EXOD698 See [[LEV1062]] Leviticus 25:36 interest OXFORD 46

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EXOD700 We are forbidden to take interest from a fellow Jew. When you lend someone money, you are forbidden to take interest for the loan. The laws of this commandment are very complex and detailed. An entire chapter of the Talmud (the fifth chapter of Bava Metzia) and a difficult section in Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Daiah 159-177) deal with this subject. [Author lists thirteen basics of this prohibition].

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EXOD692 (Continued from [[EXOD464]] Exodus 20:13 steal SINAI 1 16). In secular law, the legal rate of interest on money loaned is six percent a year [in 1964]. If the borrower is a corporation is (sic) may be charged more. According to Jewish law, however, even the smallest amount is considered usury and is forbidden [this verse, Leviticus 25:36–37, Deuteronomy 23:20–21]. But the Torah goes even further. Suppose that you lend money to someone who until now never greeted you if he saw you. After this day, however, he greets you regularly with a cordial "Good morning," perhaps a bit too warmly. That, say our Sages, is "the dust of usury"! Trifling and intangible though it be, it borders on the usurious; it smacks of usury. With its penetrating gaze of absolute justice, the Torah will not condone even this.

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EXOD693 [This verse] is the basis for the positive precept of extending interest-free loans. It is interesting to point out that although the Hebrew word “im” is usually translated as “if,” in this verse, the sages considered it to mean “when.” This interpretation made giving interest-free loans a binding obligation rather than a voluntary act. This positive commandment to lend money to a fellow Jew is one of the examples in Judaism of chesed, an act of loving kindness, as distinct from acts of charity as discussed in chapter nine. These acts were considered to be obligations to which the law prescribed no limits, since chesed was something rendered to people primarily when they were not entitled to it. Maimonides ruled that the interest-free loan is the highest form of charity, being an expression of the biblical commandment “Thou shalt give him [the needy] support” [Leviticus 25:35). Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Malveh u Loveh, chapter 1, halakhah 1. Charity is something one gives to the poor, whereas an act of g’milut chesed is one that can be directed both at poor and rich alike. To the poor person the interest-free loan represents a chance to establish himself in a craft or business, thus breaking the cycle of poverty. In the case of the rich, the interest-free loan represents a form of assistance during periods of extreme liquidity problems, thus preventing bankruptcy. It is easy to look upon the interest-free loan commanded by the Torah as something pertinent to a primitive agrarian economy, where most financial transactions would be between a neighbor and his fellow farmer, primarily to tide one over for the next harvest. This, however, is not the way the sages saw it. In the course of explaining the ideological basis of the mitzvot, the fourteenth-century Sefer Hachinukh, of Barcelona, comments as follows regarding the interest-free loan: “One who is not a pauper but who needs assistance is actually worse off than one whose poverty is public knowledge and who is used to collecting charity. If we will give [the former] assistance through the interest-free loan, he may be able to earn a livelihood and not become dependent on others [with its resulting degradation].” Mitzvah 56. This explanation was written at a time when the Jews, both in Spain and in other countries, were no longer farmers but were engaged in sophisticated international trade and banking. From the earliest days of Jewish society, the interest-free loan was relevant beyond the needs of an agrarian economy and was not limited to the simple act of making small temporary loans. Irrespective of the country in which Jews lived, the sophistication of its economy, or the particular economic conditions of the Jewish community, these free loans were an integral part of the Jewish economic world. Throughout history and down to the present day, almost no Jewish community in an organized form has ever existed without the free loan as a permanent part of its communal structure.

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EXOD696 Maimonides represents the biblical verse, “To the Gentile you may [tashikh] lend upon interest ” (Deuteronomy 23:21) as a positive injunction; He views the Hebrew tashikh as meaning “You shall” rather than “You may,” so receiving interest from or paying interest to a Gentile is not something left up to one's discretion but rather a mitzvah. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Malveh u Loveh, chapter 5, halakhah 1. We can perhaps understand his view in the light of his interpretation of the Jewish people as a chosen people. Maimonides maintains that the choosing of the Jewish people was a result of the rejection of God by the rest of creation and their adoption of idolatry. It was the failure of mankind from Adam onwards to maintain their relationship with God which led to the isolating of a specific group to carry out that which was originally given to all men. Thus, they were released from the laws of the Torah including the injunctions against receiving or paying interest. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Avoda Zara, chapter 1, halakhah 1-3. There are other commentators, like the Ramban (Nachmanides), who argued, on various grounds, that the taking of interest from Gentiles was permissible, but not obligatory. The Raivad, in his gloss on Maimonides’ Mishnah Torah, avers that we are to understand the Torah as granting permission to lend Gentiles money at interest rather than obliging us to do so. Rav Hiya, in the Talmudic discussion on the ruling in the Mishnah quoted above [Mishnah, Baba Metzia, chapter 5, mishnah 6], felt that one should be engaged in money lending to Gentiles only if there was no other occupation open to one, or only to the extent of providing a livelihood. Talmud Bavli, Baba Metzia 70b-71a. It seems, however, that their disagreement with Maimonides was based not on grounds of morality but rather on other considerations. For instance, in the same Talmudic discussion, Ravina held that moneylending to Gentiles led to general intercourse with them and should be limited in order to prevent Jews from learning from the evil ways of the Gentile world. On the other hand, Rabbeinu Tam, in the eleventh century, argued that since the Jewish-Gentile commerce was no longer limited, neither therefore should the practice of moneylending be limited. Finally, other sources like the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael (commenting on the parallel verse in Exodus [22:24] forbidding interest-bearing loans), argue that acts of chesed enjoined on the Jew, such as the interest-free loan, should be extended to non-Jews--in accordance with the principle in Jewish law that, “for the sake of peace,” Jews act on various principles of righteousness and kindness in their dealing with non-Jews, even when such behavior is not biblically obligatory.

