Not Giving To Tzedakah Is Akin To Idolatry
One day as Rabi Papa was climbing a ladder, his foot slipped and he narrowly escaped falling. “Had that happened,” he said, “I would have been punished like Shabbos breakers and idolaters.” (These sinners were executed by stoning, to which death by a fall was comparable.)
Hiyya ben Rab from Difti said to him: “Perhaps a beggar appealed to you and you did not assist him?” For it has been taught: Rabi Yehoshua ben Korhah says, “Whoever turns away his eyes from one who appeals for tzedakah is considered as if he were serving idols. It is written in one place ‘Beware that there be no base thought in your heart’ (Devarim 15:9). The ‘base thought’ is refusal to lend to the poor before the Sabbatical year of release. And in another place it states, ‘Certain base fellows have gone out’ (ibid. 13:14). The lesson is based on the occurrence of the word ‘base’ (belia) in both contexts. Just as in the second case, the sin is that of idolatry, so in the first place (tzedakah) the sin is equivalent to that of idolatry.”