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PDF FormatThe enforcement of charitable giving, then, exists entirely on the moral and ritual, rather than civil and legal, plane. This is not the same kind of enforcement as the award of damages or the forced fulfillment of a contractual obligation. The aim here is to effect not justice, but virtue—not to limit one’s wealth, but to increase personal responsibility. When someone refuses to give charitably, it is not the poor person who files a claim against him, but the community which seeks to rid itself of wrongdoing. There is no question as to how much money a poor person requires, or what constitutes poverty. There is only one question: Is the giver acting as a responsible, moral individual?
Unlike the classic Christian view, which disdains wealth and considers property rights to be limited to man’s basic needs, Judaism praises man’s financial independence, encourages him to work hard and to create and to enjoy the fruits of his labor, so long as they are obtained honestly. But Judaism insists that man also exhibit a sense of responsibility for his world, including the plight of the needy. It is this combination of honest labor and the giving of charity that mark the true fulfillment of man’s divine nature. Uniquely entrusted with sovereignty over this world, man not only will be strong and independent, but will also temper his power with a sense of responsibility.
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Unlike the socialist outlook, Judaism holds a fundamentally positive view of individual wealth. Property is an expression of man’s sovereignty, his capacity to rule over the material world, so that he may benefit from it, care for it, and perfect it through creative acts. It is the most apparent means through which “God’s image” is expressed in human life. It is the necessary and inevitable outcome of man’s uniqueness among all God’s creatures.
In Judaism, sovereign control over one’s property is not conditional upon giving charity. The opposite is true: The ability to give charity is conditional upon private wealth. This is reflected in Jewish civil law, which, as we have seen, forcefully defends individual property rights. This does not mean, of course, that Judaism’s view of a good society is based solely on the institution of private property, or that it disregards the plight of the poor. On the contrary, Jewish law insists that man take responsibility for his fellow man, show compassion, and give charity. This is only possible, however, when man has full control over his property and is free to accumulate wealth through honest means. Man’s responsibility for his fellow man does not impinge upon his legal right of ownership, but is a powerful moral demand. Charity is a deed that flows from strength of character rather than the weakness of one’s claim to property. It is a mark of responsibility, and as such it can only have meaning when one has the legal freedom to do with one’s property as he wishes.
Is it possible to draw conclusions from this with respect to economic policy? It is fair to suggest that any economic system that sets severe limits on the individual’s control over his property, restricts the degree of wealth one may attain through honest means, or undermines his capacity to give charity voluntarily is inconsistent with a desire to enable man to act in accordance with the Jewish understanding of the godliness within him. An economic system based on the redistribution of income with the aim of fostering economic equality is likely to violate many of these basic tenets. By supporting a great portion of its population through transfer payments, such a system encourages dependence and undermines the value of hard work and creative innovation. At the same time, the heavy taxation required to sustain such a system seems to violate the basic right to private property, and undermines the incentive to work, innovate, and take responsibility. The Jewish approach seeks to encourage individual responsibility and innovation among both society’s most successful and its poorest members, for it is in these qualities that man acts as one created in God’s image.
None of this is to say that the government cannot create a safety net for society’s poor through taxes. If citizens are given the economic breathing room to support the needy through philanthropy, it is legitimate to demand that all citizens contribute a minimum amount to that end—perhaps even using the biblical model of a ten-percent minimum of charitable contribution. Regardless of the way it is implemented, what makes a welfare system accord with the principles of a Jewish economics is not that the solution to economic distress be laid solely on the shoulders of individuals, but that it befound through policies which encourage a sense of responsibility among all citizens, wealthy and poor. True charity stems, first and foremost, from the goodness of one’s heart, and not from the mechanism of coercion. In the words of Rabbi Elazar: “The reward of charity depends entirely upon the kindness in it.”69
Yosef Yitzhak Lifshitz’s last book was Secret of the Sabbath (2000). He is an Associate Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, where he is working on a study of Jewish political thought in medieval Europe. This essay is dedicated to the memory of Zalman C. Bernstein, who dedicated his life to the prosperity and well-being of the Jewish people.
