The Commentators ask, why does the Torah say "let them take for Me a portion" rather than "let them give for Me a portion?" They answer that this comes to teach us that one who gives charity will find, in the end, that he will actually benefit from the act himself. Therefore, in effect, he is not merely giving to others but actually taking profit for himself too.

Last Thursday night, my mother-in-law, Leah bas Shlomo Silberberg o"h, passed away. She was buried before Shabbos, on Har Hazeisim (the Mountain of Olives), next to her husband Moshe o"h.

They were a couple who understood the importance of helping others. Wherever they lived, they were famous for the help they extended to everyone in need.

They were both Holocaust survivors who lost their entire families during the war. Nevertheless, the only thing they wanted, once they were freed from the Concentration Camps, was to rebuild Torah true homes like the ones they came from.

After the war, they lived in Germany. The situation then was unusually good for Jews. They had their own business and were very successful. They had two children, and a separate nurse for each of them. But one thing bothered them. Their children were getting older and there were no Torah institutions to train them in. What would their children grow up to be like? This was on their mind day and night.

Finally, they made a major decision. They were abandoning all of their luxuries, and going to America. They bought a farm in Vineland and worked very, very hard. But they were extremely happy that they would be able to send their children to yeshivas were they could learn Torah.

My mother in law often said, "I want to have children and grandchildren who I won't be ashamed to introduce to my parents and grandparents."

Now she is surely in Gan Eden, together with my father in law, and I am sure that they are both very proud of all of their descendents who are all following in the path they blazed sacrificially. All of them are religious, baruch Hashem, and many of them are now building their own Torah homes and training their children to be Torah true Jews as their grandparents were.

May their memory be a blessing to us all.

Shema Yisrael Torah Network
info@shemayisrael.co.il
http://www.shemayisrael.co.il
Jerusalem, Israel
732-370-3344