04 Aug PARSHAS RE’EH: A SPOON AND A HANDLE

“For you shall surely
open your hand to
him.” (Devarim 15:8)
First, the Torah tells us
(15:7), “If there be a
pauper among you,
one of your brethren,
in one of your gateways
in your land that G-d your Lord has given you,
do not harden your heart nor close your hand
tight against your impoverished brother.” This
is clearly telling us to give charity to the poor
person. Then the Torah continues, “For you
shall surely open your hand to him and provide
him with the necessities he is missing.” This
seems to call for a higher level of charity not
covered by the first commandment.
There was once a Jew in Vilna who took a
great interest in local history. In the course of
his research, he would often go out to the old
cemetery and read the inscriptions on the
tombstones. He was able to gather a surprising
amount of information in this fashion.
One day, he came across two adjacent graves.
According to the inscriptions, the two men
were brothers, both talmidei chachamim, both
extraordinary baalei tzedakah, philanthropists.
Strangely, the two tombstones shared an
inscription from Eishes Chayil, the last chapter
of Mishlei (31:20). The inscription began on

one tombstone with “she extended her palm
(kappah) to the poor” and was completed on
the other with “and she stretched out her hand
(yadeha) to the pauper.”
The man was puzzled. First of all, he had
never seen an inscription shared by two
tombstones. Second, inscriptions from Eishes
Chayil were used almost exclusively for
women. There was obviously a story behind
all this, and by all appearances, an interesting
story. The man sought out one of the oldest
men in the Vilna community and asked him
about the inscription. The old man indeed had
a story to tell.
These two brothers were Torah scholars of the
highest order, and they were also wealthy and
extremely generous in their charities. They
were much respected and admired in the
community.
Suddenly, their fortunes took a turn for the
worse. Some of their businesses failed. Their
investments stagnated. People began to
wonder and whisper. Why would such a thing
happen to such sterling people?
The Rabbinical Court of Vilna also heard the
stories and took the matter under advisement.
“How can this be,” declared one of the judges,
“that two such exemplary talmidei chachamim
should be going bankrupt? It is a chillul
Hashem! We have to do something about it.”

“But what can we do about it?” asked another
judge. “Should we give them a loan?”
“No, of course not,” said the first judge. “We
have to get to the bottom of this and correct
it.”
“But how?” said the second judge.
“There is a simple way,” offered a third judge.
“We have to summon the brothers to court and
interrogate them about everything they’ve
done for the past few years. I have no doubt
they will answer our questions truthfully.”
The Rabbinical Court questioned the brothers
for hours and discovered only one instance of
wrongdoing. The Halachah demands (Kesubos
50a) that a person should not give away more
than a fifth of his wealth to charity, but the
brothers often exceeded this limit. Their only
crime was that they gave too much charity!
What was to be done about this? The
Rabbinical Court decided that the brothers
could not be trusted to stay within the
prescribed limits. Therefore, they themselves
took control of the finances and decreed that
anyone approaching the brothers for charitable
donations should come to the Rabbinical
Court’s appointed administrator of the
brothers’ accounts.
The poor appeared on the doorstep of the
brothers, and they duly directed them to the
court-appointed administrator of their
accounts.
“We’ve been to him already,” they protested,
“and he is not nearly as generous as you’ve
always been. We’ll never feed our children on
what the administrator gives us.”
The brothers’ hearts melted, but what could
they do? They didn’t have control of their
money. So, they began to give away the silver
in their cabinets to the poor. Eventually, this
trove was also depleted, and they were left
with one silver spoon between them.
The next day, when a beggar approached each
of the brothers, they broke the last spoon in
half. One took the spoon part and gave it to a
beggar, and the other took the handle and gave
it to a beggar.
This wonderful act of charity was memorialized
on their tombstones, relying on a wordplay.
The beginning of the verse, “She extended her
palm (kappah) to the poor” – kappah also
meaning “her spoon” – appeared on the first
tombstone. The completion of the verse, “And
she stretched out her hand (yadeha) to the
pauper” – yadeha also meaning “her handle”
– appeared on the other.
This is an example of “opening the hand” of
the highest order.