Giving is receiving
The almost paradoxical relationship between the accounting terms "credit" and "debit', are universal truths core to human relationship. A credit exists on your balance sheet when you have created indebtedness in another. You create indebtedness by giving another person something of your own. When you receive something from another, you create a debit in your books, not a credit. If a person owes you more than you originally gave them, then value has been created. (In banking terms this would occur when the interest on a debt exceeds the cost of mitigating the risk of the loan, or when the investment was into equity rather than into debt and the value of the equity has grown over time faster than the cost of the money invested.)
Building social wealth is no different. When you invest in another person, you create indebtedness in them and earn social credit [1]. When you accept a favor from another you create a social liability in your "books" and a credit in theirs. If the other person feels indebted to you for more than the cost of your favor, you have successfully built social wealth. So, for example, if you did something very thoughtful for your friend that didn't cost you much but was exceedingly meaningful to them, you created social wealth for yourself. It is a greater responsibility to accept something from someone else than it is to give him or her something. Giving creates credit; receiving creates liability!
An Halachic Parallel
There is an interesting parallel in halacha: Kol yeter kenatul dami. "Anything additional is as if it were subtracted". So for example, in the laws of tereifa it is an equally disqualifying abnormality for an animal to have one limb too many as it is for it to have one limb too few. So too in finance, any additional amount in my books that is not my own, creates a debit and should be considered as if it were not there!
But here is the catch: Doing a kindness now becomes a strategy for building our own wealth. Kindness then is ego driven and manipulative. The Torah teaches us that chessed le'umim chatat(secular kindness is a sin)? What then is Jewish kindness? Is there any way to do a favor without it creating a sense of indebtedness in the other?
Non-manipulative chessed
There is a way to do a kindness that does not create: when the giver is doing something that the Torah obligates him or her to do. When I give the charity that I am halachicly obligated to give, when a farmer leaves the corners of his field for the poor, when we give our terumahto the kohen and our ma'aser to the levi, we are not creating indebtedness; rather we are acquitting an obligation we had to G-d. We are repaying a debt; we are removing a debit from our spiritual balance sheets. The recipient, the poor person, kohen or levi, has in fact helped us by facilitating the discharge of our obligations, and owes us nothing in return for the kindness he received from us. A kindness was done, but it did not generate a credit in our books.
Yitro and Chovev
With these ideas we are positioned to understand the strange dialogue between Moshe and Yitro (Bamidbar, 10:29-32).
It is not coincidental that two of Yitro's names reflect the ideas of debit and credit. Yitro comes from the word Yeter (excess) andChovev suggests the word chav meaning "debit". It is true thatchovev also means "endear". This is because through creating indebtedness, that is through doing things for others and giving to them, we build endearment. We build endearment not only in the other person for us, but also we feel greater endearment for the other person. Rabbi Dessler in KuntrusHachessed builds on the idea creating intimacy and friendship through the act of giving rather than receiving.
Moshe, addresses his father-in-law as Chovev and pleads with him not to return to Midyan but to stay with the Jewish people and live with them in Israel. Yitro feels uncomfortable. He feels like an addition to something that is already perfect without him. He feels like an unnecessary appendage, a yeter. And since kol hayeter kenatul dami, he would be better off – and so would Israel – if he returned to Midyan [2].
Moshe addresses him as chovev, indicating that he is not an "add-on" to the Jewish people. It is the Jewish people who owe him so much (chav - debt) and if he were to leave now they would never be able to reciprocate to him and his children for the debt they owe him. He is not resented as an unnecessary appendage to the nation; rather he is endeared (chovev – loved). Moshe promises Yitro that they will do good to him.
Still, Yitro insists on leaving because he fears it is then he who will feel indebted if the Jewish people reciprocate so abundantly. He prizes his independence and would rather not live with that feeling of indebtedness to others. Remember, it was his very discomfort with indebtedness that compelled him to reciprocate to Moshe in the first place for saving his daughters from the shepherds at the well where they first met him.
Moshe then assures Yitro that the goodness they will give to him in the future will not come out of the Jewsih "balance sheet". It is in fact G-d's assets that they will redistribute to him. They will do it for him not only because they want to, but also because they have to: "And it will be that goodness that G-d bestows on us, that we will give to you" [3]. It is through Yitro that the nation will be able to discharge their obligation to Hashem of ve'ahavtem et ha'ger ("you shall love the convert" - see Rashi 10:31 0n vehayitalanu). He will be in no way indebted to the Jewish Nation; on the contrary he will be an example to them of leadership and commitment, it is they who forever remain indebted to him. It is only then, assured that his independence is intact, that Yitro acquiesces.
Footnotes:
[1] See Tom Wolfe's idea of the "favor bank" in his The Bonfire of the Vanities, and in Paul Coelho's The Zahir. The idea is foundational to Stephen Covey's Seven Habits.
[2] See KleiYakar (10:29) on LechaItanu
[3] 10:32
