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The Angels Who Give Charity to Each Other

Rabbi Ami asks what it means for God's righteousness to reach the heavens. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman answers with the strangest claim in all of Midrash.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Question That Could Not Wait
  2. What Rabbi Shmuel Said
  3. When Haman Stood Among the Heavenly Host
  4. What Elijah Proved With a Widow's Son

The Question That Could Not Wait

Rabbi Ami had a verse he could not crack open alone. He carried it to the one man in late Roman Palestine everyone agreed could handle the difficult ones: Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman, master of aggada, the art of interpretation through story. When the logic ran out, you brought the verse to Shmuel.

The verse came from Psalms (71:19): "Your righteousness, God, reaches on high." Rabbi Ami wanted to know what that meant. Righteousness, charity, justice: these belong to the world below, where some people are hungry and others have surplus, where power needs accountability and the weak need protection. What does it mean to say these things reach the heavens? What lack could possibly exist up there?

What Rabbi Shmuel Said

Shmuel's answer was this: just as earthly beings need tzedaka from one another, so the supernal beings need charity from one another.

The claim lands hard. The angels, the heavenly beings who stand in God's presence and never grow tired or hungry or afraid, need acts of kindness from each other. The celestial realm, in Shmuel's reading, is not a self-sufficient kingdom running on its own perfection. It is a community, with obligations running in every direction. The same structure that makes charity necessary below makes it necessary above.

Vayikra Rabbah, the homiletical midrash on Leviticus compiled in fifth-century Palestine, preserved this teaching in a passage built around the lamp oil of the Tabernacle. The Torah commands the children of Israel to bring pure olive oil for the light that burns continuously (Leviticus 24:2). The rabbis asked why Israel and not anyone else. Shmuel's answer to Rabbi Ami is part of a larger architecture: the oil that Israel brings below keeps a light burning that serves the world above, too. Nothing in either realm is simply self-sustaining.

When Haman Stood Among the Heavenly Host

The same collection in Vayikra Rabbah weighs a harder example. The passage on doubled speech in the Torah, where God says the same thing twice, leads into the strange figure of Haman placed among the ministering angels. The rabbis are working through the implications of divine speech that repeats itself. Every doubled formulation contains something that needs unpacking. When God says a thing and then says it again, there is a gap between the two sayings, and something lives in that gap.

What lives there is often obligation. The teaching that the heavenly beings practice charity among themselves is not a decoration on Shmuel's theology. It is the explanation for why divine speech descends twice: the first saying addresses the upper world, the second addresses the lower. The lamp Israel lights below brightens both.

What Elijah Proved With a Widow's Son

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a collection of expanded narratives from the early medieval period, preserves the story that follows from Shmuel's claim. Elijah the Tishbite arrives in Zarephath and is welcomed by a widow who feeds him from her last flour and oil. The tradition identifies her as the mother of Jonah. She honors him completely. Her son falls ill and dies.

Elijah prays, and the child is returned to life. The act of reviving the dead, in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer's reading, is the fulfillment of a promise embedded in the very structure of charity. A person who gives from nothing, who extends kindness when there is nothing left to spare, has accessed something in the structure of the cosmos. The righteousness that reaches on high, that Psalms promises and Rabbi Shmuel explains, is not a metaphor. It is a current that runs in both directions.

Tzedaka overcomes death, the text says. This is not a pious wish. It is a consequence of Shmuel's claim. If the angels need charity from each other, then charity is not merely social glue. It is the principle that keeps both worlds alive.

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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Vayikra Rabbah 31:1Vayikra Rabbah

It all begins with the verse, "Command the children of Israel, and they shall take to you pure virgin olive oil for the lighting, to kindle a lamp continually" (Leviticus 24:2).

The Rabbis, ever keen to find deeper meaning, ask: What's really going on here?

The discussion pivots to a verse in Psalms (71:19): "Your righteousness, God, reaches on High." Rabbi Ami asks Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman, known for his mastery of aggada – storytelling that illuminates Jewish teachings – for an explanation. What does it mean that God's righteousness "reaches on High?"

Rabbi Shmuel offers a startling answer. "Just as earthly beings need tzedaka – charity – from one another, so the supernal beings need charity from one another."

