Lend Without Interest: The Mitzvah Behind JFLA

The LA Jewish Home

9 hours ago

3 min read

Most of us know the mitzvah of tzedakah. Fewer of us realize the Torah ranks lending even higher.

"One who lends is greater than one who gives charity," the Gemara teaches in Shabbat 63a. The Chofetz Chaim explains why: a loan spares the borrower the embarrassment of taking a handout. He keeps his dignity, because he pays it back.

In Los Angeles, that idea has had an address since 1904. The Jewish Free Loan Association (JFLA) lends money with zero interest and zero fees to people across Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange and Santa Barbara counties. It is, in the language of the seforim, our city's communal gemach. And it lends for far more reasons than most people assume.

Two commandments in one verse

The Torah does not leave lending to our good nature. It commands it, and it forbids profiting from it, often in the very same breath.

"Im kesef talveh" is not optional. Shemot 22:24 opens, אִם כֶּסֶף תַּלְוֶה אֶת עַמִּי, "When you lend money to My people." The word "if" sounds voluntary. Chazal, cited by the Chofetz Chaim from the Mechilta, read it as an obligation: we are commanded to lend to our brethren when they are pressed.

The Torah says it twice. Devarim 15:8 repeats the command with doubled language, וְהַעֲבֵט תַּעֲבִיטֶנּוּ, "you shall surely lend him" enough for what he lacks. The Chofetz Chaim notes that this phrase refers specifically to a loan.

Catch him before he falls. Vayikra 25:35 says וְהֶחֱזַקְתָּ בּוֹ, "you shall strengthen him," when a brother's means begin to slip. The Chofetz Chaim lists the ways to do it: a gift, a loan, a partnership, or finding him work. The goal is that he stands on his own and never comes to depend on others.

No profit, not even with consent. The same verse in Shemot closes with לֹא תְשִׂימוּן עָלָיו נֶשֶׁךְ, "do not impose interest upon him." The ban on ribbit appears three times in the Torah, which the Sefer HaChinuch (343) reads as a sign of its severity. The Mishnah in Bava Metzia 75b counts the lender, the borrower, the guarantor, the witnesses and even the scribe as transgressors. The prohibition holds even when a wealthy borrower agrees to pay. The Ramban explains that ribbit is forbidden not as theft but because lending to a brother is meant to be an act of chesed.

From one person to a whole city. In Ahavat Chesed (Part II, ch. 16), the Chofetz Chaim writes of the obligation to have a permanent gemach in every city. Since most people cannot run a loan fund alone, they should join together and build one. Every contributor, he writes, is credited as if he alone had done the chesed, because without his share the borrower would have gone without. And the mitzvah keeps working for him even while he is busy with his affairs, or asleep.

That is the model JFLA is built on. Donors pool their money; the fund lends it out, gets it back, and lends it again.

More than an emergency fund

JFLA runs more than two dozen loan programs, and most people have never heard of half of them. They fall into four groups: personal, education, business and non-profit. Every one carries zero interest and zero fees.

The institutional side may be the least known. When a National Security Grant was delayed, Yeshiva Ketana received a $100,000 JFLA loan so it could move ahead. Mesivta of Greater Los Angeles used JFLA funds to meet the spending requirements of a security grant, so it could keep the full award.

On the personal side, the stories range just as wide. After October 7, a woman named Yehudis used JFLA support to pursue a Master of Social Work, aiming to help at-risk teens in Israel. Yonah, CEO of the Sukkah Store, calls his JFLA loan a game changer.

Business loans are decided case by case by JFLA's Loan Committee. Some programs require guarantors (preschool loans call for two), while some teacher loans need none.

Who should be reading this

Think about who you know. A young couple facing IVF bills. A family short on a security deposit. A teacher, a nurse, a veteran, a parent juggling tuition and camp. A yeshiva waiting on a grant. Any of them may qualify for help they never knew to ask for.

To borrow, start at jfla.org or contact JFLA directly.

To give, remember the Chofetz Chaim's promise. A gift to a communal gemach is credited to each giver as if he alone had made the loan, and it keeps earning that credit while he sleeps. JFLA's loans are free to borrowers only because donors fund them. You can donate here.

Lend to help. Lend with dignity. Lend without interest.