Charity will save from death

0:08Saying in regards to tzedakah, when a person gives it and what's the value? That we learned from Rabbi Akiva. There's a minhag that some Jews still keep, some don't, that when a couple gets married on their wedding day, they fast. It's a minhag. We didn't do it. and generally speaking, not everybody does it. Some people choose to do it. Now, the daughter of Rabbi Akiva did it. Rabbi Akiva's daughter is getting married, and she and her groom, her husband-to-be, fasted all day and Fast, fast, fast, they had a celebration—a big celebration, of course. There's no mixed dancing, no mixed anything—holy of holies. But now, at some point, the event is taking a break, so the bride wants to get something to eat. So they give her a meal. She's excited to eat. She hasn't eaten the whole day. It's already night. She's starving to death. She goes to her room. You know she can't eat in front of people. She goes to her room to go eat and

1:33And right before she goes into the door, she's ready, she's about to, you know, it's a nice, it's a bride, you're going to give her a nice meal, right? After all, she paid for the whole wedding. She's excited. At that time, she's excited, she's going to have a meal, she's really excited. Her father, on the other hand, Rabbi Akiva, is not excited at all. Why is he not excited? Because he had Ruach HaKodesh. And he saw through Ruach HaKodesh that his daughter was going to die. On the day she gets married. So everybody's happy, and he hasn't told anybody. Everybody's happy, celebrating, siman tov, mazal tov, siman tov, mazal tov, and Rabbi Akiva is eating his heart out the whole time. He says, "Hashem, please, please, please, please, please." But he knows he can't do anything. Why? The decree is already signed. He knows that at the end of the day, his daughter, who is taking a neshama, will go up to heaven. That's it, finished. So he's happy, but he's unhappy. As you would know it, she is about to have her meal and suddenly somebody knocks on the door. She gets up, still without having a single bite, and opens the door.

3:01You see some poor guy asking for money. You have something, it's tzedakah, it's tzedakah. He says, I don't have pockets, I don't have any money, but okay, here, take food. Oh, food, okay, that's why I went to tzedakah, to buy food. She gives him the food. She gives him the food. She's starving, but what are you going to do? The poor guy looked disheveled. She gives him the food. I'll find food another time. At least I'll get some rest. So she gives him the food. He goes on his way. She closes the door. She sits down. She takes the pin out of her hair. She already had her hair done. She takes the pin out of her hair and she sticks it in the wall, right next to the door. And she sits down. A little while later... What's up? She opens the door. She sees her father, Rabbi Akiva. "Oh, Abba." He goes, "How?" He looks at her. "How? How are you still alive? Abba, are you okay? You okay?" He goes, "No, no. What did you do?" He goes, "Tell me everything you did." She tells him, "I came. I wanted to eat. I didn't eat." He goes, "What happened with the food?" "No, some poor guy came. He wanted the food. You gave him the food?" "Yeah. Yeah."

4:24What else did you do? Nothing. I just sat here. I've been sitting here for the last half hour relaxing and that's it. So Rabbi Akiva looks behind the door and he sees there's blood on the wall. He takes the pin out, and connected to the pin, through the wall, comes a snake. The snake that was sent from heaven to kill her. And from there, Rabbi Akiva says, here we see, tzedakah tatzil mimavet. You give tzedakah, real tzedakah, it will save your life even. Even if there was a decree in heaven that it's your time, you did such a big chesed, such a big thing, it was hard for you to do, it can even save your life. That's how valuable it is for HaKadosh Baruch Hu for somebody to break their own character traits. Now, if you give some homeless guy five dollars or a hamburger, don't expect that to change your life. Why? Because in this generation, first of all, we are rich in comparison to the previous generation. Second of all, you haven't been fasting. Third of all, not everybody has the same test. But the point being is that this is to show us how much HaKadosh Baruch Hu values when a person breaks their own character traits.