Monday Kislev 2* 5704
Torah lessons: Chumash: Chumash: Vayeitsei, Sheini with Rashi.
Tehillim: 10-17.
Tanya: Now, in one (p. 603)...Yetzirah and Asiyah. (p. 603).

My grandfather once explained in a maamar the statement, R. Elazar first gave a coin to a pauper and then davened1: "Davening must be with life. By giving, before davening, charity to a pauper - thereby giving him life - one's davening is suffused with a great increase of 'aliveness'." So saying he motioned with his hand in an upwards gesture to indicate that the increase is beyond imagination. Indeed my father would often seek out a pauper before davening to give him food.