"Help Me Give Tzedakah To Genuinely Needy People."
Excerpt from Likutey Tefillos #2:
Compassionate G-d: Help me give tzedakah to genuinely needy people. Send me plenty of money, and worthy people to give tzedakah to. "Mighty is the King who loves justice and righteousness in Yaakov." "For everything is from You - from your hand have we given to you."
G-d: You deal charitably with everyone. Be charitable to me and let me be numbered among those who give tzedakah. Remove the evil from my heart, and let me give tzedakah joyously and with a kind expression. Let me have no bad feelings when I hand my gifts to those in need. Let me open my hands and give them sufficient for all their needs. Let my heart go out to the hungry, and let me cloth those who are naked.
In the merit of my tzedakah, bless me, Hashem, and help me express myself to You perfectly in my prayers. Let my prayers be pure and acceptable. Let me have no outside thoughts when I pray, so that no barrier will intervene between my prayers and You.
Compassionate G-d: Help me give tzedakah to genuinely needy people. Send me plenty of money, and worthy people to give tzedakah to. "Mighty is the King who loves justice and righteousness in Yaakov." "For everything is from You - from your hand have we given to you."
G-d: You deal charitably with everyone. Be charitable to me and let me be numbered among those who give tzedakah. Remove the evil from my heart, and let me give tzedakah joyously and with a kind expression. Let me have no bad feelings when I hand my gifts to those in need. Let me open my hands and give them sufficient for all their needs. Let my heart go out to the hungry, and let me cloth those who are naked.
In the merit of my tzedakah, bless me, Hashem, and help me express myself to You perfectly in my prayers. Let my prayers be pure and acceptable. Let me have no outside thoughts when I pray, so that no barrier will intervene between my prayers and You.
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8 Comments:
Why buy lugsuries like cheese cakes and candies and chocolate milk? Wouldn't it make more sense to buy more of simple (and much healthier!!!) food?! Kol hakavod to these people, but the poor kids are probably sugared out on Shabbos, but don't have much healthy food to eat for the week! Why do it like this!!? It makes so much more sense to buy them MORE OF grains, beans, fresh vegetables, and fish instead of wasting pressious money on cakes! I'll tell you the truth that's what we eat because we can't afford cheese cakes (besides the health issues)!!
Someone should press these issues to the eizer lshabbos people...
Moshe: I forwarded Eizer L'Shabbos your comment and will let you know their response.
Yashar Koach. Hope something productive comes out of it.
I agree in general. Still kids like cakes. And not only grains a whole week. I don't think they spend most of their money on cakes anyway.
Moshe and A Yid: This evening, I spoke with Rabbi Binyomin Rosenberg of Eizer L'Shabbos on the phone in Tsfat. Rabbi Rosenberg said that the vast majority of foods provided to families consists or chicken, fish, vegetables, and other healthy foods. Sweets and foods with high sugar content are also provided for Shabbos and Yom Tov as way of allowing the family to enjoy these times. Additionally, many poor families are not able to afford these "luxuries" and have related that receiving them helps them feel more human and more like other families who can provide these to there children. Rabbi Rosenberg acknowledged your point, Moshe. Optimally he thought that a person should eat healthy food, but he was also taking into consideration these poor people's morale and noted that sweets from time to time certainly help lift these peoples spirits.
I hope you will now consider helping this important organization.
On a side note, I want to wish Rabbi Rosenberg a mazel tov on the birth of a baby boy grandson!
Mazl tov!
"I hope you will now consider helping this important organization."
As I wrote, we ourselves (my wife daughter and me) don't eat cakes even on Shabbos because we can't afford them (with some RARE exceptions)!! Tell you the truth we rarely even have chicken on Shabbos for that reason!! (B'H we don't starve.) Anyone wants to donate to me instead so that I could afford these things!? (Don't mean it seriously of course.) And if I would be buying these things, I'd soon run out of money and ... guess what... would have to call Rabbi Rosenberg...
I'm not trying to tell Ezer L'Shabbos exactly what to do, but this is something to SERIOUSLY think about!
And by the way, everything I wrote about myself is really true...
R' Moishe,
BTW, R' Rosenberg is an educator for many years - and I have heard from him that it has been his expirience that children who don't get some sweets from time (Shabbos & Yom Tov is all that's necessary, and it makes those times special) those children as a rule look at the nosh with longing and often get it through other means(hopefully not through theft, but unfortuantely that happens).
I see this as well in the Yeshiva that I work in: The Yeshiva I work in dosen't allow nosh in school, and I would say this causes more trouble than it stops.
The simcha that family gets from getting some food that they don't generally have access to (when it's not overdone, of course)is very worthwhile.
Since I know Rabbi Rosenberg a little, I would be glad to ask him to send you some mizman l'zman! Just e-mail ASJ with your particulars, and I'll have him forward it to me, and pass it along to Eizer L'Shabbos!
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