| Joy of Charity Essays | | ||
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At first glance, the mitzvah of giving tzedaka seems to be a simple one. In the words of Maimonides: "It is a positive commandment to give tzedaka to the poor according to the needs of the poor person, if one is able to do so… and whoever sees a poor man asking [for help], and ignores him and does not give him tzedaka, violates an injunction of the Torah…" (Matanot Aniyim, 7:1-2). People are required to help their indigent Jewish brothers - if possible, as much as they need; if not, then by giving them at least something.
It is a particular mitzvah to give before prayer; for that reason, many weekday minyans are regularly visited by beggars or charity collectors, going from worshipper to worshipper to gather funds, with the assurance that all, or nearly all, of the worshippers will feel obligated to give them at least a few coins.
But is it really so simple? Are you really obligated to give uncritically to whomever stretches out their hand? What if the person is an impostor: a seemingly strong and healthy young man, who makes the rounds of the morning synagogue minyans or sits on the Midrahov with a collection box instead of going out to work? Must you give to him too?
And what of tzedaka to various worthy organized charities: How do you discern among the plethora of worthy causes? Do you have to give to every organization, to every hospital, to every yeshiva or Talmud Torah that stretches out its collective hand? And what of Jewishly politically-oriented movements? How do you establish priorities? What is and is not legitimate? Does the halacha provide clear-cut guidelines for answering these questions, or are you, beyond a certain point, thrown back upon your own judgment and system of values of priorities (needless to say, within the broad rubric of the halacha)?
To begin unraveling this dilemma, I would draw a distinction between two levels of obligation regarding tzedaka: minimal and maximal. On the one hand, there is a minimal obligation to respond to every appeal for help that one encounters, unless one has a clear and cogent reason for believing that the person is an impostor. "One is not required to give a large gift to the indigent who goes from door to door, but one does give him a small gift. And it is forbidden to turn him away empty handed, even if you only give him a single fig" (Rambam, ibid., 7). In modern terms, these are the small coins you give the beggars you encounter in the street or synagogue. The working assumption seems to be that if a person is reduced to humiliating himself by begging from others, he must in some sense be in want, and you are obligated to provide him with at least a minimal amount. The burden of proof lies with the person who refuses to give.
On the other hand, regarding the more central realms of tzedaka - the obligation to allot and distribute substantial amounts of your annual income to tzedaka (see below), or even to fully provide for all the needs of a given individual - there is far more latitude for discretion. Some questions are: Is this person genuinely poor? Is he making every possible effort of his own to provide for his needs? How does his neediness compare with that of others? Is his life or some other vital interest literally threatened by his poverty (e.g., he may starve to death if I do not feed him; he has been taken captive and must be ransomed)? And even: how close am I to him? (See the saying of the Rabbis that "the poor of your household take precedence over the poor of your city; the poor of your own city take priority over the poor of another city.")
In a Hebrew article examining this subject in depth (in Sefer Zikaron le-Avraham Spiegelman, Tel Aviv, 1979, pp. 81-93), Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein asks the question: To what extent should those giving tzedaka expect the recipient to share in the efforts of others to help him - i.e., to work, to provide for himself? Significantly, the highest of Maimonides' famous "eight levels of tzedaka" is that in which the donor helps the indigent person to rehabilitate himself rather than supporting him indefinitely.
Rav Lichtenstein formulates the nature of the problem in terms of a dialectic between two different values. On the one hand, from the viewpoint of the giver, there is a categorical obligation to help the poor person no matter what - stemming from the idea of the mutual responsibility of all Jews for one another. In addition, there is a spiritual value to the cultivation within oneself of the virtues of generosity, selflessness, sensitivity to the suffering of others, etc. On the other hand, these selfsame moral and spiritual values - when applied to the indigent person - call for him to assume responsibility for himself, to become self-sufficient, and to realize the element of human dignity entailed in a person not being dependent upon others.
Rav Lichtenstein's conclusion would seem to be that, while the poor person's non-participation in his own rehabilitation does not totally nullify the mitzva of tzedaka, it does serve as a mitigating factor: the more a person relies on others to take care of him, sitting with folded hands when he could make efforts to support himself at least in part, the less obligation others have to care for him. Indeed, there are those who say that one need not support a person who refuses to go to work when he is able to do so. The Rav does, however, add an important caveat: sometimes the obstacle to a person helping himself may be not physical, but psychological infirmity. The husky, broad-shouldered young man sitting on the Midrahov with the beggar's cup may be as incapable of helping himself as the quadriplegic down the hill who arouses our obvious pity.
Another aspect of tzedaka which elicits many questions relates to maaser. The Bible speaks of tithing the produce of the Land of Israel; setting aside 10% of all crops for the Levites and, in certain years, another 10% for the indigent. The Sifrei (quoted in Tosafot to Taanit 9a, s.v. aser), says that the same principle applies to all of one's income from labor or business. While not explicitly cited by the Talmud or by most of the major rishonim, this rule does seem to be accepted by most later authorities as obligatory.
The question then is: how do you calculate maaser? Is it calculated before taxes or after taxes (and other compulsory levies)? While the answers to some of these points are rather vague, several points are clear. First, if a person cannot afford to give a full 10% and still maintain a reasonable minimal standard of living, he is not required to do so. Elsewhere, the halacha mentions the absolute minimum amount of tzedaka as "one-third of a [silver] shekel per year" (a modest sum, even for those themselves being supported by charity). Moreover, one may legitimately include within maaser those sums spent on what is formally classified as "tzedaka" even within one's own family unit: i.e., money spent in the support of old parents or of children who are above the age where one is formally required to support them; also the purchase of Torah literature for one's own home, provided that one makes them available to others as well.
Finally, we have not even touched upon one of the more important contemporary tzedaka-related issues: how does the existence of organized social welfare services or, more generally, the very different nature of the organization of society in the modern world (in contrast with that of the ancient world in which these halachot were first formulated), impact upon the individual's execution of the mitzvah? The bottom line would seem to be that, unlike such mitzvot as shofar, lulav, tefilah, etc., the concrete allocation of tzedaka by an individual, no matter how wealthy he may be, by its very nature entails choices involving the distribution of limited resources among a nearly infinite number of options. As a result, these choices cannot be resolved simply by "looking it up in the book"; ultimately, one is thrown back upon the fifth section of Shulhan Arukh" - religiously informed, G-d-fearing human judgment.
| Joy of Charity Essays | | ||
| www.joyoflife.org.il |