Notes
1. Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem and Other Jewish Writings,trans. Yeshurun Keshet (Jerusalem: Zionist Library, 1983), pp. 170-171. [Hebrew]
2. Chaim Arlosoroff, “Jewish Popular Socialism”, in The Writings of Chaim Arlosoroff, ed. Yaakov Steinberg (Tel Aviv: Shtibel, 1934), vol. iii, p. 55. [Hebrew] See also Nachman Syrkin, The Jewish Question and the Socialist Jewish State, trans. Efraim Broida (Tel Aviv: Hakibutz Hameuhad, 1986), p. 80 [Hebrew]: “The existence of the Jews is a protest against violence, a fight for justice, man’s striving to maintain his selfhood. The Jews have embodied a substantial portion of human merit, which would be lost with the destruction of the Jews. The destruction of the Jews is therefore akin to the destruction of humanity.”
3. For two variations on this theme, see Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 3-6, 75-78, 92; and Meir Tamari, With All Your Possessions: Jewish Ethics and Economic Life (Jerusalem: Jason Aronson, 1998). As Tamari puts it: “Charity is not simply an act of kindness but rather the fulfillment of a legal obligation”; “The community has a responsibility for the welfare of its members and a corresponding right to finance those needs through taxation over and above the individual’s duty to contribute to charity.” Tamari, With All Your Possessions, pp. 52, 240; see also p. 277.
On the question of the relationship between individual and community with regard to taxation in the interest of the poor, see also Hanoch Dagan, “The Laws of Wealth Creation: Between Judaism and Liberalism,” in Daniel Gotwein and Menahem Mautner, eds., Law and History (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1999), p. 179 [Hebrew]: “The giving of charity in Jewish tradition is not a matter of compassion, kindness, generosity, or personal conscience but of justice (which accounts for the close linguistic association between charity, tzedaka, and justice, tzedek). The giving of charity is the fulfillment of a legal obligation; the exercise of rights to the property of the wealthy, held by the community and by those within it whom fate has not blessed.” Dagan’s basic argument rests on the principle of “one benefits and the other does not lack,” which comes, in his opinion, from the halachic kofin al midat sedom (the obligation to act in an unselfish manner). The problem with this, however, is that, in the opinion of the majority of the rabbinic commentators, there is no connection between benefit with no attendant obligation and kofin al midat sedom. He errs, therefore, in his assumption that it is in some sense possible to force the rich to use their wealth to attend to the poor. Dagan believes that only if the poor man causes damage to the rich one may the latter be excused from his legal obligation to help him. Yet the theoretical quid pro quo between the “one who benefits” and the “other who does not lack” is contractual, and is dependent on the benefit. The moment that this benefit causes a loss for the other party, the theoretical contract is translated into a legal claim against the one who benefits. Only a benefit that entails no loss avoids creating a contractual debt or the basis for a legal claim.
4. For a comparison of the Jewish and Christian views of redemption and human capacity, see Meir Soloveichik, “Redemption and the Power of Man,” Azure 16, Winter 20, pp. 51-77.
5. See Yair Lorberbaum, Image of God: Halacha and Agada (Tel Aviv: Shocken, 2004), p. 149, note 10, [Hebrew] where he says: “For Christianity, man in God’s image became a historical tale of salvation. Paul, and later Origen and the entire Christian tradition, integrated the idea of God’s image with the myth of the fall from grace.” The ability of man to accept God’s grace, not from an active or creative standpoint, but from a passive one, is made clear in Etienne Gilson’s analysis of Aquinas: “This participation in the divine life is in man’s case the germ of a new life…. Grace, which is the germ of this life, affects man deeply, regenerating and, as it were, re-creating it. The soul thus affected is still a soul endowed with reason and intelligence. It is because it is capable of intellectual knowledge and therefore of friendship with God, that the human soul is able to receive this divine supernatural gift…. When grace divinizes the human soul it not only re-establishes the balance which had once been destroyed, but causes a new life to spring up, a life freely given to nature. This life participates in the divine and so, by reason of its source, will move spontaneously into the order of the eternal. It is called the ‘spiritual life,’ a term which implies that absolute transcendence of body and time which is characteristic of divine things.” Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas,trans. L.K. Shook (Notre Dame: Notre Dame, 1956), pp. 345-347.
