Friday, February 3, 2017

The charity and good deeds that non-Jews do is like a sin for them

So says the yesterdays daf (Bava Basra 10b). The Gemara explains the reason for this as follows. The non-Jews only do charity and good deeds for their own purposes (ulterior motives). The Gemara then asks that we find that if a person gives charity to save his children it is still considered charity. The Gemara answers that is only by Jews because Jews even if they are doing it for ulterior motives they are also doing it לשם שמים and won't regret it even if their child dies, while a non-Jew is only doing it for ulterior motives.

IMHO, anyone learning this Gemara today who interacts with non-Jews understands that this distinction between Jews and non-Jews is completely false. All you need to do is look at all of the Tzedaka ads today (see Some of the segula type ads that I have seen in the past for example) to see that many Jews are not giving tzedaka לשם שמים. On the other hand, if you look at the non-Jewish world and organizations like Doctors without borders (the first example that popped into my head, there are many more), who endanger their very lives to treat complete strangers with no reward, it is clear that there are many non-Jews who give of themselves selflessly.

The question is then, what do we do with this Gemara? These statements are all based on pesukim, it is very hard to dismiss derashos of chazal. On the other hand, we see with our own eyes that the statements are not true.

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