Whoa. We often understand charity as a one-way street, flowing from the wealthy to the needy, from the powerful to the vulnerable. But Rabbi Shmuel is suggesting something far more reciprocal. He points to the man clothed in linen in Ezekiel (10:2), a figure often interpreted as an angel, and to the earlier discussion in Vayikra Rabbah 26:8 about how angels perform acts of kindness and charity toward each other. The celestial realm, it seems, operates on principles of giving and receiving, just like our own.

But what does this have to do with the olive oil for the lamp?

The text continues, drawing out the implications of "For You have performed great deeds" (Psalms 71:19). The Rabbis interpret this as referring to the "two great lights," the sun and the moon, as described in (Genesis 1:16). God created these lights, these sources of illumination, for the entire world.

And yet…

The passage then asks, "God, who is comparable to You?" Who among the supernal beings, who among the earthly beings, can be compared to God? God subdues the attribute of justice, illuminating both the heavens and the earth. God illuminates all who enter the world.

Here's the punchline: Yet, God desires Israel’s light. That’s what’s written: “Command the children of Israel.”

So, what’s the connection? It's this: God, who gives so freely to the world, nevertheless desires something in return. Not because God needs it in a literal sense, but because the act of giving, the act of offering that pure olive oil, creates a connection, a relationship. It’s an act of tzedaka in its broadest sense – an act of righteousness, an act of justice, an act of loving-kindness that flows upward.

By bringing the light of the Temple into the world, the Israelites aren’t just fulfilling a commandment. They're participating in a cosmic dance of giving and receiving, a celestial exchange of energy and light. They are, in a sense, giving tzedaka to the Divine.

What are we left with? The idea that our actions, our offerings, our acts of kindness and devotion, aren't just about fulfilling obligations. They're about participating in something much larger than ourselves – a divine economy of grace where even the highest of the high, in some mysterious way, benefits from our light. It challenges us to rethink our relationship with the Divine, not as a one-way street of supplication, but as a vibrant, reciprocal exchange of energy, love, and light. What light will you bring to the world today?

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Vayikra Rabbah 26:8Vayikra Rabbah

For the sages, repeated words are clues that lead deeper into the verse. Vayikra Rabbah, a Midrash on the book of Leviticus, dedicates itself to uncovering these hidden layers. And in Vayikra Rabbah 26, we find some fascinating examples.

The passage starts with the verse, "The Lord said to Moses: Speak to the priests, sons of Aaron [and say to them]." The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) points out the double language: "said…and say." The rule, the Rabbis suggest, is that "Wherever the verse uses the term said (or speaking) twice for the same statement…it requires expounding." The double phrase "speak…and say" becomes the opening for interpretation.

The Midrash brings other examples. Remember the story of Esther? "King Ahasuerus said and he said to Queen Esther: [Who is he…who is so presumptuous to do so?]" (Esther 7:5). Why the double "he said?" One explanation is quite intriguing: Ahasuerus was essentially telling Esther, "If it's Haman, great, but if you're thinking of someone else, say it's him anyway!" The pressure lands directly on Esther.

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi offers a different take. He suggests that initially, Ahasuerus wasn't aware of Esther's Jewish identity, so he spoke to her through an interpreter. But once he knew, he spoke directly to her. The double "said" reflects this shift in their relationship.

The Midrash then turns to the Book of Kings: "The man of God approached and said to the king of Israel, and he said: So said the Lord" (I (Kings 20:2)8). Again, "said…he said." The first "said" is the prophecy: Ahab would have victory over Ben Hadad. The second "said" carries a warning: Don't spare him! Because, as the prophet makes clear, God set up all kinds of snares and nets to deliver Ben Hadad into Ahab's hands. If Ahab lets him go, Ahab’s life would be forfeit. He would pay for it with his own life, and his people for Ben Hadad’s people. And, this came to pass, as Ahab disobeyed and suffered the consequences.

Perhaps the most striking example involves the prophet Ezekiel. "He said to the man clothed in linen, and he said: [Come to between the galgal beneath the cherub and fill your hands with smoldering coals from between the cherubs, and cast them upon the city]" (Ezekiel 10:2). Here, God tells an angel to take coals and destroy the city. But the angel can’t just grab them himself! He needs help from a cherub. So the angel turns to the cherub and says, essentially, "God has decreed this, but I don't have permission to enter your space. Can you do me a solid and give me two coals so I don't get burned?"

