A Zechus for the Yomim Noraim

A Guest Post by Rafi G

I saw something tonight in shul and was thinking about it. The truth is that it is a fairly common occurrence - the same thing happens probably every night, maybe even two or three times a night, and at other times of day as well.

A young fellow walked into the shul. He walked around flipping open a folder with a letter, seemingly a letter of approbation attesting to his need to collect tzedaka and the worthiness of the cause.

I watched him walk around the beis medrash, approaching every single person learning there - a total of about 30 people or so. Every person gave him something - 1 shekel, 2 shekel, maybe a tiny bit more. The guy made, in 5 minutes of "work", maybe 30 or 40 shekels. And not a single person actually looked at his piece of paper. Nobody knew why he was collecting or was interested in seeing who confirmed his status of being needy.

Am Yisrael gives tzedaka. Yes there are frauds out there, but that doesn't deter us. We trust most of the people who approach us. He must be needy if he is degrading himself to ask. We are willing to take the chance, for a small amount of money, that he might be a fraud, because if he is real the mitzva is so great.

May it be a zechus for klal yisrael in the upcoming days..

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