The Ethics of Giving

This is an interesting article I found today.
The Holocaust Center in Israel was given 25 Million dollars by an American who made his capital in the Casino Ownership business.
http://www.vosizneias.com/96411/2011/12/07/new-york-us-billionaire-gives-yad-vashem-center-25-million

I wrote a few talk backs to this that are clearly so far, quite unpopular among the other readers. 
I posted comment 1 Anonymous and comment 5 Anonymous. I also have written a few under the name Yaakov321.

Comment 1 reads:
Thats all good and fine. The fact is true that if there is a casino proceeds, its really essentially theft. So this guy in effect, offered legally legal theft money (not spiritually legal) to the world to improve the holocaust education. I dare say that it will clearly have a purpose in the hands of the Jewish people entrusted with its safekeeping but stolen money is still stolen money. I would not regard this as a real mitzvah as it would be had it been done by a more legitimate source of proceeds. I am sure that the holocaust center will keep the whole thing, but to be totally kosher, I would donate half of it to food banks and other ways to keep people healthy and whole. The holocuast center received a fine benefit and of course it will have proper prosperity. I am sure that the donor will have some reward, but it will be also in the context that the funds were technically a spiritual theft of sorts. Just something to think of here.

The rest of the posts so far are all against my commentary.

In fact, I will suggest that there is an ethics to giving.
You can give of course to any charity you wish,
But in giving a mass sum of money to say the Holocaust Museum when it was essentially you yourself who engaged in a somewhat mass scale financial holocaust against Americans seems to me like stealing from Peter to pay 'Paul'.
I realize that any charity should be commended and of course as I noted above in the first remark "that is all good and fine"....  But in truth when you offer such an amount to a cause that does not negate the true evil that you have done in your lifetime, you are playing a wild card that does not always equal true blessings in life.
I suggested that the money be considered as a donation to a food shelter or maybe homeless shelter.
I did read that this donor does give to medical research and for that I say that his donation offsets the evil of the casino industry.
I am not calling casino gambling a horror story in any sense, but it is it not purity.
To think that you can get your frills on one hand and on the other you are going to live in poverty seems to me to be a wonderful trade off for bafflement and disrepair.  True you had that choice and as one guy who responded says "you are fully awake when you do your gambling". I will say yes you have conscious thought, but I do not agree that you are fully spiritually awake.  Just a thought.

Additional Comment:
In fact, the construction of casinos and the advent of legalized gambling in truth increases the poverty in the Universe. In effect, there is more poverty and homelessness and all the like due to gambling and its permitted experience. I am not going to suggest in any way that such a thing be outlawed as I think it does constitute a frail attempt to pursue happiness. But in the fact that someone has his wealth derived from this source, I would think that true Tikkun Olam would mandate that about half or more of it be really donated to a cause that decreases poverty in this World. This way, the negatives are offset by an equivalent positive. In truth the holocaust museum is a noble pursuit of donations, but the fact that the earnings are not exactly noble does not merit nobility to be conferred to the donor in exactment with the nobility with which merit was pursued in life.
So I congratulate him on his sincere hope that we can abolish inhumanity, but his real problem is to defeat poverty. And if he can fight inhumanity at the same time, great. The more merit and blessing is helping the poor with money derived from others that have become mostly poor as a result. This makes sense to me in terms of true purity.


To the person who commented that people who gamble are "fully awake" and should not be considered a 'victim', I assert the following:

You remark that these people who gamble and enjoy that frill are "fully awake". I would attest that they are are indeed conscious of their activity, but I do not really think that they would be regarded among the Malachim to be truly Spiritually Awake.