What makes you wealthy?

Some time ago, a friend shared a personal anecdote that has stayed with me because of the simple yet powerful message it conveys.

Beggars are, sadly, a fixture of the South African landscape. One particularly eccentric panhandler has lived in our neighbourhood for as long as any of us can remember. He is a colourful fellow who regularly changes outfits, likes to sport sunglasses, earphones (not that they’re plugged into anything), and quirky cardboard signs. He always makes a point of getting the kids in passing cars to smile. Truth is, we haven’t seen him for months now. The other day, someone reported a sighting, in a different suburb, and it brought back the memory of this story.

It must have been a chilly July night when my friend stopped to fill his car, and popped into the Quick Shop to buy a drink. As he stepped up to pay, our eccentric beggar-friend approached him for a donation. Apologising, my friend mentioned that he was unable to help the fellow. In fact, he promptly realised, he didn’t even have enough cash to pay for his own drink.

“How much are you short?” asked the homeless man.

“Two rand,” my friend admitted sheepishly.

Without hesitating, the older man drew out his bag of coins – a day’s “salary”, and happily handed over two rand! My friend was astonished by this needy man’s largesse.

This Shabbos, we’ll read of the half-shekel. G-d baffles Moses by instructing him to have each member of the nation contribute exactly half a shekel towards the maintenance of the sanctuary and communal sacrifices. Just half a shekel, yet these simple donations were supposedly enough to atone for the Golden Calf debacle. Moses grappled with the notion that a token contribution could repair such a heinous mistake.

Here’s one possible angle to the story: everyone bought the story of investing in the Golden Calf because they all anticipated that it would offer solid returns (a replacement for Moses, the oracle they feared would never return).

Still today, people happily throw millions at business or even philanthropic opportunities if they forecast a decent payback. But, when stocks crash and fortunes halve, we downscale and hang on to what we have. We often also become charity-averse. If a billionaire should lose a few hundred million, he may well feel the need to tighten the purse-strings.

Then, we hear of a fellow who lives hand to mouth, yet is able to part with a few bucks to help someone better off than himself because the man was stuck.

As long as you can still give, you are wealthy. When you cannot share your money, regardless of how much of it you may still have, you have become poor.

Perhaps that was G-d’s message in the half-shekel – a reminder that big bucks to float a golden project don’t indicate wealth, but giving away even just a small contribution does.