6. Augustine, Patrologiae Latinae,ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1844-1864), Letter 133, 12, vol. 33; cited in Richard Schlatter, Private Property (London: Allen and Unwin, 1951), p. 37.
7. Augustine, Patrologiae Latinae,Letter 153, 6, vol. 33; cited in Schlatter, Private Property, p. 38.
8. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2-2, Que. 66, Art. 3.
9. Isidore of Seville adopted the differentiation between natural, national, and civil law as applied in Roman law and expressed in the Codex Justinianus. It follows from natural law that ownership is common to all. See Augustine, Patrologiae Latinae,5, 4, vol. 82. However, Isidore did not draw a clear distinction between natural and civil law, nor did he determine a value interface between the different legal systems; see Schlatter, Private Property, p. 41. This omission was later to cause considerable confusion in the canonical law, which was not resolved until Aquinas. Evidence of this confusion can be found in the writings of Isidore quoted in the great collection of twelfth-century canonical laws, the Gratianus collection. On the one hand, Gratianus contends that natural law is the permanent and unchanging basis of law, and every human law that contravenes natural law is null and void. See “Decterum Magistri Gratiani,” in Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Emil Friedberg (Leipzig: Officina Bernhardi Tauchnitz, 1879), Distinctions 5; 6, 3; 8, 1; and 9. On the other hand, he asserts, quoting the Church Fathers, that common ownership is the basis of natural law. Gratianus does not, however, explain how this can be consistent with private ownership.
10. Aquinas, Summa Theologica,2-2, Que. 66, Art. 7.
11. Gilson, Christian Philosophy, pp. 314-315.
12. Schlatter, Private Property,ch. 5.
13. Job 31:2.
14. Brachot 58b.
15. Jerusalem Kidushin 4:12. See also Nedarim 10a: “If one who afflicted himself only with respect to wine is called a sinner, how much more so one who afflicts himself in many respects.”
16. Ecclesiastes Rabba, 7:13.
17. Genesis 1:28. This commandment was given to man while he was still in the Garden of Eden, and was not altered after he sinned. See also Yevamot 65b; Kidushin 35a.
18. Genesis 2:15.
19. Midrash Tehilim on Psalms 116; see also Genesis Rabba 99: “The Holy One creates worlds, and so, too, your father creates worlds.” Moreover, according to the sages, since man was created in the image of God, his first duty is to create a God-like man—a being in which soul and body merge: “Elazar ben Azaria says that whoever is not engaged in fertility and propagation sheds blood and negates the character according to which man was created in the image of God.” Tosefta Yevamot 8:7.
20. Traditional weekday morning prayer, Yotzer Or.
21. Genesis Rabba 11:6.
22. Cf. Yosef Yitzhak Lifshitz, “Secret of the Sabbath,” Azure 10, Winter 2001, pp. 85-117.
23. Deuteronomy 19:14.
24. Deuteronomy 25:13-16.
25. Deuteronomy 22:1.
26. Leviticus 19:13.
27. Exodus 20:14.
28. According to the rabbinic tradition, “You shall not covet” does not apply to thought alone, but rather to the act of bringing unreasonable pressure to bear on one’s neighbor in an effort to persuade him to hand over his property, even for monetary compensation. See, for example, Maimonides, Mishneh Tora, Laws of Robbery and Loss 1:9. However, even according to this interpretation, it is an extremely significant extension of the principle of private property.
