Cheapskate!

Based on Ahavas Chesed vol. 2 chapter 10

There are those who refrain from performing acts of chesed simply because they’re sparing. The gemara in Sotah (47b) explained that when the number of misers increased, the number of people who refused to give tzedakah increased correspondingly, in contradiction of the Torah’s warning not to be a base and lowly person in this matter (Devarim 15:9). The trait of miserliness is a very bad characteristic that keeps people from giving tzedakah and doing chesed. It makes a person cold-hearted and oblivious to the cries of the needy.

Being tight-fisted (i.e., cheap) can also potentially lead to murder. The gemara in Sotah (38b) says that the eglah arufah ceremony, performed upon finding a murder victim, only becomes necessary because of parsimony (i.e., cheapness). As part of the ceremony, the elders of the city declare that their hands didn’t shed that blood. Of course they didn’t! Who would have thought otherwise? What they’re saying is that the victim, while in their city, didn’t come to them expressing need.

Imagine this scenario: the impoverished stranger goes to the local court and they send him away without food. Starving, he attacks a passerby, who kills him in self-defense. This is what didn’t happen, but if it did, their coldhearted miserliness would have been the ultimate cause of this man’s death, and therefore murder.

The gemara in Sotah (38b) furthermore tells us that one who benefits from stinginess violates a Torah prohibition. Mishlei 23:6-7 teaches, “Don’t eat a miser’s food and don’t desire his delicacies. He’s like a person keeping an account; he tells you to eat and drink, but he doesn’t mean it.”

A stingy person is typically fleeing as far as possible from the trait of mercy in order to enrich himself. Therefore, he won’t lend his possessions to others – and certainly not money! That is, unless he sees a way to benefit from the situation. He may extend a loan if he can profit from it, even though what he gains is actually prohibited as interest. Another verse from Mishlei (28:22) addresses this trait: “One who rushes after wealth has an evil eye; he doesn’t know that this will lead to loss.”

The Sefer HaChinuch (Mitzvah 480) calls stinginess an “iron partition” that separates a person from God’s blessing. The gemara in Shabbos (151b) teaches that such a person drives away God’s mercy. This is derived from Deut. 13:18: “He will grant you mercy and have mercy on you.” If a person has mercy on others, God will have mercy on him; if not, then not.”

Chazal also taught (Erchin 16a) that stinginess is one of the causes of tzaraas (a kind of contamination). Imagine the scenario: a miserly person refuses to lend others any of the utensils in his home. If this causes him to be punished with tzaraas in the walls of his house, it may result in his home having to be demolished. We may not have tzaraas nowadays, but God could still place a curse on one’s possessions, resulting in them being lost as a consequence of his cheapness. This is because a person is rewarded and punished “measure for measure.” If the miser doesn’t want others to benefit from his possessions, his ownership of these possessions will be treated with strict justice.

Pesikta Rabbasi d’Rav Kahana (26) tells the story of a certain cheapskate who had many possessions but never gave tzedakah. In the course of time, he lost his mind. He burned down his house, broke his barrels of wine and threw his precious metals into the sea. This was the consequence of him not using those possessions to honor God. Similar losses occur to many misers who refuse to perform acts of chesed with what they have been given.

A miser who hoards God’s beneficence commits a serious sin. Consider the story told by Nathan the prophet to King David in II Samuel chapter 12: A wealthy man had many flocks and herds. His poor neighbor had only one lamb, which he loved and treated like a member of the family. When the wealthy man had a guest, rather than slaughter one of his own many animals, he opted to slaughter his needy neighbor’s beloved sheep. King David ruled that such a person deserves to die not for sheep-napping per se, but specifically because he didn’t act with compassion towards a person in need.

Sometimes, a cheapskate won’t only refuse to offer assistance himself, he discourages others from doing so. This is so that he won’t be embarrassed when others give and he doesn’t. Such a person actually despises the entire concept of tzedakah and chesed because it makes him look bad! Regarding this, Avos 5:13 says, “One who doesn’t want to give and also doesn’t want others to give is evil.”

Parsimony (again, cheapness) is a sickness. Sometimes it’s so severe that a person won’t even spend money on himself. Koheles 5:12 refers to miserliness as “an evil disease,” and 6:2 refers to “a person to whom God has given wealth, possessions and honor…but God has not given him the capacity to enjoy them.” The end of the verse assures us that “someone else will enjoy it.” Similarly, the end of verse 5:12 tells us that “wealth is stored for its owner to his detriment.” How so? The miser will die without enjoying his wealth, and it will be inherited by someone else, who will actually put it to good use. That person is the true owner of the wealth, which the miser merely sat on to his own detriment.

Bottom line, we should zealously avoid the trait of stinginess, which makes a person hardhearted and indifferent to the needs of others. It squeezes out the trait of compassion, which we need if we expect God to have compassion on us. Tehillim 125:4 reflects this reality when it say, “Do good, Hashem, to those who are good.” We must always remember that our resources weren’t given us to hoard, but to use and also to help others. If a person learns to loosen the old purse strings, it will benefit him in both this world and the Next.

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