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"The Pious and the Niggard" By Hyman S. Wolf
July 4, 1940—Hyman S. Wolf, "The Pious and the NIggard," San Diego Jewish Review, page 2.  Thou shalt surely give him, and thy heart shall not be grieved, when thou givest unto him; because that for this thing the Lord thy God will bless thee in all thy work, and in all that thou puttest thy unto—Deuteronomy, XV, 10.  A Story From the Talmud—Once upon a time, a pious man, while walking along a public highway, noticed the owner of an estate removing stones from his yard by throwing them into the street to the discomfort of passers by. The pious man tuned in just indignation upon the evil-doer and said: "Thou thoughtless one, why removest thou the stones from another man's yard into thine own road?" The man thus spoken to looked up in amazement. He thought the pious man was drunk or crazy, for everyone knew that he was the owner of the estate, and of which he was very proud. "Go on," he said to the pious man, "thou knowest not whereof thou art speaking. Cant't not thou see that I am cleaning up my own yard?" The pious man shook his head mysteriously and went his way.  As years passed, a depression set in and the once wealthy owner of the estate lost his fortune and home. Bowed with poverty and old age, neglected by his friends of prosperous years, he one evening passed along the same road in front of his former estate, which belonged to his creditors. While carried away by his thoughts, and looking at the buildings, he stumbled on a stone and hurt his foot badly.  Just then the rebuke of the pious man came to him, and he cried bitterly in remorse and anguish, "how truthful were the words, of that pious man: I have indeed removed the stones from another man's yard into my own road, to my injury." You many San Diegans, who have not contributed to the United Jewish Fund, will perhaps many years later cry out with sorrow: "Oh! that I have spent so much for other things and grudgingly refused my mite to the United Jewish Fund."