<BODY><DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>RMKopinsky wrote:</DIV>
<DIV>>>></DIV>
<DIV>This question reminds me of an argument I heard advanced in my early elementary school years.... The school had a program collecting the opener thing at the top of soda (or in this case, apple juice) cans for some tzedaka thing. The argument was, "If you give the top to tzedaka yourself, you get one mitzvah, of giving your bottle top to tzedaka. If you give it to me, you get the zchus of letting me have a mitzvah, as well as the zchus that your bottle top ended up in tzedaka." </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>>></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Consider the following scenario: a poor person, let's call him Moishie gives his friend, Shloimie, also a poor person, $100 as tzedaka (even though Moishie owes many times that amount). Shloimie promply gives the $100 to Moishie as tzedaka. The friends continue to give the $100 to one another, doing this dozens of times. Ultimately Moishie sees that Shloimie will not keep the $100, although he wants him to, and puts it in back his wallet. Now Moishie and Shloimie are each exactly as impoverished as before, but each has the tremendous zchut of having given thousands of dollars to tzedaka!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I doubt that this really "works" in the heavenly beit din, but not being privy to the proceedings of this most Supreme Court of all, I can't really be sure.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Saul Mashbaum</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></BODY>