Matthew 6:3

Let not thy left hand] A metaphor for secrecy. Yet alms need not on all occasions be secret (cp. Matthew 5:16, 'Let your light so shine before men,' etc.), provided that ostentation be avoided. The best Jewish thought strongly approved of alms done in secret. In the Temple was 'the treasury of the silent' for the support of poor children, to which religious men brought their alms in silence and privacy, and it was strikingly said by one of the rabbis that 'he that doeth alms in secret is greater than our master Moses himself.'