How Do We Treat Someone Who Has Nothing to Give Us in Return?

How Do We Treat Someone Who Has Nothing to Give Us in Return?

There is a simple test that can teach us much more about ourselves than a list of our donations: how do we treat a person from whom we need absolutely nothing? Not an important client, not a manager, not a donor, not a well-connected person, and not someone who may open a door for us in the future, but a person who has nothing in hand that we need. Sometimes precisely there, where no return is possible, it becomes clear whether we truly see human beings or whether, without noticing, we also see what they are capable of giving us.

You can see this at a family event. A person enters the hall and immediately notices the people worth approaching. It is important to speak with one person because they have not met for a long time. Another knows someone the person needs. A third has status, and a fourth is an old friend with whom it is worth maintaining a connection. At one of the tables sits an elderly person whom almost no one knows. He has no status, does not tell impressive stories, cannot advance anyone, and perhaps conversation with him even requires patience. No one consciously decides to ignore him, yet by the end of the evening it turns out that almost everyone found a reason to speak specifically with the people who were interesting or useful to speak with.

Most of us do not keep a ledger listing what every person can give us. That is precisely why the phenomenon runs so deep. Much of our social accounting takes place below the level of awareness. We are naturally drawn to places where we receive interest, appreciation, warmth, connections, status, information, or the feeling that we matter. There is not necessarily anything wrong with this. Human beings need reciprocity. The question begins when, without noticing, we reserve our best treatment mainly for people who can return it.

Then Sukkot arrives, and the Torah describes the mitzvah of rejoicing in a surprising way: “You shall rejoice on your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow who are within your gates” (Deuteronomy 16:14). The Torah does not content itself with the command “you shall rejoice.” It begins listing the people who are meant to be inside that joy, and the list includes specifically those who, within the social structure of the ancient world, often lacked land, a protective family, status, or a stable economic network.

This raises a large question. If the Torah wants me to rejoice on the festival, why does it speak in the same verse about the stranger, the orphan, and the widow? It could apparently have said: eat, drink, rest, sing, sit with your household, and rejoice. Later, in the section dealing with charity, it could remind us of the poor. But the Torah does not separate the two. It brings them inside the verse of joy itself, as though saying: before you tell Me how much you rejoiced on the festival, I want to know who was able to rejoice because your festival took place.

Rashi brings a very sharp idea on the parallel verse in the same section. The Torah says: “You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, and the stranger, the orphan, and the widow who are in your midst” (Deuteronomy 16:11). Rashi cites the words of the sages: “My four correspond to your four: your son, your daughter, your male servant, and your female servant. If you gladden Mine, I will gladden yours” (Rashi, Deuteronomy 16:11). The Torah, as it were, places two families before a person. There are the people who naturally have an address in your home, and there are those whom the Holy One, blessed be He, calls “Mine,” because they do not always have someone who will make sure to bring them into the circle.

This changes our understanding of kindness at its foundation. We usually think that kindness begins when we see a person who lacks something and give it to them. The Torah goes one step earlier and asks: who is even inside your field of vision? There are people whom we do not refuse to help. We simply do not see them. They do not ask, do not shout, do not stand at the door, and therefore they can live only a few meters from us and remain outside our awareness.

Maimonides takes the matter to an even sharper place. In the Laws of Rest on a Festival he writes that when a person eats and drinks on the festival, one must also feed “the stranger, the orphan, and the widow together with the other poor and unfortunate people,” and then he adds: “But one who locks the doors of his courtyard and eats and drinks with his children and wife, and does not feed and give drink to the poor and bitter of soul, this is not the joy of a mitzvah but the joy of his belly” (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Rest on a Festival 6:18).

Maimonides does not say that this person is not happy. Perhaps the person is extremely happy. The table is full, the food is excellent, the children are singing, the wine is good, and the home is festive. Maimonides says something much sharper: the name of that joy must be changed. The person calls it “festival joy,” but if all the abundance was locked behind the door and left outside the person who lacked it, there may indeed be pleasure, but it is not the joy the Torah asked us to create.

