DEUT683 Rabbi Meir, the Maharam of Rothenberg, Germany (thirteenth-century), taught that tithing is neither biblically or rabbinically required, but is rather a minhag, a custom (Responsa 131). This is the dominant view of Jewish legal scholars: a minimum of ten percent is the desirable amount to give, but there is no absolute biblical or rabbinic law requiring one to do so. However, the nineteenth-century legal scholar and author of Pitchei Teshuvah, Rabbi Avraham Tzvi Eisenstadt comments on the Maharam of Rothenberg's teaching that although the giving of ten percent is a custom, it has become a binding custom and "should not be annulled except in a case of great need" (Pitchei Teshuvah, Yoreh Deah 331:12). Other rabbis argue that tithing is not a custom but was instituted as obligatory by the Rabbis of the Talmud. [See, for example Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein: "In truth, these allocations of one-fifth and one-tenth are not Torah obligations, but the Rabbis [of the Talmud] associated them with the verse (Genesis 28:22), 'and of all that You give me, I will set aside a tithe for You'" (Arukh HaShulchan, Yoreh Deah 249:2. Another example: [this verse] rules, "You shall set aside every year a tenth part of all the yield of your sowing that is brought from the field"; In context, this does not seem to be an injunction to set aside a tithe for each year for the poor. Nonetheless, the medieval Tosafot commentary on the Talmud (see Ta'anit 9a) cites the Sifre, which derives from this verse the obligation to set aside a tenth of one's income for charitable purposes.] Finally, one of Judaism's greatest scholars, Rabbi Elijah of Vilna (eighteenth-century), the Vilna Gaon, insisted that the Torah obligates Jews to give a minimum of twenty, not ten, percent of their income to charity. In the Gaon's view, if one gives less, "then every minute of one's life one is transgressing several positive and negative commandments of the Torah, and one is considered as if one has rejected the whole of our holy Torah, heaven forbid." Fortunately for the souls of most modern Jews, the Gaon's is it decidedly minority view, and it is not clear which specific biblical commandments are being violated.

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DEUT696 The tzedaka priorities listed above, such as donating to the poor of our city or those of another city, do not specify the religion of those in need, but Jewish law legislates that charity is to be dispensed both to Jews and non-Jews. Thus, the biblical verses that speak of helping the needy specify "the stranger [that is, the non-Israelite], the fatherless and the widow" (this verse; and also see Deuteronomy 26:12). In line with this, the Talmud ruled that "We provide financial support to the Gentile poor along with the Jewish poor…) (Gittin 61a) [Maimonides (twelfth-century) ruled that it is forbidden to turn away a beggar, Jewish or Gentile, empty-handed ("Laws of Gifts to the Poor" 7:7).] This ruling was issued a time when the non-Jews among whom the Jews lived were usually idolaters with values antithetical and often hostile to Judaism. That Jews were instructed to help needy idolaters underscores the even greater applicability of this ruling in contemporary times, when non-Jews and Jews in societies such as the United States generally live together harmoniously.

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DEUT718 Maimonides writes, "Whoever sees a poor person begging and averts his eyes and gives the poor person nothing, has violated a negative prohibition of the Torah [this verse; "Laws of Gifts to the Poor" 7:2)]. It is acceptable, however, to give a beggar a small sum. As the Ramah suggests, "Give him something, if only a fig [that is, a small amount]" (Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 249:4). Rabbi Avrohom Feuer notes that, in modern terms, this would translate into giving, as a minimum, "the smallest coin that can buy some food item at the market." Feuer, Tzedakah Treasury, 371. However, in large cities, where we may be confronted by several dozen beggars every day, it is permitted to give to some and not all of them.

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DEUT753 While charitable giving in today's world is associated with many causes, including donations to museums, orchestras, and universities, tzedaka in the Bible refers exclusively to help extended to the poor. The Torah ordains both a positive and negative command: When confronted by a person in need, "You shall open, yes, open your hand to him" and not "harden your heart nor shut your hand against your needy brother" [this verse and previous].

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DEUT757 The Torah commands us to give a poor person "sufficient for his needs" [this verse]. Jewish law understands this to mean that we should try to provide precisely what that person lacks: "If he is hungry, he should be fed. If he needs clothes, he should be provided with clothes. If he has no household furniture or utensils, furniture and utensils should be provided… if he needs to be spoon-fed, then we must spoon-feed him" (Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 250:1).

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DEUT777 Perhaps because many people give less generously to charity then they should because they are afraid of diminishing their assets, the Shulchan Arukh reassures would-be donors that, "No person will become poor because of giving charity" (Yoreh Deah 247:2; see also Maimonides "Gifts to the Poor" 10:2). In addition, the Torah promises that, in return for giving to the poor, "the Lord your God will bless you in all your efforts and in all your undertakings" [this verse]. [The biblical and rabbinic belief that charitable giving is the right thing to do and will also be rewarded may be behind the rabbinic advice to give charity even during difficult times: "If a man sees that his livelihood is barely sufficient for him, he should still give tzedaka from it. How much more so when his livelihood is good" (Gittin 7a)]. The Talmud makes the even more explicit promise that you should "tithe so that you will become rich" (Ta'anit 9a). Rabbi Tzvi Spitz asked the legal scholar Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv why, in light of such an explicit biblical and talmudic assurances, there are many extremely charitable people who have not been blessed with material success. Rabbi Elyashiv responded: "There are many different types of wealth other than financial prosperity. Some people are rewarded with a great deal of pleasure from their children. Others experience an abundance of energy and robust health. All these may be considered as a reward for having been highly charitable." (Feuer, Tzedakah Treasury, 164.