29. I Kings 21:17-19.
30. Sanhedrin 108a.
31. Mishna Bava Batra 3:3. Some have attempted to define property on the basis of the discussion in Gitin 47b over whether “acquiring the fruits is like acquiring the body,” viz., if someone who buys the produce of a field is comparable to the owners of the field itself. It was established that ownership of fruit is not the same as ownership of the object: See Maimonides, Mishneh Tora,Laws of the First Fruits 4:6. Some have deduced from this that according to Jewish law, ownership is not determined solely by the right to make use of an object, since it is possible to draw up a contract by which one party is the owner of the object and the other of what it yields. Yet although this may be useful as a figurative example of ownership divorced from usage, it is a mistake to draw a parallel between objects and their yield, on the one hand, and possession and use, on the other. The owners of a field are still entitled to use it for purposes other than its produce. Moreover, ownership of the yield pertains not only to its use, but also to the full possession of that yield.
32. Mishna Bava Kama 8:7.
33. On the strength of this law, Rashi offered an interpretation of the rule cited in Bava Kama 26b, which exempts a man from punishment if he uses a stick to break a vessel that someone has thrown from a roof, while it is still in flight. Rabbi Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveichik, author of Beit Halevi, explained: “As has previously been said, if someone threw a vessel from the roof and someone comes along and breaks it with a stick, he is not liable. Why so? He broke that which was already broken.” Rashi adds on this case: “The owner of the vessel threw the vessel,” he and no other. Rashi’s insistence on this point is difficult to understand, since if the vessel is thrown by its owner from the top of the roof then it must be considered to have been abandoned, and there is no liability for damaging an abandoned object. The most likely answer is that by throwing the vessel, the owner demonstrated his ownership by doing with it as he pleased. Ownership in this case is shown not by the use of the vessel but by its deliberate willful destruction. Rabbi Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveichik, Responsa of the Beit Halevi (Vilna: Yosef Rubin, 1863), 1:24, 2:7. [Hebrew]
34. Bava Kama 119a.
35. Bava Kama 60b.
36. The single exception to this rule is the king, who is granted a special dispensation to confiscate or damage private property during an emergency without having to make restitution, insofar as he is acting for the public good. See Maimonides, Mishneh Tora,Laws of Damage, 8:2 R. Joseph Karo, Shulhan Aruch, Hoshen Mishpat, 388. According to Rashi, moreover, one man must sacrifice his life rather than damage someone else’s property. See Rashi on Bava Kama 60b, s.v. vayatzileha: “He may not burn it [even in order to pay afterwards] since it is forbidden to extricate himself by paying for it to be reinstated.” In contrast, see Responsa of Rabbi Solomon ben Aderet (Jerusalem: Or Hamizrach Institute, 1998), 4:17 [Hebrew]: “He may certainly save himself in order to pay.” See also Yoma 83b: “I deprived the shepherd and you deprived the entire city.”
37. Matthew 19:24. See also Vernon Bartlet, “The Biblical and Early Christian Idea of Property,” in Property, Its Duties and Rights: Historically, Philosophically, and Religiously Regarded, ed. Charles Gore (New York: Macmillan, 1922).
38. Brachot 8a.
39. Hulin 91a.
40. Shabbat 92a.
41. Exodus Rabba 31:14.
42. Pesahim 112b.
43. Leviticus 19:15
44. Cf. Ketubot 50a: “One who donates should not donate more than one-fifth lest it should be needed for others; and there is a story about one who wanted to donate [more than one-fifth] and his friend did not let him.” See also Karo, Shulhan Aruch, Yoreh De’a 249:1.