This is a profound point because it teaches that giving to another person is not a tax imposed on joy. The Torah does not say: after you have rejoiced, surrender a little of your joy for the sake of someone who has less. It says that the ability to expand joy beyond the self is part of the definition of the joy itself. There is joy that a person consumes, and there is joy through which a person creates a circle in which others can also live.

Rabbenu Bachya, in his commentary on this section, addresses the inclusion of the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow in the rejoicing of the pilgrimage festival and emphasizes the responsibility of one who has been blessed toward those who do not have the same economic and social support (Rabbenu Bachya, Deuteronomy 16:11). The blessing that reached a person does not end when it enters the person’s storeroom. The question is what it enables that person to do for someone who did not receive the same blessing.

Sforno, in his commentary on the festival verses, connects joy to the blessing God gave the person: “For the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you shall be only joyful” (Deuteronomy 16:15). A person does not rejoice merely because there is more to consume, but because abundance can be seen as a blessing rather than only as private possession. When blessing is experienced as a gift, it also awakens a different attitude toward someone who did not receive in the same measure (Sforno, Deuteronomy 16:14-15).

The Kli Yakar, in several places in this section, focuses on the danger hidden in abundance when it closes a person inside the self. Precisely when the storehouses are full and a person can say “I have,” the Torah brings back to the table the person who does not have. The Festival of Ingathering does not permit the owner of the field to enjoy the harvest as though living alone in the world. Blessing is also tested by the way it changes one’s relationship with other people (Kli Yakar, Deuteronomy 16).

From here we can understand the enormous difference between giving a person food and giving a person a place. Food solves hunger. Money solves a particular need. But there are people whose refrigerator is not empty and who are nevertheless lonely. They do not need a food package from us. They need someone to think about them before the meal begins. There is a widow who does not need financial assistance but knows that on the eve of the festival families close in around themselves. There is a convert, a new immigrant, or someone who recently moved into the neighborhood and does not know to which table they belong. There is a divorced man or woman for whom the first festival after the home broke apart is difficult not because of the price of the food but because of the empty chair.

The Torah does not say only, “Give them.” It says: “You shall rejoice on your festival... and the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.” They are inside the sentence of joy. In other words, there is a difference between charity that reaches a person from outside and a situation in which the person himself enters the circle.

We can transfer money to someone without knowing their name. Sometimes that is exactly what should be done, and such charity is a great mitzvah. But there are needs money cannot solve. A sense of belonging cannot be transferred by bank deposit. The knowledge that someone is glad you are here cannot be sent through a messenger. A standing order cannot invite a person to become part of a life.

Only after this Torah foundation can we turn to social psychology, where we encounter a fundamental human mechanism: reciprocity. Human beings tend to feel an obligation toward someone who has done something good for them. This mechanism is important for social life. Without it, trust and cooperation would be much harder to create. I help you today with the understanding that in a normal human world people do not only take, they also give back.

But researchers Margaret Clark and Judson Mills proposed an important distinction between exchange relationships and communal relationships. In exchange relationships, the question of who gave what to whom and how much matters greatly. In close and communal relationships, by contrast, we are capable of giving primarily in response to the other person’s need, even when there is no immediate balance.

Both kinds of relationships are necessary. A business cannot operate as though it were a family, and a bank is not expected to tell a client that there is no need to repay a loan because we are all brothers and sisters. The problem begins when the logic of exchange spills into all our relationships, and then even love, friendship, and kindness begin to be managed through a ledger.

I invited you, so now it is your turn to invite me. I called you three times, now let us see whether you call me. I gave a certain amount at your son’s wedding, I wonder how much you will give at mine. I came to your celebration, will you bother to come to mine? I helped you in a difficult period, do you remember that now that I need something? Sometimes no one says these things aloud, but the ledger exists.

