Maaser As Pest Control

This is a crazy story, if I ever heard one. Kikar is reporting another "Rav Chaim story" - a fellow goes to Rav Chaim Kanievsky looking for advice and a bracha. His problem is that he has mice in his house, and he has tried everything possible to get rid of them, using the most serious levels of extermination and poisons, but they keep coming back. It is so bad that they had to move out of their apartment and in with their parents temporarily.

Upon hearing the problem, Rav Chaim asked him if they are careful about giving maaser. He answered that he is careful to give maaser from any food that comes into the house.

What about maaser ksafim, maaser of financial earnings? He answered that he also gives maaser ksafim.

Rav Chaim asked to whom he gives the maaser money, and he responded that he uses it to pay his own debts. Rav Chaim said be careful to only give your maaser money to the poor and not to use it for anything else, and the mice will leave the house.

Rav Chaim told him that he can only use the maaser money to pay off his own debts if he writes everything down, keeping track of exactly what he spent the money on, and then later pays it back when he gets more money. The fellow committed to doing so, Rav Chaim gave him a bracha, and off he went.

Mice Begone!


The fellow returned to Rav Chaim Kanievsky to update him during Chol Hamoed saying that when the next salary came in he right away separated the maaser from it and noted the exact amount in his records. A few days later he received some more money, and again he immediately separated maaser and gave the entire sum owed to poor people. The mice disappeared! It has now been a few weeks since they have been home (the story began a month before Pesach) and the mice have not returned at all.

Choshen Mishpat Shailoh

This led to a question in Choshen Mishpat. He then asked if he can ask the exterminators for his money back. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when he would have gone to the exterminator claiming they wasted his money as they never had a chance for success, as Rav Kanievsky solved his problem.

Rav Chaim's response was that the natural way to get rid of mice is by giving maaser money to poor people. Rav Chaim said you need to go to the exterminators and apologize to them for wasting their time and for the pain caused to them that they were not able to succeed in getting rid of the mice. It was your fault the mice were there, not their fault.

I suspect his answer was tongue-in-cheek and humorous, perhaps even cynical. The natural way to get rid of mice is with maaser money? He has to apologize to the exterminators? It had to have been a humorous response.