LEV1069 ... the extent of a person's need would be another factor that the community must take into account, but there was a strong sense that the community must first help its own. What results is concentric circles of care and concern. “Anyone who gives money to his adult children, mature enough that the parent is no longer obliged to sustain them, in order that the adult males may study Torah and the females may live uprightly [and] so, too, anyone who gives gifts to his needy father and mother may consider these gifts a fulfillment of the duty to give charity. Indeed, he needs to give these relatives priority over others in his charity giving. He should give a similar priority to his relatives over all others. The Torah commands that the needy of his household come first, then the poor of his city, and they, in turn, have priority over the poor of another city... Rabbi Saadia (882-942) wrote that a person is required to put his own sustenance first, and is not duty bound to give charity to others until after providing for his own. The Torah says, “And your brother shall live with you” (Leviticus 25:36), a verse that clearly establishes that your life comes first and only then the other person [following the Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 62a]. Also remember what the widow of Tzarefat said to the Prophet Elijah [1 Kings 17:12]: “And I have done this for me and my son,” first for herself and afterward for her son, a comment he [Elijah] approved of since Elijah [first] said [v. 13], “Do it for yourself,” and [he said] “and for your son” only afterward. After one has seen to his own sustenance, he may then give priority to the sustenance of his needy parents over that of his adult children, and then he should see to the sustenance of his adult children (Jacob ben Asher (d. 1340), Arba’ah Turim, Yoreh De’ah, chapter 251).” (See also Sifrei on Deuteronomy 15:7; Mishneh Torah, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 7:13; Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah 251:3.).