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EXOD699 The Torah does not view interest taking as an intrinsically evil action, akin to murder or theft, or a would have forbidden it altogether. After all, those acts that are intrinsically evil are forbidden irrespective of whether they are done to Jew or Gentile. If, indeed, Judaism does not view interest as inherently evil, why, then, was interest taking (or giving) forbidden among Jews? The author of the Sefer Hachinukh, which is devoted to explaining the ideological basis for the commandments, seems to sum up the general opinion of Jewish authorities. Commenting on [this verse], it comments: “According to the normal morality of the world one should be entitled to charge for the use of one's money. However, since the whole purpose of the mitzvot is to purify the Jew, [God] instructed us to give up that which is acceptable by normal moral standards.” Mitzvah 66. (One may see as a parallel the injunction on the Jew to refrain from eating non-kosher food in order to elevate his material needs to a higher plane. The eating of such food is not detrimental, per se, and so, at their discretion, Gentiles may eat or not of it.) Following this idea, the Torah Temimah (a twentieth-century commentator) writes (on Deuteronomy 23:21) that “Our refraining from taking interest from one another is similar to the regulations of many trade and other associations in which the members provide each other with special benefits. Such benefits are not available to outsiders. Yet there is nothing to prevent others from establishing similar associations and providing the same help.”

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EXOD702 (Continued from [[DEUT1547]] Deuteronomy 28:47 serve AHAVCH 104). Suppose a certain person did not want to serve God joyfully. He did not extend the kindness to his fellow Jew that befitted his means and through which he would have fulfilled the positive Torah commandment [this verse]: "When you lend money…" Had he behaved properly his money would have eventually come back to him. Now he will, inevitably, lose many times that sum to strangers and he will be powerless to recover it from them. Even if a person does give some charity and performs some chesed with his money, but not in accordance with his means, then his money may become forfeited as a result. A curse will become attached to it. If others engage in a business venture with him, their capital will be lost because of him. (See Kethuvoth 66b/67a concerning the dwindling of Nakdimon ben Gurion's daughter's wealth).

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EXOD705 I know that the reader will think to himself: "Why should I set a sum aside like the Free Loan Societies in each city, and then hand out small loans? It is better for me to lend a large, single sum which I can afford, as a single loan, to a respectable person, for after all gemiluth chesed is a mitzvah whether the loan is made to the poor or the rich." This is a fallacy. Firstly, it is a greater mitzvah to lend to the poor. Chazal have explained [this verse]: "When you lend money to any of My people, to the poor with you…" to imply that if there are rich and poor, the poor take precedence (Bava Metzia 71a). Now where a person could not allocate more than a modest sum out of his capital, then if he were to loan it to the rich, there would remain nothing for him to loan to the poor. Scripture has taught that (Proverbs 2:5): "If you seek her as silver… then shall you understand the fear of God." In business, if one engages in a number of small transactions involving a certain amount, the total profit will be larger than if the whole amount would be used in a single transaction. So too in our context, when the person gives a number of loans, each for a small amount as is customary, he can perform hundreds of positive mitzvoth of the Torah in the course of one year. This would not be so if he lent a single large sum to one individual. In the same period, he might only perform a few mitzvoth. Similarly, the Tanna (Pirkei Avoth 3:15) has laid down that "the world is judged by grace, yet all is in accord with the majority of deeds" (i.e. the world is judged according to which number of deeds is the larger, if the good, then the judged shall emerge victorious from their trial).

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EXOD712 See [[EXOD296]] Exodus 18:20 way AHAVCH 26

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EXOD710 Maimonides lists seven biblical Commandments enjoining the giving of charity (Sefer HaMitzvot 120-124, 130, 197). These multiple laws attest to the great importance attached to charity in Judaism and also to the need for overcoming a well-entrenched natural reluctance to part with one's hard-earned money. Of the seven commandments, six are obligatory levies raised from the produce of the soil. Interestingly, the single voluntary charity specified in the Bible is not an outright gift of money but a loan [this verse]. Judaism regards help extended to the poor with a view toward enabling them to become self-supporting as the most laudable form of charity (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Matanot Aniyim 10:7). The Book of Psalms brackets making an interest-free loan with giving alms as an act whose merit shall endure forever (112:5, 9). (Continued at [[LEV1031]] Leviticus 25:35 kinsman BLOCH 51-2)

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