45. Psalms 112:5.
46. Maimonides, Mishneh Tora, Laws of Oaths and Vows 8:13.
47. Deuteronomy 15:11.
48. Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Friedlander (New York: Dover, 1956), 3:53, p. 393. By contrast, see Ephraim Frisch, An Historical Survey of Jewish Philanthropy (New York: Macmillan, 1924), p. 77. Frisch remarks on the etymological connection between charity and righteousness, which he says arose from a change of meaning between the language of the Bible and that of the sages. The meaning of tzedaka in the Bible is righteousness, meaning an attribute of a righteous person, whereas in the rabbinic literature it refers to the giving of charity to the needy. See also Tamari, With All Your Possessions,p. 36: “The divine origin of wealth is the central principle of Jewish economic philosophy. All wealth belongs to God, who has given it temporarily to man, for his physical well-being”; p. 52: “The ‘haves’ in Judaism have an obligation to share their property with the ‘have-nots,’ since it was given to them by God partly for that purpose.”
49. Ecclesiastes Rabba 4:6. One of the exceptions is Sefer Hasidim, from which it emerges that the wealth the rich man accumulates is considered robbery: “If the Holy One gives wealth to the rich man and he does not give to the poor, then he gives to one what could have provided for a hundred and the poor come and cry out before the Holy One, ‘You gave to him what could have provided for a thousand and he provided me no benefit.’ And God makes a calculation with the rich man as if he had robbed many and says to him, “I gave you wealth so that you could give according to your financial means to the poor and you did not give, so I will take back from you as if you had committed robbery and as if you abused my deposit because I put wealth into your hands so that you could distribute it to the poor and you appropriated the wealth for yourself.’” Rabbi Yehuda Hehasid, Sefer Hasidim (Berlin: Mekitsei Nirdamim, 1891), note 1345, p. 331 [Hebrew]; on the Christian spirit pervading this passage see Yitzhak Baer, “The Socio-Religious Tendency of Sefer Hahasidim,” Zion3 (1938), p. 29. [Hebrew]
50. Luke 14:12.
51. Aquinas, Summa Theologica,2-2, Que. 31, Art. 3.
52. Mechilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Masechta Dechaspa Mishpatim, ch. 19; Bava Metzia 71a.
53. Menahem Elon, Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles, trans. Bernard Auerbach and Melvin J. Sykes(Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1994), vol. i, p. 122: “Although all parts of the halacha are rooted in the same source, share the same principles and methods of analysis, and provide and receive reciprocal support, nevertheless, study of the halachic sources reveals that the halacha did make very fundamental distinctions between its two major categories, namely, monetary matters (that part of the halacha included in the concept of mamon) and non-monetary matters (that part of the halacha included in the concept of isur).”
54. Ketubot 40b, 46b; Kidushin 3b.
55. Bava Metzia 30b. On this subject, Menachem Elon, the foremost authority on the application of halachic jurisprudence to Israeli law (mishpat ivri) and a former justice of Israel’s Supreme Court, wrote as follows:
The failure to perform a civil norm [in Jewish law] is subject to judicial sanction, and a court will enforce compliance; not so a moral imperative—this is a matter for the individual himself, between God and conscience. The juridical realm does not involve itself in the performance or lack of performance of purely moral obligations and certainly does not enforce compliance.
Elon, Jewish Law, vol. i, p. 141; see also on the question of the distinction between law and religion and morality in the responsa of Rabbi Yehiel Jacob Weinberg, in Seridei Esh (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1977), part 1, note 65 [Hebrew]: “And now I will raise a general matter: It is well known how hard learned jurists strove to discover the dividing line between law and morality, or between law and equity. Books in foreign languages have already been written on the subject. And note that in the laws of Israel we have found explicit in Bava Metzia 83a in the story of the wine carriers: “He said, ‘Is that the law?’ He inquired. ‘Even so,’ he rejoined: ‘That you may walk in the way of good men.’” See also Ketubot 49b concerning the duty of a son to sustain his father.