Then the stranger, the orphan, and the widow arrive and disturb the ledger. The Torah specifically chooses people with whom the relationship is not supposed to be based on the question, what will I get out of this? Not because they are incapable of gratitude, but because the reason to bring them into the joy is not the future return. They enter because they need a place, and you have a place that can be opened.

Think about a synagogue after Shabbat morning prayers. A new person enters for the first time. He knows no one. At the end of the service everyone goes out, and the regular circles immediately form. One person speaks with a brother-in-law, another with a study partner, another with a neighbor, and a fourth is already on the way home. No one is a bad person, and no one decided to ignore the newcomer. But within two minutes the newcomer discovers that there is no natural place for him in any circle, so he leaves quietly.

The following Shabbat he may go to another synagogue. He will not tell anyone that they hurt him, because no one actually hurt him. That is precisely the point: some pains do not arise from what someone did to us, but from what no one thought to do. Sometimes all that was needed was one person willing to leave their own circle, walk a few steps, and say: “Hello, I do not think we have met. What is your name?”

There is no dramatic act of kindness here. No newsletter will report it, there will be no photograph, and no fund will be established in the person’s name. But for the person who stood alone, those ten steps can be the difference between a strange place and a place where someone noticed that they existed.

This teaches that the great question of kindness is not always “How much did I give?” Sometimes it is “How willing was I to leave my comfort so that another person would not remain outside the circle?” A person can donate large sums and be very generous with money while simultaneously being miserly with attention. Sometimes it is easier to write a check than to sit for forty minutes beside a lonely person who repeats the same stories.

A famous study by Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin, and Michael Norton examined the relationship between spending money on others and happiness. In their studies, under the conditions examined, people who spent resources on others reported greater well-being and happiness than those who spent a similar amount on themselves. Additional research in the field has found similar associations in various contexts, particularly when giving was voluntary and when the giver could experience genuine connection and impact.

But precisely here we must avoid another trap. Even this finding can be turned into another transaction: I will give to you because giving improves my mood. Once again the other person becomes a tool in my service, only this time I am using them in order to feel good about myself.

The Torah asks for something deeper. It does not say to invite the lonely person because afterward we will feel wonderful about ourselves. Perhaps we will not feel wonderful. Perhaps this will not be an easy guest. Perhaps the guest will talk too much. Perhaps the children will feel crowded. Perhaps the conversation will not be fascinating. The test begins precisely where giving stops being a pleasant experience for the giver and remains something important for the recipient.

This test exists in the workplace as well. It is very easy to notice how a person treats the CEO, an important client, or someone of status. The more revealing test is how the person speaks to the security guard at the entrance, the person who cleans the office, the waiter, the courier, or an employee who has no influence on promotion. If our tone changes according to the power of the person in front of us, we have learned something important about ourselves.

A person can be charming toward those above in the hierarchy and harsh toward those below. The person may say that they simply know how to “respect important people,” but the question is whether respect is given to someone because they are important or because they are a human being. It is easy to be courteous to those we need. Character is revealed more deeply in the way we speak with someone whom we have no strategic reason to impress.

The same is true within a family. There is a grandfather who was once the center of the family. He hosted, paid, told stories, helped everyone, and was the person people called when there was a problem. Years passed. Today it is harder for him to hear. He repeats the same stories, cannot help the way he once did, and conversation sometimes takes effort. Gradually the phone calls become less frequent. No one is angry with him. There is simply “not so much to talk about.”

But perhaps that sentence itself needs examination. Do we love a person, or do we love what we receive from the person? When someone is no longer as interesting as before, no longer useful, and no longer able to give us advice, does anything of the relationship remain? Some relationships are revealed as love only when the person facing us stops being useful.

The same is true of friendship. There is a friend who was always funny, strong, and full of energy. During a difficult period the friend changes. The conversations become heavy, the same fears are repeated, and there is no strength to show interest in us the way there once was. During the first month everyone calls. During the second month fewer people do. After six months only a few remain. That is when it becomes clear who was a friend of the person and who was a friend of the experience that person provided.

