Making poverty history | The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com | Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l | 25 Av 5784 – Thursday, August 29, 2024

Listen to these stories. Behind them lies an extraordinary insight into the nature of Jewish ethics:

Story 1. Rabbi Abba used to tie money in a scarf, throw it on his back and give it to the poor (Ketubot 67b).

Story 2. Mar Ukba had a poor man in his neighborhood into whose socket he used to drop four coins every day. Once the poor man thought, “I will go and see who is doing me this kindness.” That day, Mar Ukba stayed late at the study house and his wife came home with him. As soon as the poor man saw them move the door (to leave the coins) he ran after them, but they ran from him and hid. Why did they do this? Because it was taught: “One should throw himself into a burning furnace rather than publicly shame his neighbor”Ketubot 67b).

Story 3. When Rabbi Jonah saw a man of good family who had lost his money and was ashamed to accept charity, he went and said to him: “I heard that an inheritance came to you in a city across the sea. So here is an article of some value. Sell ​​it and use the proceeds. When you are richer, you will repay me.” As soon as the man took it, Rabbi Jonah would say, “It is yours to keep as a gift” (Vayikra Rabba 34:1).

These stories are all deeply connected to the mitzvah tzedakahthe source of which is in this week’s leave:

If any of your fellow Israelites are poor in any of the cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward them. Rather, be open-handed and lend them freely whatever they need (Deut. 15:7-8).

Give them generously and do it without a wandering heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open to your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land (Deut. 15:10-11).

What we have here is a unique and still outstanding program to eradicate poverty.

The first extraordinary fact about his laws tzedakah as articulated in the Oral Tradition is the concept itself. Tzedakah it does not mean “charity”. We see this immediately in the form of a law inconceivable in any other moral system:

Someone who doesn’t want to give tzedakah or to give less than is proper may be compelled to do so by a Jewish court (Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor, 7:10).

Charity is always voluntary. Tzedakah it is mandatory. Therefore, tzedakah it does not mean charity. The closest equivalent in English is social justice.

The second is the principle evident in the above three stories. Poverty in Judaism is conceived not only in material terms: the poor lack the means of support. It is also conceived in psychological terms. Poverty is humiliating. It robs people of their dignity. It makes them dependent on others—thereby depriving them of the independence that the Torah considers essential to self-respect.

This profound psychological insight is eloquently expressed in the third paragraph of Grace After Meals:

Please, Lord our God, do not make us dependent on other people’s gifts or loans, but only on Your full, open, holy and generous hand, so that we will not suffer shame or humiliation forever and ever.

As a result, Jewish law focuses not only on how much we should give, but also how we do it. Ideally, the donor should not know to whom he is giving (story 1), nor should the recipient know who he is receiving from (story 2). The third story exemplifies another principle:

If a poor person does not want to accept tzedakahwe should practice a form of (benign) deception and give it under the guise of a loan (Laws of Poor Gifts, 7:9).

Maimonides summarizes the general principle thus:

He who shows mercy to the poor with bad grace and with a downcast look has lost all the merit of his action, even though he gives him a thousand gold coins. He should give with grace and joy, and sympathize with him in his plight, as it is said, “Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor? (Job 30:25; Laws of gifts to the poor, 10:4).

This is the logic behind two laws that are otherwise inexplicable. The first is:

Even a poor person who is addicted to tzedakah is obliged to give tzedakah (Laws of the gifts of the poor, 7:5).

The law seems absurd. Why give money to the poor so they can give to the poor? It only makes sense from this assumption, that giving is essential to human dignity and tzedakah it is the obligation to ensure that everyone has this dignity.

The second is this famous decision of Maimonides:

The highest degree of charity, second to none, is when a person helps a poor Jew by giving him a gift or a loan or taking him into a business partnership or helping him find a job – in a word putting him in a situation where he can dispense with the help of others (Laws of gifts to the poor, 10:7).

Giving someone a job or making them your partner would not normally be considered charity. It doesn’t cost you anything. But this still serves to show that tzedakah it does not mean charity. It means giving people the means to live a dignified life, and in the Jewish value system any form of employment is more dignified than addiction.

We have in this judgment of Maimonides of 12^th century the principle that Muhammad Yunus rediscovered in our time and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize: the idea of ​​micro-loans to enable poor people to start small businesses. It’s a very powerful idea.

Unlike many other religious systems, Judaism refused to Romanize poverty or anesthetize its pain. Faith is not what Karl Marx called “the opium of the people.” The rabbis refused to see poverty as a blessed state, a suffering to be born with acceptance and grace. Instead, the rabbis called it “a kind of death” and “worse than fifty plagues.” They said: “Nothing is harder to bear than poverty, for he who is crushed by poverty is like one to whom all the troubles of the world cling, and upon whom all the curses of Deuteronomy have descended. If all other troubles were placed on one side and poverty on the other, poverty would surpass them all.”

Maimonides went to the heart of the matter when he said:

The welfare of the soul can be obtained only after that of the body has been secured (Guide for the Perplexed, 3:27).

Poverty is not a noble state. You cannot reach spiritual heights if you have no food, no roof over your head, no access to medical care, or financial worries. I know of no healthier approach to poverty, welfare, and social justice than Judaism. Unsurpassed in its time, it remains to this day the landmark of a decent society.