56. Deuteronomy 15:7-8.
57. Rabbi Joseph Karo, Shulhan Aruch, Yoreh De’a 248:1. The commandment to act beyond what is required by the law is generally considered to be a sign of piety. See Maimonides, Mishneh Tora,Laws of Murder and Preservation of Life 13:4: “But if one is pious and does more than the letter of the law demands, even if he is a prince of the highest rank, still if he sees another’s animal crouching under its burden of straw or sticks or the like, he should help unload and reload.” See also Maimonides, Mishneh Tora,Laws of Robbery and Loss 11:7. On the other hand, the enforcement of selfless behavior is not a measure of piety but the policy of the rabbinical court and is a specific example of a ruling on moral and not legal grounds, in accordance with the instruction to the rabbinical court to educate the people and preserve the principles of religion and morality. See Maimonides, Mishneh Tora, Laws of the Sanhedrin and the Punishments Meted Out 24:4. The obligation to behave in a selfless manner has the authority of the Talmud (e.g., Bava Kama 21b) and Maimonides: “Thus also in all instances where one benefits while the other incurs no loss thereby, the latter is compelled to accede to the demand of the former.” Mishneh Tora,Laws of Neighbors 7:8.
58. Maimonides, Mishneh Tora,Laws of Gifts to the Poor 10:1.
59. Maimonides, Mishneh Tora,Laws of Gifts to the Poor 8:3.
60. See Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, Responsa of the Maharam Ben Baruch (Prague Press), note 75, s.v., “And to distribute his wealth [to his children].” See also Rabbi Moses Isserlis’ commentary on Shulhan Aruch, Yoreh De’a 249:1, and the commentary of Rabbi Shabtai ben Meir Hakohen (Shach) ad loc. sub-clause 3.
61. Mishna Demai 3:1; Mishna Kidushin 4:5; Mishna Bava Kama 10:1; cf. Jerusalem Pe’a 1:1.
62. See, for example, the discussion of this question in Bava Batra 8b.
63. Bava Batra 8b.
64. Ze’ev Falk, The Values of Law and Judaism: Towards a Philosophy of the Halacha (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1980), pp. 117, 119 [Hebrew]; Dagan, “Laws of Wealth Creation,” pp. 178-190; Shimon Federbush, Laws of the Kingdom in Israel (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1952), pp. 23-25, 126-128, 138-140 [Hebrew]; Aharon Lichtenstein, “A Clarification of Kofin al Midat Sedom,” in Jewish Philosophy in America, eds.Menachem Zohari, Aryeh Tartakover, and Haim Ormien (Tel Aviv: Brit Ivrit Olamit, 1973), pp. 380-381 [Hebrew]; Tamari, With All Your Possessions,pp. 36-38, 52-56, 210-211,240, 242-243, 248-249, 277; Frisch, Historical Survey,pp. 77, 80; Walzer, Spheres of Justice,pp. 3-6, 75-78, 92.
65. Yevamot 90b. According to this moral principle, Rabbi Isaac ben Avraham, one of the great twelfth-century Tosafists, compared the duty of charity to that of honoring one’s father and mother. See Tosafot to Bava Batra 8b, s.v. akfeh lerav natan; see also Rabbi Nisim Gerondi on Ketubot 18a; Nachmanides on Bava Batra 8b. For more on Rabbi Isaac ben Avraham, see Ephraim E. Urbach, The Tosafists: Their Lives, Writings and Methodology (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1996), pp. 261-271. [Hebrew]
66. Maimonides, Mishneh Tora,Laws of Giving to the Poor 7:10. Regarding the enforcement of moral laws in the form of migdar milta: “The court is empowered to flog him who is not liable for flagellation and to mete out the death penalty to him who is not liable for death. This extensive power is granted to the court not with the intention of disregarding the law, but in order to build a fence around it.” Maimonides, Mishneh Tora, Laws of the Sanhedrin 24:4.
67. Maimonides, Mishneh Tora, Laws of Divorce 2:20.
68. Bava Batra 48a.
69. Succah 49b.