There is an even subtler test: do we know how to give without turning the gift into a future debt? A person helps someone with a large sum of money. The recipient thanks the giver deeply. Several years pass, and one day the giver feels that the recipient is not treating them as expected. Then comes the sentence: “After everything I did for him.”

Sometimes the sentence is justified. Gratitude is a fundamental value, and ingratitude is a serious character flaw. But sometimes it is worth asking whether the gift contained a hidden contract that the recipient never saw. I gave you money, therefore I purchased a permanent place in your decisions. I helped you, therefore from now on you owe me agreement. I stood beside you in a difficult period, therefore you are not allowed to distance yourself from me.

Some people give a great deal, but it is very difficult to receive from them because every gift has an invisible string attached. One day the string is pulled, and the recipient discovers that the gift never truly left the giver’s hand.

Cleaner kindness does not demand that the other person lose freedom because of what was received from us. We can expect basic human gratitude, but we must not turn the kindness we performed into a license to control the person who received it. Otherwise the gift that looked like a gift may retrospectively become an emotional loan carrying very high interest.

Sukkot also places before us the question of the recipient’s dignity. Suppose we invited a lonely person to a festival meal. We did something beautiful, but throughout the meal the guest sits at the end of the table, and every few minutes someone compassionately asks whether more food is wanted. Everyone knows why this person was invited, and the guest knows that everyone knows. The chair is inside, but the person still feels outside.

We can give a person a meal and make that person feel smaller, or give a meal and restore stature. We can present the guest as “the poor person we invited,” or bring the person into the conversation, ask for an opinion, laugh together, and create the feeling that this is not the evening’s charity project but a guest we genuinely wanted with us.

Sometimes the greatest kindness is not making a person feel that we are doing kindness for them.

This is a delicate skill. It requires the giver to surrender even part of the satisfying feeling of being “the giver.” When someone constantly needs to feel like the rescuer, the other person remains trapped in the role of the rescued. Dignified kindness tries, as much as possible, to restore independence, choice, and dignity.

We can take a very practical question from this as the festival approaches: who is around us who does not specifically need money, but needs someone to think about them? Who sits alone? Who experienced a family change this year? Who lost a spouse? Who is new in the neighborhood? Who comes to the synagogue but still belongs to no circle? Which relative has become quiet lately and no one has asked why? Who is always invited last, only after it becomes clear that there is room?

We do not have to save the world. Sometimes it is one phone call, one chair, one extra portion, or ten minutes of conversation. But it is worth doing before the person has to ask. There is kindness that answers a cry, and there is deeper kindness that notices a person a moment before they have to cry out.

Perhaps this is the depth of Rashi’s words: “If you gladden Mine, I will gladden yours.” The Holy One, blessed be He, as it were, entrusts certain people in the world to other people. One person has a table, and another needs a place beside a table. One has a large family, and another will spend the evening in a quiet home. One received abundance this year, and another had much taken away. Blessing is not only what each person possesses. Blessing is also the possibility of carrying a little light from a place where there is much of it to a place where there is less.

So at the end of the festival we can ask not only whether the meal was beautiful, whether the food turned out well, and whether we sang enough. We can ask another question: was there one person whose festival was a little less lonely because we celebrated? If so, perhaps our joy became greater precisely because we did not keep all of it for ourselves.

Sukkot teaches that Jewish joy is not a circle that closes the family inward. It is a circle capable of expanding. The Torah does not ask us only to open the wallet. It asks us to open the field of vision. To see the person who did not ask, the person without status, the person who cannot advance us, and the person who may never repay us in the same currency.

It is easy to open the door to someone who may one day open another door for us. The greater test is whether we leave room for someone with no connection to arrange for us, no status to grant us, and no favor to return. And after doing so, perhaps we will discover that this person returned something very large after all: the person taught us whether we are capable of seeing a human being not according to what we may receive, but simply because that person is a human being.