Justice, not charity
The English word charity comes from the Latin word for love. The Hebrew word tzedakah comes from tzedek, justice.
Charity sounds like something extra: a kind thing you choose to do when you feel generous. Tzedakah comes from the same root as tzedek (justice) and tzaddik (a righteous person), and in Jewish law it is not extra. It is a mitzvah, a commandment. When Jewish courts had the power, a person who gave less than he should could be made to give (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 248:1). The Torah says it like this:
The Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Egypt, 1100s, whose Mishneh Torah is a code of all of Jewish law) counts two commandments in these verses. "Open your hand" is a positive commandment, something you must do. "Do not shut your hand" is a negative one, something you must not do. You break it when a poor person asks, and you look away and give him nothing:
Why does it matter so much? The Rambam says tzedakah is the mark of the righteous, the children of Avraham Avinu (our father Avraham):
He is quoting what God says about Avraham:
So how much does the Torah ask you to give?
How much should you give?
The Rambam gives a range. A tenth is average. A fifth is the best way. Less than a tenth he calls a stingy eye (a mean, ungenerous spirit). Put in what you earn and see the numbers.
Here is the Rambam's rule in his own words:
A fifth of what? The Shulchan Aruch (the standard code of Jewish law, by Rabbi Yosef Karo, Tzfat, 1500s) says it the same way: if you can afford it, give the poor what they need. The fifth and the tenth are for when you cannot. Then it says what the fifth is counted from:
Is there a top limit? The Sages set one. Meeting in the town of Usha in the Galilee, they made a rule:
The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, Krakow, 1500s, whose notes on the Shulchan Aruch give the Ashkenazi practice) brings the same limit, and says when it ends:
The Gemara's own example is Mar Ukva, who gave away half of his money as he was dying (Ketubot 67b).
Before taxes or after? Which work costs come off first? What about a student with no income yet? Poskim (rabbis who decide Jewish law) answer these questions in different ways. The numbers above show the Rambam's range. For how to count your own income, ask your rav.
Once you know how much, the Rambam asks a better question: how?
The eight levels of giving
The Rambam lists eight levels of tzedakah, each one higher than the one below it. The top one is not the biggest gift. Tap a level.
Highest
Lowest
One way to read the ladder: what moves a level up is not the size of the gift. Level seven gives less than he should and still stands above level eight. What moves a level up is how it feels to be the poor person: whether he had to ask, whether he had to face the giver, and at the very top, whether he will ever have to ask again. (The Rambam gives a reason of his own only at level two: when neither side knows, it is "a mitzvah done for its own sake.") He takes the top level from a verse about a brother who is starting to slip:
That is why the top level is about what the help does, not what form it takes. A gift, a loan, a partnership or a job all count, if they put him back on his feet. A handout helps today. Help like this means he does not have to come back tomorrow.
If you cannot give to everyone, who comes first?
Who comes first?
Nobody can give to everyone. The Shulchan Aruch and the Rema give an order that starts close to home and moves out. Tap a number.
The Torah's own words point to this order: "to your brother, to your poor, and to your needy, in your land" (Devarim 15:11). The Rambam brings that verse for it (Gifts to the Poor 7:13). The Gemara (the Talmud's discussion of the Mishnah) reads the same order into a verse about lending money, "if you lend money to My people, to the poor who is with you" (Shemot 22:24):
"First" matters most when there is not enough for everyone. It is not a list of who counts. The Gemara also rules, in another tractate, that Jewish communities support the poor of non-Jews along with the Jewish poor (Gittin 61a; tap "Non-Jewish poor" above).
How you give can matter as much as how much you give.
How to give
The same coin can be a mitzvah or an insult. Seven rules from the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch and the Gemara.
With a pleasant face
A thousand gold coins can still be the wrong gift:
With words, even when you have nothing to give
for giving a poor person a coin
for comforting him with words
The Gemara counts the blessings from the verses in Yeshayahu 58. The Rambam puts the two together: when you can, you give and comfort him (10:4). When you have nothing, you still comfort him:
Never empty-handed
Right away
Nachum Ish Gamzu was a great sage who suffered terribly. When his students asked how a righteous man could suffer like that, he said he had brought it on himself, and told them why. He had been on the road to his father-in-law's house with three donkeys loaded with food, drink and treats:
Without shaming him
Mar Ukva took this so seriously that he hid in a hot furnace rather than be seen. His story is below.
Without bragging
So, by our reading, a plaque on a building you paid for is fine. Telling everyone at the table how much you gave is not.
Bring others along
The Sages taught all of this through stories.
Six stories about giving
A Roman ruler's question, an empty fund, a king's treasury, a hot furnace, old wine for a poor man, and a pin in a wall. Step through them.
Rabbi Akiva's daughter gave her own plate of food from the wedding meal to a poor man. Which brings up the question most people are afraid to ask.
Will giving make you poorer?
It is the first worry most people have. The Rambam answers it in one line.
