Turning Our Faces Away

This is one idea on tzedakah that I heard from Rabbi Fox. My focus here is not to explain the commandment as a whole but rather to outline a specific psychological phenomenon. The translation of Rambam that you will read is my own and may not be fully accurate. If someone knows of an English translation of Mishnah Torah that can be accessed online, please let me know.

Rambam- Yad Chazaka Hilchot Matanot Le’evyonim

Chapter 7 Verse 2- Any person who sees a poor person ask him charity and he turns his eyes away and did not give him charity violates a negative commandment as it says “you shall not harden your heart and you will not clench your fist from your neighbor”.

Chapter 10 Verse 4- Anyone who gives tzedakah to a poor person with an unhappy face and a heavy unpleasant face even if he gave a thousand zehuvim (a type of currency) does not receive merit and loses. Rather, he must do so with a glowing face and with happiness and etc…

I would like to offer an explanation for the reason why a person loses merit if he does not give tzedakah with a happy face. I would also like to explain why Rambam states that when a person gives charity in this way he “does not receive merit and loses”. Why does the Rambam use both terms when they sound redundant? What is the message of the second term?

Turning Our Eyes Away

When we see a homeless person our first instinct is to turn away. We could never imagine ourselves befriending one. We usually even try and keep away from them and if we see one walking by our house we quickly lock our doors and keep our possessions out of his sight.
Why do we have this instinct? Why do we instinctively look down at the person that asks us for help? Because psychologically we need to assume that a person is poor because of some defect in his own character. He must have made mistakes in his life to cause him to lose all his fortune. He must be poor because he is a horrible person. We cannot consider that perhaps he needs our help due to some horrible circumstance that occurred completely out of his control. Because if we even consider that then we are admitting to ourselves that we could also be standing in their place. That something out of our control can happen to us to make us as dependent on other people as he is on us.
As humans, we are very insecure. We do not want to confront the reality that a lot of things in our lives are simply out of our control. Because of that we are also not very grateful for the things we have. We assume that we are successful because we are great and are able to change reality.

If we give with an unhappy face then we are losing sight of the purpose of tzedakah. When we give charity begrudgingly, looking down at the recipient, we are continuing to live with a false psychological perspective.
That is what Rambam means by the phrase “he does not receive merit and he loses out”. Not only is a person who gives begrudgingly not fulfilling his halachik obligation, but he is also reinforcing a false psychological understanding of reality. When a person in need asks for charity, we must be happy when he asks us and we must try to identify with him. We must realize that we could be in the same position as our friend.
With this perspective we will be much more grateful for the things we have.