In Israel a few weeks ago, I met a man whom I recognized from the two or three visits a year he makes to the building that houses our offices in Cedarhurst. He arrives in New York from Israel ostensibly to collect funds for a yeshiva as well as for his own needs, which includes paying for weddings for his children as well as his family’s general needs.
When we met, we greeted one another like old friends. I asked jokingly when it would be convenient for me to visit his office in Jerusalem so as to solicit a contribution from him for a yeshiva back in New York. He looked at me a little bemused but with a smirk and said it was okay with him and that I could come to see him anytime.
There are controversy and questions these days about the plethora of “meshulachim,” let’s call them for purposes of identity today—people who collect funds for charity. My impression is that there is no greater charity than when one is collecting for his or her own needs without using or camouflaging the purpose of the solicitation by inserting the name of some, at best, unknown institution as the purpose of the visit and the recipient of the funds.
There are also—as you well know—various and sundry levels of this charity-collecting phenomenon. I don’t know how people in the so-called collecting industry view themselves or assign themselves different positions. I would hope that someday, somewhere, some sociologist does a study of the dynamics at play within this group.
At what point does one decide that he is a guy that is going to go the $1-at-a-time route in shul, instead of going house-to-house or office-to-office asking for perhaps $18, $100, $1,000, or more per visit? The man in shul who walks around usually, but not always, at the conclusion of the services is pleased with receiving a single dollar bill. It looks to this observer like they don’t even flinch when people place fifty cents or even a quarter into their palms. They just take it and keep on going.
If, however, one of these men visits you at your home or office and you take a single dollar out of your pocket and offer it to him, few will accept it without some level of objection. I believe there exists a subjective divide between the absolute need of the individual who presents himself in this fashion and circumstance and those who have turned it into a vocation of sorts.
These situations present to a potential donor—no matter how much or how little you desire or are capable of giving—a multiplicity of conflicts that require some analysis and sorting out. Ideally, it would be a fantastic thing to be able to give everyone something. The numbers over the last few years of those seeking financial assistance has grown out of control.
The intent here in a relatively brief essay is not to take a swipe at or even try to capture the essence of the nature of what has become an industry. Today we are addressing those who are out there on their own and not attached to any recognized institution that has traditional procedures to garner support for their work. The objective here is not to ridicule or criticize any individual or group that may have either a loosely structured or just plain disorganized way of getting their fundraising done.
As in any business or industry, those who misrepresent or distort the true intent of what they are trying to get done force the people out there to be suspicious and even cast aspersions on almost everyone we don’t know who comes around to collect money.
First amongst these guys are the people looking for a bigger hit than just a few dollars and who virtually chase after you as you leave shul, sometimes calling after you by your first name. They are on a first-name basis with you by virtue of having caught a glance of your tallis or tefillin bag. I once observed a collector chasing after a guy in a shul parking lot calling after him saying, “Anshel Chaim Zelig, give me one minute of your time.” Everyone else knew this guy by the name Charlie. Even his mother called him Charlie. But this would-be friend of his was trying to feign knowledge of the individual as well as a relationship based on the name he was given by his parents a few decades earlier at his b’ris.
A sweet, soft-spoken young man shows up in my office every six weeks or so. He was born in Israel and now lives in Brooklyn. He has three children from a previous marriage and was recently remarried here. He is straightforward about the fact that he collects for himself and his family. His pitch is straightforward, without any illusions. We’ve become a little friendly over the last few years and he has convinced me that he works hard at what he does. No matter how successful one may be in this area, it cannot be a pleasant thing to be cast in a role that has you asking strangers for money a good deal of the day.
He’s here in the Five Towns pretty often. I see him in shul sometimes in the mornings. Since he comes to my office and I either give him $50 or $100 a few times a year, he does not solicit me for the single dollar bills that he collects in a variety of shuls day after day. He told me recently that he does well in Teaneck, and that on a good Sunday he can take in $1,000 cash in that community. He does well here too, putting together several hundred dollars every day. Like I stated above, swinging your way through a shul is one level and visiting a home or an office with a pitch or appeal is a completely different level.
In the interest of maintaining order, many communities quite some time ago took to issuing permits with a specific timeframe in which people are authorized by the communities to collect. It can’t be too difficult to acquire these permits because just about everyone and anyone is walking around with them. Often these permits are expired, but that rarely has stopped anyone from plying their craft. It must be that these letters of authorization are taken more seriously outside of New York, where there isn’t such an avalanche of people going around collecting.
I can only speak for my office, but we have now posted a sign asking those who come around during business hours to leave an envelope in the office and a contribution will be promptly sent out to them. Some read the sign, open the door, and place an envelope in the designated place. Others ignore the sign and barge right into my office. You can be on the phone or in the middle of meeting with people, and all of a sudden you have a guest standing over you. That was the reason for posting the sign in the first place—not to give to fewer people, but to minimize the disruptions.
I saw an explanation somewhere recently about why tzedakah is such a major and paramount mitzvah in Jewish life. It is not just because you are helping out another person, though that has to be a big part of it. It is that in order to make a living, that is in order to do something that generates income for you, you have to give all of yourself to the effort. Very often, you contribute your intellectual as well as your physical abilities—your all. When you give some of that hard-earned money away, you are not just giving away money, you are giving an aspect or an element of your very self, and that makes it that much more special.
Often the people visiting your home or office have had bad breaks and have been broken by life. Frequently this is not the work of their choosing, but they do not know where else to turn. A few months ago, a young, able-bodied man was in my office for the second time this year. He was easygoing and soft spoken. He was divorced, had five kids back in Israel, and was living in New York. What was different about him was that he was apologetic both about his sorrowful circumstances and the fact that he felt he was imposing.
I asked him whether he was looking for work here in New York and he said rather matter-of-factly that he was able to find work from time to time as a mashgiach on a kosher cruise line. “Really?” I said, finding the work he was able to muster up pretty interesting. “Yes,” he said. He had just returned from a Caribbean cruise and a few months prior he was on a cruise through the Greek Isles. Not bad, I thought quietly to myself.
The oddest incident had to have occurred a few years ago. A man came to my home explaining that he needed a liver transplant and that he was deteriorating but that he was on a national list and was hoping that he would be called in the next few weeks if a donor was identified. It was a tragic and indeed heart-rending story. That is, except for the fact that the following week I was at a wedding in Williamsburg and saw the same man dancing up a storm bringing simcha to the chassan and kallah.
What is there to say? These visits are sometimes unnerving and even annoying. But it is important to sit back, take stock, and realize the great blessing of being able to give rather than being foisted into the position of the need to receive.

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