"Go and test it"
Rabbi Yochanan once met the young son of Reish Lakish, his study partner, and asked him to say the verse he was learning. The boy said: aser te'aser, "you shall surely tithe" (Devarim 14:22). Then the boy asked what it meant. Rabbi Yochanan read the words as a play on ashir, rich:
The boy asked how he knew. "Go and test it," said Rabbi Yochanan. The boy pushed back: is anyone allowed to test God? The Torah says "Do not test Hashem" (Devarim 6:16). Rabbi Yochanan answered with a teaching of Rabbi Hoshaya: except here, because the prophet Malachi says, about bringing the tithe:
The boy had the last word: if I had already reached that verse, I would not have needed you or your teacher Rabbi Hoshaya (אִי הֲוָת מָטֵי הָתָם לְהַאי פְּסוּקָא, לָא הֲוֵית צְרִיכְנָא לָךְ וּלְהוֹשַׁעְיָא רַבָּךְ). The Rema rules this way, and adds that some limit it to giving a tenth:
The money was leaving either way
The Gemara has another way of looking at it. On Rosh Hashanah, it says, it is decided how much a person will earn that year, and also how much he will lose:
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai saw in a dream that his nephews were going to lose seven hundred dinars (silver coins) that year. He did not tell them. He just kept pressing them to give tzedakah, and they gave, until only seventeen dinars of the seven hundred were left. On the day before Yom Kippur, the government sent men who seized them. Their uncle told them not to be afraid: they would lose only the seventeen dinars, and no more. How did you know? they asked, and he told them about the dream. Then why didn't you tell us? He answered:
The seven hundred were going to leave them either way. Tzedakah decided where most of it went.
And the Sages put one thing even above tzedakah.
Tzedakah and kindness
Tzedakah is giving money. Gemilut chasadim, acts of kindness, can be giving yourself, too.
Your body, not only your money
Visiting the sick, helping someone move, sitting with a mourner. No money changes hands.
The rich, too
A rich person can be lonely, sick or grieving. Kindness is for anyone who needs it.
Even after death
Caring for the dead and burying them is what Rashi calls a true kindness, because the one who does it expects nothing back (Rashi on Bereishit 47:29).
The same page of the Gemara joins the two together. Rabbi Elazar says that tzedakah is rewarded by how much kindness is in it (אֵין צְדָקָה מִשְׁתַּלֶּמֶת אֶלָּא לְפִי חֶסֶד שֶׁבָּהּ). Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, France, 1000s, the classic commentator on the Torah and the Talmud) explains what that means:
Rashi reads Mar Ukva's wife's answer in the furnace the same way (see the story above). And the Midrash (the Sages' teachings on the verses) adds a twist. You might think the giver is doing all the giving. Rabbi Yehoshua says the opposite:
His proof is Ruth. After her first day gathering grain in Boaz's field, she told Naomi: "The name of the man I did for today is Boaz" (Ruth 2:19). Not the man who did for me. The man I did for:
Common questions
Short answers, with sources.
What is the difference between tzedakah and charity?
Charity is something you choose to do. Tzedakah, from tzedek (justice), is a commandment: a positive one to open your hand and a negative one not to close it (Devarim 15:7-8; Rambam, Gifts to the Poor 7:1-2). When Jewish courts had the power, they could make a person give what he should (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 248:1).
How much tzedakah should I give?
The Rambam: up to a fifth is the best way, a tenth is average, less than a tenth is a stingy eye, and never less than a third of a shekel (an ancient silver coin) a year (Gifts to the Poor 7:5). The Shulchan Aruch counts the first year from what you own and each year after from what you gain (Yoreh De'ah 249:1). The Sages set a top limit of a fifth during your life, so that you do not come to need help yourself (Ketubot 50a and 67b; Rema, Yoreh De'ah 249:1).
Is the tenth counted before taxes or after?
Poskim answer this, and how to treat work costs, in different ways. Ask your rav.
What are the Rambam's eight levels of tzedakah?
From the highest: (1) strengthening a person before he falls, with a gift, a loan, a partnership or a job; (2) neither the giver nor the poor person knows the other; (3) the giver knows, the poor person does not; (4) the poor person knows, the giver does not; (5) giving before being asked; (6) giving after being asked; (7) giving less than is fitting, but with a pleasant face; (8) giving unhappily (Gifts to the Poor 10:7-14; Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 249:6-13).
Who should I give to first?
The Rema's order: your own living, then your parents if they are poor, then your children, your siblings, other relatives, neighbors, the poor of your city, and then the poor of another city. The Shulchan Aruch adds that those who live in Eretz Yisrael come before those who live outside it (Yoreh De'ah 251:3). Redeeming captives comes before feeding and clothing the poor (Rambam, Gifts to the Poor 8:10).
Can tzedakah go to people who are not Jewish?
Yes. The Gemara rules that Jewish communities support the non-Jewish poor along with the Jewish poor, visit their sick and bury their dead, "because of the ways of peace" (Gittin 61a; Rambam, Gifts to the Poor 7:7). Whether such gifts count toward your own tenth is a question for your rav.
What if the person asking is faking?
If someone you do not know says he is hungry, you feed him right away without checking. If he asks for clothing, you may check first (Rambam, Gifts to the Poor 7:6). Rabbi Elazar even said we should be grateful to the fakers: without them, we would be sinning every day by turning poor people away (Ketubot 68a).
Is it all right to put my name on a donation?
Yes. The Rema forbids boasting about your tzedakah, but says someone who dedicates something to tzedakah may have his name written on it as a remembrance, and that it is proper to do so (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 249:13).
Is it really allowed to "test" God with tzedakah?
The Gemara says tithing is the one place it is allowed, based on Malachi 3:10 (Taanit 9a). The Rema rules so, and brings an opinion that this applies only to giving a tenth, not to other tzedakah (Yoreh De'ah 247:4).
Should someone who needs help take it?
A person should push himself, even at a degrading job, rather than depend on others (Rambam, Gifts to the Poor 10:18). But someone who really cannot live without help, like a person who is old or sick, and refuses to take it out of pride, the Rambam calls someone who sheds blood, guilty for his own life (10:19).
Why do people give tzedakah before they pray?
The great Sages would give a coin to a poor person before every prayer, and then pray, based on the verse "With tzedek I will see Your face" (Tehillim 17:15; Rambam, Gifts to the Poor 10:15; Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 249:14).
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