The Torah / G-d’s view of goodness

 

Man is a composite of three forces, G-d, instincts for pleasure as well as instincts to not expire nor feel pain or shame

 

And sadly an egotistical psychopath whom desires supremacy, recognition, in fact dominance.

 

As man is unaware of his own evil but can see it in others, for the psyche whitewashes desires for negativity and justifies all desires for pleasure (think how boys feel about girls before and after puberty to understand how powerful the psyche is in allowing any desire to be Kosherized) hence we must seek a higher wisdom to understand right from wrong, good from evil.

 

No Mitzvah is as important as charity.

 

However charity too can be mixed in with ego.

 

Hence by seeing how the Torah tells us how to give charity we will understand true goodness versus admixtures of ego into goodness.

 

Charity quite simply begins at home.

 

The purpose of the most important Mitzvah of the Torah, in fact the forerunner to charity is Vehavtah Lera-achah Coimacha love your friend (fellow Jew) as much as yourself.

 

The Rebbe explains that every (I am embellishing his explanation with this point – his explanation is the final point) good deed has G-d’s inner intent besides the actual good deed so the inner intent of the good deed of love is the unity it produces.

 

Similarly the inner intent of the good deed that charity produces is world peace.

 

Can I be happy if I am starving and you are going on a cruise liner?

 

Can you be happy if God forbid you are starving even for spiritual nourishment and I am sitting in  some kind of ivory tower philosophizing?

 

The answer is of course that humanity has an innate interdependence – we believe that we are interconnected and furthermore as we grow up, as, as children we feel more societies obligation toward us, than our obligation towards society.

 

But the key is to understand that the inner intent of charity, of all good is the unity it produces.

 

Once we understand this, we understand God, the Torahs instruction on giving charity; that family comes first, then your local community and city and then elsewhere.

 

Now what if some book publishing company will put my name on their Talmud doesn’t that sound like a more attractive place to put my money, the point is as the Rebbe once said to someone, don’t mix your instinctual pleasure into my Mivtzoyim – campaigns to help others.