Rabbi Pinḥas adds that the cherub even cooled the coals down for the angel! Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin, quoting Rabbi Levi, says that the angel Gabriel held those coals for six years, hoping Israel would repent. But they didn't. So Gabriel sought to destroy them.

But then, God intervenes! "Gabriel, Gabriel," He says, "there are people among them who perform charitable acts for one another." Ezekiel sees "the form of a man's hand" on the cherubs (Ezekiel 10:8), representing God's preventing Gabriel from casting the coals.

Rabbi Abba, in the name of Rabbi Berekhya, makes a powerful statement: What sustains the world, both above and below? It's tzedakah – the charitable acts we perform with our own hands. That's why it says, "For Your righteousness [vetzidkatekha], God, reaches the heavens…" (Psalms 71:19). It’s our acts of kindness that connect us to the divine.

So, what does all this have to do with "speak to the priests…and say to them"? The Midrash returns to our original verse. The first "speak" refers to a mitzvah corpse – a body with no one to care for it. In that case, a priest must become ritually impure to bury the deceased. The second "say," however, clarifies that for other situations, a priest may not become impure.

See how much meaning is packed into those two little words? It's not just repetition. It's nuance, clarification, and a window into the complexities of Jewish law and ethics.

Vayikra Rabbah 26 reminds us that even the smallest details in the Torah can hold profound significance. It invites us to look deeper, to listen more closely, and to find the hidden connections that link us to each other and to the divine. And it reminds us that even small acts of kindness, performed with our own hands, can have a world-changing impact. What small act of kindness will you perform today?

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Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 33:3Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer

Jewish tradition, specifically Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating collection of stories and interpretations, tells us that the power of tzedakah, or charity, is so profound that it can indeed quicken the dead in the future.

Rabbi Simeon shares a compelling story to illustrate this point, drawing us back to the time of Elijah the Tishbite. Remember him? This fiery prophet, a central figure in Jewish lore.

Elijah finds himself in Zarephath, where he encounters a widow who welcomes him with great honor. According to tradition, this widow was none other than the mother of Jonah – yes, that Jonah, the one swallowed by a whale! They shared what little food she had, miraculously sustained by Elijah's presence. The verse in (1 (Kings 17:1)5), "And she did eat, and he also," is interpreted as showing it was by Elijah's merit that they had food.

Tragedy strikes. After some time, the widow's son falls ill and dies. Can you imagine her grief? Overwhelmed, she turns to Elijah, accusing him of bringing about her misfortune. She cries out that he came to her for intimacy (a scandalous accusation!), and that his presence has reminded God of her sins, leading to her son's death. She demands he take back everything he brought and restore her son.

Elijah, heartbroken and perhaps a little exasperated, turns to God in prayer. He pleads, "Sovereign of all the worlds! Is it not enough (to endure) all the evils which have befallen me, but also this woman..." He understands her pain, but he also knows the accusation is borne of grief. He continues, "Now let all the generations learn that there is a resurrection of the dead, and restore the soul of this lad within him."

And here's the truly remarkable part: God listens. (1 (Kings 17:2)2) tells us, "And the Lord hearkened unto the voice of Elijah." Another verse continues the story, "And Elijah took the child… See, thy son liveth" (1 (Kings 17:2)3). He brings the boy back to his mother, alive and well.

So, what does this story tell us? It's not just about a miraculous event. It’s about the immense power of compassion and generosity. This widow's act of kindness, welcoming Elijah into her home and sharing her meager resources, created a vessel for divine intervention. Elijah's prayer, fueled by his dedication to God and the well-being of others, opened the gates of mercy.

The story also subtly weaves in the theme of techiyat hameitim, the resurrection of the dead, a foundation of Jewish belief. Elijah's prayer specifically requests this miracle so future generations can learn about it.

The text doesn't explicitly state that the widow's charity caused the resurrection. However, Rabbi Simeon uses the story to illustrate how the power of charity can bring about the quickening of the dead in the future. That's a pretty profound connection, isn't it? It suggests that our acts of kindness today can have ripple effects that extend far beyond our own lives, even into the realm of ultimate redemption.

What if our small acts of generosity, our everyday acts of tzedakah, are contributing to a future we can barely imagine? It's a thought worth pondering, isn't it? A reminder that even in the face of loss and despair, hope and redemption are always possible.

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