There was a man who paid his tithes faithfully every single year without exception. Rain or drought, abundance or scarcity, he set aside exactly one-tenth of everything he harvested and gave it as the Torah commanded. His neighbors thought he was foolish. In lean years, they hoarded every grain. He gave his tenth away regardless.
One year, this man made an unusual decision. He took half of his field — fully half of the land that produced his livelihood — and dug an enormous cistern. His neighbors were horrified. "You've already given away a tenth of your harvest to the tithes," they said. "Now you're destroying half your farmland? You'll starve."
But the man had been watching the sky. He had been watching the earth. And he had been watching God's patterns long enough to trust what he saw. He dug the cistern deep and wide, lining it with stones, and waited.
The drought came. It was devastating. Wells dried up across the region. Crops withered in fields that had no water. Livestock died. Families went hungry. The neighbors who had mocked the tither suddenly had nothing — not even water to drink.
But the faithful tither's cistern was full. During the brief rains before the drought, he had captured every drop. Now he had the only reliable water source in the region. People came from miles around, willing to pay any price. He sold water. He traded water for goods, for land, for livestock. By the time the rains returned, the man who had given away half his field was the wealthiest person in the district.
The rabbis told this story not as a financial strategy but as a statement of faith. The man who trusts God enough to give away what he has will receive back more than he can imagine.