Gratitude to God: Wisdom and Righteousness from the Midrash Tanhuma, Part 2 of 2

Today, we’ll continue sharing selections from the “Midrash Tanhuma” in “The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 4: Medieval Hebrew. It teaches against arrogance, prejudice, and usury, promotes charity, justice, and full Torah observance. Including examples of the importance of following God’s laws, which includes respecting all of God’s creatures and showing charity and kindness, through the tales of King Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva and that of the scholar on the sea voyage, respectively.

THE MIDRASH

“[…] ‘He who pity the poor lends to the Lord,’ says Solomon (Proverbs 19.). It is surely good enough for you, O man, to be God’s creditor. Not that he will return to you exactly the coin you give to the poor; he will look even further into your deed. The poor man was perhaps famishing, and your timely help may have rescued him from an untimely death; God, whose creditor you have become when you helped the helpless, will rescue you and yours from danger when it is near.

He who by usury and ill-gotten gain increases his substance, it shall be taken from him by him who pities the poor (Proverbs 28.). When a non-Jew wants to borrow from you, you will perhaps say that since you are not permitted to take usury from your own compatriot, you may take it from a non-Jew. Be assured that such ill-gotten gain will be taken from you, probably by the authorities, to erect baths or other sanitary buildings for the poor or the stranger. […]

The King, in a great fury, asked Rabbi Akiba how he dared offer Him and His queen so gross an insult as to name his dogs by their names. ‘Why this indignation?’ returned R. Akiba calmly; ‘You and yours are God’s creatures, so are dogs God’s creatures; you eat and drink, produce your species, live, decay, and die; all this is also the case with dogs. Yet what umbrage you take because they bear the same name as you! Consider then that God stretched forth the Heavens and laid the foundations of the Earth, is the Creator, Governor, and Ruler of all animate and inanimate things; yet you make an idol of wood and stone, worship it, and call it by the name of God. Should you not then incur His hatred?’ […]”