How Do You Give MaAser On Stock Market Gains And Investments?

0:40Now, he does not have to give maaser on the money until he realizes that gain. Meaning, so long as he did not sell that investment, it's not a real gain. It's an unrealized gain, and therefore he does not have to give maaser on it, and he should not give maaser on it, because he doesn't really have the profit yet, even if the $10,000 went to a million. He bought a stock at $1, and it went to whatever price it went to, and he made a million dollars. Now, until he sells that stock, it's not really a million dollars. It's paper gains. It only becomes realized gains once he exits the position. The minute he exits the position, he has to calculate his gain, and he has to take ma'aser from that gain, whatever the gain is. Let's say he went from $10,000 and turned it into $100,000, so he has $90,000 in gain. He has to take at least 10% of the $90,000, which is $9,000, and give that as ma'aser. After that, he reinvests the money into something else.

1:41This becomes a lot more complicated for people that day trade, and the reason why is because they do so many transactions. The vast majority of them lose or break even. Some of them gain, but so little that they end up losing. So it becomes much more problematic to give maaser. For something like that, usually you're not going to be able to do a maaser as I just explained, because you're holding on to a position for what could be seconds or minutes. Uh, so usually people that have Yirat Shamayim, they are going to give Maaser based on their gains on a quarterly basis, on a monthly basis, or on a yearly basis, depending. Generally speaking, the word of advice is to try to give Maaser as often as you gain it, meaning as soon as you get a gain, try to give the Maaser. And why is that? Because until you give the Ma'aser, you don't have a benefit from it. You don't have a mitzvah in your hand. Now, why would you want a mitzvah? A couple came to Rabbi Yehuda Fataya, and they told him, "We have a boy that is supposed to do a Brit Milah, but the father is very, very sick. And he's not going to be able to attend the Brit Milah." So, they thought, maybe we should delay the Brit Milah.

3:06until maybe the father is going to get better in a few days, and we can do the Brit Milah. What does the Rav think? Rabbi Yehuda Taya looked at him and said, "Do the Brit Milah right now." Oh, and you shouldn't wait? No, no, right this second, right now you do it. Wait, tomorrow? We'll do it. We have to get the Mohel, right now, right now, do it. Right away. Get the Mohel right now. Do whatever you can to get the Mohel, right now, and do the Brit Milah. So, the couple comes to one of the greatest rabbis in the world, the Mekubal, someone who communicates with the spiritual realm regularly. He tells them, perform the Brit Milah immediately. They call the Mohel, and he arrives as everyone prepares to witness the baby's Brit Milah. Suddenly, they see the father emerge from the room, dancing joyfully to Mizrahi music, as if he had never been ill in his life. But then after that, okay, we have to go back to the Rav, explain to us what just happened here. A few hours ago, the guy was goses, was almost dying. Now he's dancing? How? So they come to Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah, and he's sick for the Rav. Lamdeni, teach us. What happened here? Was it like a kabbalistic thing? He said, no, no, no, not a kabbalistic thing at all. He said, you see, when someone gets sick, HaKadosh Baruch Hu has to send an angel to heal him.

4:34Right? He sent an angel, Refael. He sent Refael to heal the person that's sick. But sometimes, the person doesn't have the merit to get Refael to come visit him right away. He has to suffer a little bit—a week, a month, a year, however long it may be. So how do you get an angel to come? How do you get an angel to come to heal you if you don't have the merit to get the angel to come? He says, you told me you have a Brit Milah. What happens in a Brit Milah? Eliyahu HaNavi comes. The angel Eliyahu HaNavi comes. The prophet Eliyahu HaNavi comes. And they tell Eliyahu HaNavi, "Listen, Eliyahu, since you're already going down there, we're supposed to go there next week to heal this guy. Why don't you just take care of that also? Heal the guy." You've got Eliyahu HaNavi. That's why I told you, do the Brit Milah right now. Bring the angel right now. So when you have a ma'aseh, when you have any mitzvah in front of you... The mitzvah is the most important mitzvah in the world, meaning on Monday morning, you just got out of the bathroom. What's more important - keeping Shabbat or saying the blessing now? If you violate Shabbat, it's correct.

