Today I want to teach you a secret: how to turn a little into a lot. Suppose you have a shekel, and with the help of my secret it will turn into a million shekels. How can you do this? Moreover, how can you do the same with things worth far more than money…
Let us begin with a story. Long, long ago, there was a bakery in a little town in Poland. An ordinary bakery that baked bagels, bread, rolls, and challahs for Shabbat. One day, a notice appeared on the bakery door: worker wanted. What qualities are usually required of a worker? Responsible, nimble, hardworking… But this notice said something completely different: “Wanted: a worker with diabetes.” Strange!
The whole little town was buzzing and boiling over: what kind of strange requirement was that? What made sick people better, and what was wrong with healthy ones?! This went on until an older merchant walked past the bakery and said:
—Why are you all so worked up? It's ridiculous, really. I have known this family since their grandfather's day. Their stinginess is hereditary! The great-grandson is still wearing his great-grandfather's bar mitzvah suit! So of course they need a worker with diabetes who would not touch anything in this bakery for fear of dying!...
What does the Almighty usually do for someone whose trait of stinginess is as highly developed as in our story? He sends him a wife who needs to wear a helmet when she walks around the kitchen. Why a helmet, of all things? Because she, by contrast, is extravagant. She goes to the store and fills two shopping carts to the brim. When she opens a kitchen cupboard, everything falls out onto her head! So the Almighty usually brings the two of them together under the chuppah, so that over the course of their married life their traits will be blended, as if in a mixer, to produce a golden mean. Provided, of course, that they work to maintain their marriage.
But we want to help those who have to struggle with stinginess on their own. How, for example, can a stingy person begin moving in the opposite direction? Suppose there is a woman who has stinginess in her genes. If she needs to buy something for herself or her child, she feels she cannot do it. Opening her purse is so difficult—it simply seems impossible. How can we help her give tzedakah, for example?
In Parashat Re’eh in our holy Torah, we find this advice (Deuteronomy 15:10): “You shall surely give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him,” in Hebrew, “naton titen lo velo yera levavcha betitecha lo.” The author of Kli Chemdah offers a beautiful explanation. Someone who finds giving difficult, who feels he is dying every time he has to give someone something—could he suddenly bring himself to give 1000 dollars? No, but he does not need to. A shekel, then another shekel. Little by little. Naton titen—give a little at a time; velo yera levavcha—you will not be afraid (your heart will not be afraid) to give. Gradually, giving will no longer be difficult. Rabbeinu Ovadiah of Bartenura says: “Even if a person has 100 gold coins, it is better for him to give 1 coin every day than all 100 at once—this way, he will accustom himself to giving.”
And this applies to more than money. Sometimes it is difficult even to share a smile or offer someone a kind word of encouragement. This, too, will come if we practice often, a little at a time. Then sharing our warmth will no longer be difficult.
This is golden advice for us all. This is how we can turn one shekel into a million—by giving small amounts often, gradually accustoming ourselves to giving, we can develop this quality within ourselves: giving to others. We can become giving people, capable of sharing our warmth.