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DEUTERONOMY | 15:8 sufficient — DEUT754 How much economic help is one obligated t...

DEUT754 How much economic help is one obligated to give to his fellow man? Commenting on the passage "Thou shalt surely open thy hand," the Rabbi say, Open Thy hand even a hundred times. They interpret the words "sufficient for his needs" to mean that a man's needs are relative to his station in life. Hillel is said to have provided an impoverished descendent of a once prosperous family with a horse on which to take his exercise and a servant to attend him. Sifre, Deut. ad locum. Also Tosefta Pe'ah chap. 4:10. When Hillel could provide no servant for him, he himself "ran in front of him for three miles." Ketubot 67b. Sharing one's possessions with others is not associated in Judaism, as it is in other religions and philosophies, with any denigration of the possession of wealth. Sin does not inhere in affluence, nor virtue in poverty. The Rabbis, however, do not recommend the accumulation of wealth as a goal of life and frequently stress the pitfalls which surround the affluent. Hillel warned his students that "the more property, the more anxiety." Avot, chap. 2:8 ... However, the Jewish tradition does not commend such generosity as would reduce one to indigence and mendicancy, as is apparently urged by Jesus (numerous citations omitted) and is practiced by religious orders both in the west and the East. On the contrary, the Rabbis taught that one should not distribute in charitable gifts more than twenty percent of his resources at any one time. Ketubot 50a, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Arakhin veHaramin, ch. 8:13. The Rabbis do not permit one to dedicate all of his possessions even to God, and if he has done so, it is not to be accepted. Arakhin 28a.

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Source KeyGREENBERG
Verse15:8
Keyword(s)sufficient
Source Page(s)71-2

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