They Gave All They Had
As American soldiers advanced through Europe they encountered vast numbers of refugees whose plight was stark and heartbreaking. The war had shattered their homes, families, and communities. Chaplain Rabbi David Eichhorn had a special concern for the beleaguered Jewish remnants scattered through each country. In the little village of Rosieres-aux-Salines he found twenty-two Jewish women, aged sixty-eight to ninety-seven, whose husbands had been deported early in the war. The wives were left deliberately as a burden on the rest of the village. The chaplain found them in two rooms of a hospital, dirty and half-starved. After supplying food, clothing, and fuel to keep them alive, he went about raising money for their continued care. His account is uplifting:
The soldiers in the past two weeks have given me over $800 to help these and other Jewish refugees who needed help. God bless the American Army and American Jewish soldiers. There is no other Army like it in the whole world. I had to plead with these men not to give me as much as they wanted to give. Many of them wanted to empty their pockets and give me all they had.484
We know there are many biblical imperatives enjoining us to be charitable. “Blessed is he who has regard for the weak”(Psalms 41:1). “He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever”(Psalms 112:9). “A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor”(Proverbs 22:9). We are also very specifically called to direct our charitable efforts to the widows and orphans. Without husbands and fathers they are in special need of the material and spiritual support of the body of Christ.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
—James 1:27