5:53Don't say it's not correct. How come it's more important? It's because it's right now. Because you just went to the bathroom, you have to acknowledge, "Shabbat is in five days from now." You understand? So right now, the mitzvah you have right now, that's the most important mitzvah in the world. So, when you receive income or get a paycheck, the most important mitzvah is to give ma'aser right away. Do not delay. Why shouldn't you delay? It's an opportunity to do a mitzvah. Yeah, but one might think, "I could do the mitzvah later on when I gather $5,000 instead of just $50." Why? You have an opportunity to share this mitzvah over 500 times instead of just one time. Yeah, but one might argue, "Maybe it's going to help more if I give $5,000." Who is it truly going to help? it can help you. You can do more mitzvot every time you give. It's another mitzvah. You should do that. You should do mitzvot as often as possible even though it's sometimes difficult. Difficult to do it whether it's, you know, you're only making small money, so it's not like every time you get $20 you take maaser out of it and you give it to somebody. So the way you already start developing the mitzvah is you already separate the money, meaning you don't necessarily have to give it to the end user or to the organization right away. Let's say you got $20; then $5 there...

7:12500 there, and so on. You don't want to give every single day, so what do you do? You take the maaser out of the money right away. You put it in a box or some special account, and then when you decide to give it, you give it. But the key is to try and separate that money from your money immediately, like it's kilayim. You guys know what kilayim is? Kilayim is when we're not allowed to grow two different fruits together and root them together to make a new fruit. It's forbidden. Two items, right? So you're not allowed to do two different things. It's forbidden. So you have to look at your money as if the maaser money and your money are separate. They are forbidden to be next to each other. Separate the money. Why? Because once you get yourself used to separating the money right away, you already start thinking, "It's not my money." It's not my money. This is money that Hashem gave me 100%. I've got to take His share: 10% over here, 90% over there. Finished. And then, whatever you decide to give, you can give it to whoever you want at that point. But you have to be very, very strict about it. And you have to try to do it as often as you can. Simply because, like I said, it's a mitzvah, and you have to try to do as many mitzvot as possible. So, as far as investments, the long and short of it is when the gains are realized.

8:28gains are realized, especially when it comes to real estate stocks and similar investments, which can fluctuate in value quite aggressively in a short period of time. One day the stock is 10... So you have to, uh, take that into account and, uh, don't give ma'aser at that time, uh, simply because, again, it could be, uh, it could be a major, uh, change in a very short period of time. Do it only after you realize the gain. Additionally, I could tell you this: I know from the business world. is for tax purposes; this has nothing to do with mitzvot. This is just a financial benefit. Some of my clients in the past, when I was in the business of investing people's money, would give ma'aser to whichever cause they chose, and they would actually give it in stock form. ...instead of in money form, meaning, let's say they had, uh, 10,000 shares of XYZ company that appreciated in value. Instead of selling the stock and then giving Ma'aser from that, they would just give a thousand shares to the entity. Why? Because when you sell the stock, you have to realize gains; you have to pay taxes on it.

9:46So, whereas if you donate the actual shares to the organization, what ends up happening is that the organization, especially if they are a nonprofit, does not have to pay taxes on it. You benefit from a tax gain in this scenario. Now, don't do that if it's only like $100; it's not worth the administrative hassle. Like, don't bother the rabbi or whoever you want to give it to for some, you know, $100 or $500 to open some brokerage account. If it's a substantial amount of money, it's, you know, tens of thousands of dollars, and it's significant, then it's worth it for them to have a brokerage account. Yeah, but if it's like $50 or something like that, don't do that to them. Just give them the money and, you know, you deal with the taxes. But if it's a substantial amount, they may even want to keep it. Who knows? But either way, that's a way that people take advantage of the U.S. tax code. ...US tax code by giving away stock or an actual asset rather than giving the money itself. Yes...

11:33Thank you for your insight on the intricate aspects of the Torah. It is crucial to approach these teachings with the utmost accuracy and reverence.