Tuesday, May 13, 2008

My insight of the day..

"Charity" and "helping the poor" aren't one and the same. The torah obligates us to help poor people, not to have our names, and the names of our grandparents put on as many plaques in as many shuls as possible. The idea is to improve the lives of other people, not to glorify our own names.

And because supporting the poor is a Torah value, someone who cares about Torah values might legitimately choose to support a political program that promises to help poor people. Certainly, this makes at least as much Torah sense as choosing to join up with the Dittoheads because they promise to inconvience gay people (in addition to making life harder for poor people.)

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