Give Tithes So You Grow Rich and Rejoice With God's Poor

"You shall surely tithe" (Deuteronomy 14:22) — that you not become impoverished. Tithe [aser] so that you grow rich [titasher]. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Tithe what is Mine, and I will enrich what is yours. "All" (ibid.) — Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: This is a hint to merchants and seafarers, that they too should set aside one part in ten for those who labor in Torah. "The produce of your seed that comes out of the field" (ibid.) — if you are worthy, in the end you go out to sow in the field; and if not, in the end the one who comes out of the field provokes you. And who is this? This is wicked Esau, of whom it is written, "a man who knew hunting, a man of the field" (Genesis 25:27). Another interpretation: "the produce of your seed that comes out of the field" — if you are worthy, in the end you go out to your field and see the world needing rain, and you pray and are answered; and if not, in the end the enemies of Israel go out to bury their children in the field. "Year by year" (ibid.) — one does not tithe from one year for another; these are the words of Rabbi Akiva. "And you shall eat before the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 14:23) — if you are worthy it is your grain, and if not it is My grain, as you say, "And I will take back My grain in its time" (Hosea 2:11). If you are worthy it is your new wine, and if not it is My new wine, "and My new wine in its season" (ibid.). Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I told you to bring out your tithes from the choicest. How? When the Levite comes to you, if you gave him the choicest, then I too have the choicest to give you: "The LORD shall open to you His good treasury" (Deuteronomy 28:12). But if you gave him the diggings and the small leavings, then I too have the diggings and small leavings to give you: "The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust" (ibid. 24). "And the Levite shall come, for he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the stranger" (Deuteronomy 14:29). Rabbi Lulianus of the South said in the name of Rabbi Judah bar Simon: The Holy One said: You have four members of your household, and I have four members of My household. You have four members of your household — your son and your daughter and your manservant and your maidservant. And I have four members of My household — the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. And all of them are in a single verse: "And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter and your manservant and your maidservant and the Levite and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are within your gates" (Deuteronomy 16:11). The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I told you to gladden Mine and yours on the festivals I gave you. If you do so, I too will gladden yours and Mine — both these and those I will gladden in the future in the chosen house, "and I will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer, for My house" (Isaiah 56:7). The section is ended.