Benjamin the Righteous was the keeper of the communal poor-box in his city. He had one job: to guard the coins and give them out to the hungry. In a year of famine a woman came to him, gaunt and shaking, and begged for food.
Benjamin looked in the box. "By the worship of God," he swore, "there is nothing left."
The woman cried out, "Rabbi, if you do not feed me, I and my seven children will starve." Seven mouths. Benjamin had no public money left, so he reached into his own purse and fed them from it.
Years passed. Benjamin grew old and fell ill, and the illness turned toward death. At this the ministering angels grew bold. They came before the Holy One — blessed be He — and argued on his behalf.
"Lord of the Universe," the angels said, "You Yourself have taught that whoever preserves a single soul of Israel is as if he had preserved the whole world. Benjamin saved a woman and her seven children. Eight souls. Eight worlds. Shall this man die at his appointed age?" (Bava Batra 11a)
Heaven listened. Twenty-two years were added to Benjamin's life — one for each of the alphabet, some said, or one each for those he had rescued.
The story is a rabbinic shock: the angels did not praise Benjamin, they contended for him. Charity does not merely earn reward in the next world. It bends the ledgers of this one.