Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Mazmur 109:31

That is to say, take the gifts for My name, not that you should be pressured, or that you should do it for fame. Therefore its says, “Take for Me.” That is to say, when you want to give charity, give it to Me, so that no person will know of it, only you and I. That is why it says, take and it does not say, give. It teaches us that you should cause other people to give, and should take charity from them for the poor. He has done a very meritorious deed with this, that he pressures other people that they should give charity more than he gives himself. Concerning this, our sages said, “he who causes others to do good is greater than the doer.”²B. Baba Bathra, 9a. Therefore, he also says, “take for Me.” That is to say, with the charity you also take Me to yourself. When the poor person is with you, then the Holy One is with you, as the verse says, “He stands at the right hand of the needy” [Psalms, 109:31]. Therefore, the Torah wrote the portion of Terumah near the giving of charity. That is why it is first written in this portion that the Holy One gave the Torah on Mount Sinai. This teaches us that the Holy One rests and is always where Torah is studied, and where charity is given.

Concerning this, the Chapters of the Fathers said: “Let your house be open wide and let the poor be members of your household.”⁶M. Avot, 1.5. Here one can ask: why does he have to say, your house should be open and poor people should be in it. There can be poor people in the house when it is closed. The explanation is, you should make the door of your house wide, so that the Satan should not stand in your doorway. If your door were narrow, you would not be able to enter your house because it is dangerous to pass near the Satan. However, when poor people are in your house, then no Satan comes to your doorway, but the Holy One stands at your door, as the verse says, “He stands at the right hand of the needy” [Psalms, 109:31].

ויאמר ה' זעקת סדום ועמורה כי רבה, ארדה נא ואראה וגו “G’d said: ‘the outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, let Me descend and investigate, etc.’” These verses (30 & 31) are closely linked to one another. It is as if the Torah had written: “the outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah and their sins which have become great are such that I have to descend and investigate if they are all guilty or not; if not all are guilty I will determine who the guilty ones are.” The word חטאת in verse 20 covers a multitude of sins and negative characteristics. Our sages in Sanhedrin 109 have interpreted the word רעים as referring to sins involving money, i.e. asocial behaviour, based on Deut 15,9 ורעה עיניך באחיך האביון, “and your eye will be mean against your destitute brother,” whereas the word חטאים referred to sins committed by their bodies as illustrated by Genesis 39,9 וחטאתי לאלוקים “and I would commit a sin against G’d;” (Joseph explaining why he could not sleep with Potiphar’s wife) The additional word לה', refers to the sin of blasphemy. The word מאד, “very much,” refers to the sin of murder, bloodshed by indirect means. We know of this word מאד being used elsewhere in the same context from Kings II 21,16 וגם דם נקי שפך מנשה הרבה מאד “and King Menashe was also guilty of shedding much innocent blood.” The sin which sealed the fate of the Sodomites was that they despised charity, i.e. they legislated against people who practiced the virtue of giving charity or being otherwise charitable. They did not even take care of their own needy who were suffering from hunger.
The meaning of our verses based on the simple explanation of the text is: “the men of Sodom were very evil and they sinned greatly against G’d, so much so that the echo of their sins reached the ears of G’d.” We find a warning in the Torah concerning the needy and oppressed crying out to G’d complaining about their condition in Deut. 15,9 וקרא עליך והיה בך חטא, “when he cries out about your conduct you will be guilty of a sin.” We find a specific verse about the sins of the Sodomites in Ezekiel 16,49 הנה-זה היה עון סדם אחותך גאון שבעת-לחם ושלות השקט היה לה ולבנותיה ויד עני ואביון לא החזיקו ותגבהינה ותעשינה תועבה לפני ואסיר אתהן כאשר ראיתי. “See! This was the sin of Sodom: pride, surfeit of bread, and undisturbed peace were hers and her daughter’s but the hand of the poor and the needy she did not support. And they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. So I removed them when I perceived it.” They were dealt with so harshly because they persisted in their evil ways more so than anyone else. There is no other nation on earth which does not practice some degree of charity towards its own members. The people of Sodom not only considered such an attitude as pandering to the economically unsuccessful, but they treated the victims with cruelty to boot. Even though the Torah and its social legislation had not been given as yet, the commandment of giving charity belongs to the group of commandments which one’s intellect dictates, and it is something despicable when a human being watches another human being suffering from hunger without trying to relieve his condition. When G’d destroyed the people of Sodom He avenged the poor who had been allowed to die from hunger or whose condition had been deliberately aggravated by those people in order to accelerate their death. This is why our sages in Ruth Rabbah 5,9 stated that “the vengeance of the Gentile nations has been entrusted to the people of Israel whereas the vengeance of Israel has been entrusted to their poor.” They quote Ezekiel 25,14 to support the first part of the statement. The prophet writes: ונתתי את נקמתי באדום ביד ישראל ועשו באדום כאפי וכחמתי. “And I shall take My vengeance from Edom by the hand of My people Israel, and they shall act upon Edom in accordance with My anger and My fury.” They quote Deut. 15,40 in support of the second half of their statement. The Torah writes there: וקרא עליך אל ה' והיה בך חטא, “when he (the helpless) calls out against you to G’d it will be accounted a sin for you.” The lesson to be drawn from all this is that wealth is not something that has been bestowed on the wealthy to do with what he pleases, but it has been given to him to test him if he knows how to handle it, how to employ it most usefully. Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi in that paragraph in Ruth Rabbah adds: “when this poor man appears at your doorstep asking for a handout, G’d Himself stands on his right. If you, i.e. the wealthy man give a donation to the poor, he will bless you; if not, the One standing on his right side will exact payment from you for your insensitivity.” He based this on Psalms 109,31 כי יעמוד לימין אביון, “for He is standing on the right side of the destitute,” and on Proverbs 22,2 עשיר ורש נפגשו עושה כלם ה', “the rich man and the poor man meet; G’d has made them all.” There is another verse (Proverbs 29,13)רש ואיש תככים נפגשו מאיר עיני שניהם ה', “when the poor and the fraudulent meet G’d gives light to the eyes of both.” How can we reconcile these verses? One verse describes a situation when the poor receives a handout, the other when he did not.