Sh'ma Now

The Heart of Giving

Dorothy RichmanApril 30, 2019

“What do you get for the God who has EVERYTHING?” thundered professor Yochanan Muffs. We were students in his Bible class at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and we were baffled by the question. What gift could we give God? Doesn’t God, by definition, already have the whole world in Her hands?

What Prompts Us to Give? Balancing Head and Heart

Andrés SpokoinyApril 30, 2019

Ask most people what motivates philanthropy and they’ll probably say, “generosity.” But generosity isn’t simple. People give charity for many and overlapping reasons: tax advantages, social pressure (my friend asked me), ego (I want my name on a building), enlightened self-interest (I know a society that helps the powerless will be more prosperous and stable than a purely greedy society), admiration for particular leaders or institutions, outrage at injustice, empathy for people who are suffering, passion for culture, religious conviction, gratitude and a desire to give back, or countless other reasons.

Get Real Talk: Generosity and Nonprofit Start-Ups

Gamal J. PalmerApril 30, 2019

It was an unusually cold Thanksgiving night in Philadelphia; in fact, it was snowing. We had just finished dinner — enough leftovers to feed a family for a month — when my mom interrupted the typical post-holiday dinner routine of packing each leftover item in its proper Tupperware container. Spontaneously, she instructed us to grab a bunch of Ziploc bags and some sheets of aluminum foil and said, “We’re going to pack all this food up, put on coats and gloves, and drive downtown to feed people sleeping on the streets.” It was already 8 p.m. and I was only 6 or 7 years old, so this was a welcome adventure.

Cultivating a ‘Heart of Flesh’

Jordan Bendat-AppellApril 30, 2019

The key question related to generosity is not whether we should be generous or if generosity is a worthwhile virtue to practice. The question, and challenge, is how to be generous when we don’t feel like it.