closed hand is like a sad tefach, it’s like tightly sealed lips, while an open hand is like a smiling tefach, it is like lips slightly apart in a smile. When we give tzedakah, we should open our hand and give with a smile.