Parashat Terumah

Shalom,

HaRav Shemuel HaNagid זצ״ל lived about one thousand years ago. He was one of our great sages, a genius in Torah, a deep poet, the Minister of Finance of Spain, and the leader and protector of his brethren. Naturally, this caused the jealousy of the other ministers and they would gossip to the king about how Rav Shemuel should not to be trusted and that he got his wealth of castles, lands, and orchards by skimming from the Royal Treasure! The king, however, would not listen to them until finally they were able to convince him to make Rav Shemuel show proof of his assets and to look into the sources of where they came from. Reluctantly, the king called him and asked him to provide documentation of all his possessions. Rav Shemuel asked for some time to gather the information. A few days later he came with a ledger containing many calculations to which summed up to be hundreds of thousands of gold coins.

After looking through the ledger the king was furious, he called out to him saying: “ I see the other ministers were right in accusing you, I know you are worth a lot more than this!!!”

Rav Shemuel answered, “Forgive me your majesty, I do have in my possession much more, but they don’t belong to me. Your highness can take them away from me with one command, I can GD forbid lose them all or I can be taken away from them (death)…. Your majesty asked for MY possessions and my true possessions are the money which I have given to the poor and needy, for charitable causes and above all to upkeep Torah study! These are written up for me forever and no one can take them away from me. This is what’s written in this ledger, all my spending for these causes, and if your highness would want me to provide a list of the other things I will happily oblige!”….

That’s what the pasuk in our parasha says: ויקחו לי תרומה״ “
The Torah does not say to give, but rather “to take” because what we spend on these causes is actually what we take with us to the everlasting!!!!