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DEUT802 In 1949, the New York Times, which has been running an annual "Neediest Cases" fund raising campaign since 1919, made the editorial decision to stop distinguishing between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor. As the paper explained: "What a bleak world it would be if we helped only those who were thoroughly blameless. A good many of us make our own bad luck, and we suppose that some of the people represented in the Neediest Cases would not be in trouble now if they had managed their lives differently. It may even be appropriate once in a while, when help is asked, to recall Lord Chesterfield's words: 'Do not refuse your charity, even to those who have no merit but their misery.'" [Cited in Julie Salamon, Rambam's Ladder, pages 75-76. Salamon, in her discussion of this action by the New York Times, notes a conservative critique of this position: "The elite once held the poor to the same standards of behavior that it set for itself: moral character determines the strength of a person's claim for assistance. Those who worked and struggled and yet were overwhelmed by adversity deserved help; the idle and dissolute did not. Over time, though, elite opinion came to see the cause of poverty not in individual character and behavior but in vast, impersonal social and economic forces that supposedly determined individual fate. In response, need became the sole criterion for aid, with moral character all but irrelevant" (Heather MacDonald, The Burden of Bad Ideas).] Julie Salamon, author of Rambam's Ladder, cites a man she interviewed, Paolo Alavian, a successful immigrant to the United States who had long regarded beggars with contempt: "Now I realize that not everyone can make it. Now I see he may be young and look like he could work, but when you get close you see he has many problems--drugs, alcohol, disease, and bad habits." (Salamon, Rambam's Ladder, 14). Realizing that such behavior will always characterize some people might be behind the Bible's belief that "there will never cease to be needy ones in your land" [this verse].

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DEUT803 Perhaps because hunger is an ongoing problem, the Bible warns us not to become accustomed and indifferent to the hunger pangs of others. We should realize, as noted, that "There will never cease to be needy ones in your land…" [this verse] and feel obligated to help provide them with food. That a large number of people still starve to death is a terrible indictment of those of us who have the means to help feed the poor, but don't. In the first paragraph of the Birkat HaMazon (Grace after Meals), Jews praise God as One "who feeds the entire world (hazan et ha-olam koolo), with goodness, grace, lovingkindness, and compassion." Thus, this prayer assumes that despite periodic famines throughout the world, God has arranged human society so that nobody need starve. Although this strikes some people as naïve religious thinking, it is true. If human beings starve to death (an estimated seven to eleven million people do so each year) [see George McGovern, Bob Dole, and Donald Messer, Ending Hunger Now, pages 2 and 10. The figure of eleven million would translate into 30,000 deaths daily from starvation, or 1,250 people an hour. Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has said: "Hunger is actually the worst weapon of mass destruction. It claims millions of victims each year."] that is because we do not equitably distribute what God has given us. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi: "There is enough for everybody's need, but not for everybody's greed."

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DEUT805 While the Torah places great emphasis on helping the poor, it also teaches that there will "never ceased to be needy ones in your land" [this verse]. This verse should inhibit the more affluent from feeling that the problems of poverty are invariably the fault of those in need; rather, the Torah's words remind us that a certain degree of poverty is part of the human condition, an insight that should make us less judgmental of those who suffer from it. [In addition, this verse helps explain why Jewish giving has historically focused more on the problem of the "individual poor rather than with trying to solve the problem of poverty" (Sherwin and Cohen, How to Be a Jew, 214). Elsewhere, Sherwin notes that "when discussing economic justice, many contemporary Christian ethicists call for the eminent realization of full employment and an end to poverty. Jewish ethicists perceive this view as a messianic hope rather than a realistic confrontation with the problems presently besetting us in our 'messy' [as opposed to messianic] world. An example of the messianic approach characteristic of a great deal of Christian ethics is the 1986 'U.S. Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on the Economy.' In that document, the eradication of poverty and the attainment of full employment are considered realizable goals, rather than desirable hopes. Nowhere does this document quote the biblical assumption that 'There will never cease to be needy ones in your land.'" (Jewish Ethics for the Twenty-First Century, 131)].

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DEUT850 In Hebrew, the word for charity is tzedaka. But "charity" is not a fully accurate translation of tzedaka. "Charity" derives from the Latin caritas and suggests a donation made out of affection or love. In contrast, tzedaka derives from the word tzedek, which means "justice" (see, for example, [this verse]). Judaism regards someone who gives tzedaka as acting justly, and one who does not as acting unjustly. Thus, in communities ruled according to Jewish law, as was common in the medieval world, communal leaders, believing that they had the right to stop people from acting unjustly, could and did require people to give tzedaka, just as governments compel citizens to pay taxes.

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