Most of us are not destined to be extremely wealthy. Most of us will earn a living and do okay. And sometimes there could be a sense of wow, if only I had tremendous amounts of money, what I would do with it. I would do tremendous things. But if you think about it, there is a tremendous amount of money at your disposal. If you’re going to work throughout your life, assuming that you start at 20, 25, whatever the age, 30, and you spend many, many years working. If you give maaser on a regular basis, you’ll find something incredible. Assuming a man makes $200,000 and assuming he gives maaser on that, $20,000 a year put into a tzedakah (charity) account. Year after year after year. What happens after 50 years is that a million dollars or more he has given to tzedakah. A million dollars! Do you know what a million dollars can accomplish?
How many of us can say I’m going to give a million dollars to tzedakah? Yet the reality is that almost all of us can. Because if you make a little bit of money or a lot a bit of money, if you get used to putting that money away into a maaser account and you separate it, and as you make more you put more in, at the end of your life you will have given well over a million dollars. And what you can accomplish with that money is dramatic and tremendous. And the most important part to remember about it is it didn’t cost you a dime. Hashem guarantees if you give maaser it won’t come off your personal cheshbon (account). It comes off of Hashem’s cheshbon. That means you will have accomplished tremendous things. Given over a million dollars to tzedakah, and it didn’t cost you a penny.
