He Refused the Money. Here's Why. | 10@9 | 2026.10.22

with the words, God commands Avram to leave his home and to travel to Israel. Avram takes with him his wife, Sarai, and his nephew Lot, Lot is the son of Avram's younger brother, Charan, who had died. So Lot was an orphan and Lot came together with Avram and Sarai. The Torah tells us that there was a battle in Israel between five kings and four kings, had nothing to do with Avram at all, but in the midst of that battle, Lot was taken captive. He was taken captive by the side of the five kings, excuse me, by the side of the four kings, which Rashi explains the four kings were the stronger military, militarily they were the stronger than the five kings. And so Avram joined the weaker side, the five kings, and battled against the stronger four kings and was able to be victorious in that battle in order to be able to release the hostage, Lot, his nephew. And Lot returned to his family unharmed. When this was over, the five kings were very grateful because without Avram's help they would not have triumphed over the stronger enemy and they wanted to reward Avram for what he had done. They wanted to reward him with some of the spoils of what they had captured from the other side. And Avram refused to accept anything. Avram says as follows, Harimose Yodi el Hashem, I raise up my hand to God, Kail El Yon, the elevated God, the sublime God, Kone Shemayim v'Oretz, the one who created and owns heaven and earth, in Michut Vatsrachnal, even from a shoelace, vim ekach mikol ashelach, I will not take anything from you. Volotomare, you will not be able to say, Ani ha-sharti as Avram, I am the one who made Avram wealthy because we gave him these spoils. No, you're not going to be able to say that because I'm not taking anything from you. Avram refused. Avram refused. The question is, why would Avram refuse to take his share of the spoils of the war? He was entitled to it. And it's not like Avram never took anything from anyone else. Earlier in the Torah portion, when Avram goes to Egypt to matriam with his wife Sarai and with Lot, and the Egyptians take his wife, and it's a lot of difficulty. And then when Avram finally gets her back, they realize that she is the wife of Avram, and they give her back, and they also pay Avram for the expenses and for the money that they felt that they owed him for doing this terrible thing to him. So he took the money from them. And later in the Torah, when a similar thing happens in Israel with another king, Avimelech, a similar incident with Sarai, there too, Avram accepted compensation. So if Avram accepted these gifts from Paro and from Avimelech, why would he not accept them from these kings where it appears he was just as entitled to them as the other places where he did take it? Rabbi Pesach Krohn tells this story. It's a great story. It happened in Yerushalayim. It was late Shabbos' afternoon in Yerushalayim. And there was a boy, a young boy named Yitzchak. He was walking around in Yerushalayim and he sees on the sidewalk a gold coin. And it was a very valuable gold coin. And it happened during the time when many of the Jews living in Yerushalayim were very poor and Yitzchak and his family were very, very poor. This one gold coin would be enough to feed his family for two weeks. And so Yitzchak really wanted to take this coin. This little boy wanted to take the coin, but at Shabbos you can't. We're not allowed to pick up a coin on Shabbos. So what Yitzchak did is he stood on the sidewalk with his foot covering the coin. His idea was he would stand there and not move until after Shabbos. Shabbos is over. Then he could pick up the coin and he would take it home. But on Shabbos he wasn't going to take it. Well, it was quite a bit of time that Yitzchak was standing there because it was quite a bit of time until Shabbos was over. And there was a non-Jewish boy who sees this Jewish boy standing and it looks a little strange that he's standing and he's not moving his foot. So this non-Jewish boy gets an idea of what's happening and comes over to Yitzchak and says to him, what are you hiding under your foot? Why are you standing like this? And Yitzchak says, I'm not hiding anything. I'm just standing here. And then the other boy doesn't believe him. And the other boy pushes Yitzchak, knocks him down, sees the gold coin and grabs the gold coin and runs away with it. And of course Yitzchak is very upset because it would have been a very important thing and it was taken away from him by a mean other boy. And Yitzchak was, he was dejected. He was upset. And he went to the Shul where he would normally go on Shabbos afternoon for Mincha and then for Mariv to the Enders Shabbos. And normally when Yitzchak would go to this Shul in the afternoon, on Shabbos afternoon, he was a very helpful young man and he would help set up the Shoshutis, the third meal that we eat between Mincha and Mariv near the Enders Shabbos. He was one of the helpers. But this time Yitzchak sat in the back in the back row and he was dejected and you could see on his face he was upset. And when the rabbi of this Shul came in and saw Yitzchak sitting dejected and not his normal happy helpful self. So the rabbi went over to him and said, Yitzchak, what's wrong? Why are you upset? Why are you so sad? And Yitzchak told him the story, the coin and he was standing and the boy pushed him and he lost it. It was worth so much money. Okay. After Shabbos, the rabbi asked Yitzchak to stay for a minute. He wanted to speak to him. He asked Yitzchak to come into his office in the Shul. And when Yitzchak came in, the rabbi was holding a gold coin. The exact same coin, mean the same type of coin that Yitzchak had found in the street and the rabbi is holding another one of these coins with the same value. And the rabbi says to Yitzchak, Yitzchak, I'm very proud of you because you might have had a great temptation to pick up the coin and take it and it's a lot of money. And you must have realized there's a chance that somebody might come along and take it away from you. But still you did not pick up the coin on Shabbos, which would be a desecration of Shabbos. I'm very proud of you that you kept Shabbos. Even though it meant that you had to give up this coin. And he said, I am so proud of you that I am going to give you this same coin on one condition. I will give you this coin, but you Yitzchak have to give to me the reward for the mitzvah that you did in not breaking Shabbos. So Yitzchak looked at the rabbi in disbelief. He said, you mean to say you want to trade the coin for the mitzvah? And the rabbi says, yes, that's what I want to do. And Yitzchak said, if that's the case, then you keep the coin. I'll keep the mitzvah. And the rabbi leaned over and kissed Yitzchak on his head. Avram underwent a tremendous sacrifice to fight this battle. The battle had nothing to do with him. Four kings against five kings. He had nothing to do with it, except that in the course of this war, his nephew, Loth was taken. And so his only involvement was this mitzvah of saving his nephew and returning him safely to his family. And that's why he did it. And therefore he refused any compensation for that mitzvah. In the other cases, Paro and Avisholam, Avimela, I'm sorry, they were compensating him for for harm that they caused him. OK, you can compensate me, compensate me for the harm that you caused me. But now you want to take away the mitzvah. You want to pay me for the mitzvah? No, the mitzvah is beyond value. The mitzvah, there's no amount of money. And I would not want the money to interfere with the value, with the purity of motive of this mitzvah. Now I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with being paid for a mitzvah if it is your job. A doctor, every time a doctor heals someone, the doctor is doing a mitzvah, but it's the doctor's job. Every time a rabbi helps someone, they're doing a mitzvah, but it's their job, a social worker, all kinds of professions. People are doing mitzvahs in their as part of their job. They're being paid for it because that's how they earn the money to support themselves and their family. There's nothing wrong with that at all. It doesn't take away at all from the mitzvah that that's a person's job and they're being paid for it. But the value of a mitzvah is priceless. And if it's not your job, if you don't rely on doing this mitzvah in order to be able to support yourself and your family, then there is no amount of money that's an adequate reward for the mitzvah. The reward for the mitzvah is beyond any physical monetary amount and should remain pure. And not diminished by any type of reward or punishment. From Abraham, we learn the amazing value, eternal, inestimable value of every single mitzvah that we do. My friends, I wish you a great day. And I look forward to seeing you soon in person.