I recently listened to a
Freakonomics podcast entitled, “How to Raise Money Without Killing a Kitten”[1]
(designed, as you might guess, to launch a fundraising campaign for the
podcast). University of Chicago economist
John List, who has studied charitable giving in America, marshaled data to
shoot down the “myth” of altruism. People are driven by “purely self interest,”
often the warm glow they derive from giving. List advises that to induce people
to give more money, we should appeal to what giving can do for the giver (such
as the “warm glow” effect), or alternatively employ the strategy, “if you don’t
give today this [i.e., the benefit you derive from the cause] will actually be
taken away and you will no longer be able to use it.”
Is altruism a Jewish value? Is it
one the Sages expect, support, and seek to cultivate? Or do they operate under
the assumption that people need a self-serving motive to give generously?
Tzedakah is a mitzvah, but it differs from “charity” because tzedakah is a
commandment and not caritas, which is
given out of pure altruistic love and therefore optional. Torah (in the broad
sense that includes Talmud) seems to prefer the pragmatic to the idealistic;
the poor are hungry today.
Tzedakah
tatzil mi-mavet. “Tzedakah saves from death” is found in the Book of
Proverbs (10:2 and 11:4) and the Rabbis quote it liberally. Hyperbolically, the
Rabbis tell us:
R. Yehudah says: Ten strong things have been created in
the world. The rock is hard, but the iron cleaves it. The iron is hard, but the
fire softens it. The fire is hard, but the water quenches it. The water is
strong, but the clouds bear it. The clouds are strong, but the wind scatters
them. The wind is strong, but the body bears it. The body is strong, but fear
crushes it. Fear is strong, but wine banishes it. Wine is strong, but sleep
works it off. Death is stronger than all, but charity saves from death, as it
is written, Righteousness [tzedakah]
delivers from death (Proverbs 10:2; 11:4). (BT Baba Batra 10a)
How altruistic is that? R. Chiyya
b. Avin learned from R. Yochanan that we find this expression not once, but
twice, in Scripture because tzedakah saves one from both an unnatural death and the punishment of Gehenna (BT Baba
Batra 10a). Perhaps tzedakah tatzil
mi-mavet, which does not appeal to altruism, is a good fundraising
strategy.
The Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud) offers
a wonderful discussion of tzedakah in Masechet Peah 5a. There is no pretense of
altruism here. R. Abba boldly states that God protects those who give tzedakah to
the poor from having to pay a variety of taxes and levies imposed by the Roman
government. This is the good kind of payback:
R. Abba said: If you give of your funds to tzedakah, the Holy One
blessed be God will guard you from tributes, fines, head taxes, and tithes
[levied by the Roman government].
I understand that my
contributions to MAZON are tax deductible,
but R. Abba is promising me that God will arrange a tax credit. Others will have to pay the government assessments, but I
will be somehow exempt. It seems a brazen claim. The Bavli (Babylonian Talmud) makes
a similar claim, while paying lip service to altruism: it is preferable to give
for the sake of the mitzvah itself, but in the end, God will recompense the
giver.
R. Yehudah b. R. Shalom preached as follows: In the same way that
a man's earnings are determined for him on Rosh Hashanah, so are his losses
[i.e. expenditures] determined for him on Rosh Hashanah. If he finds merit [in
the eyes if God], then, share your bread
with the poor (Isaiah 58:7) [i.e., if he gives tzedakah to the poor] but if
not, then he will take the wretched poor
into his home (Isaiah 58:8) [the wretched tax collectors will arrive on his
doorstep].
An example is the nephews of Rabban Yochanan b. Zakkai. [Rabban
Yochanan] dreamed that [his nephews] would lose seven hundred dinarim that year. He accordingly
pressured them to give tzedakah; he convinced them to give all but seventeen dinarim [of the seven hundred]. On the
eve of Yom Kippur, the Government sent and seized [the remaining seventeen dinarim]. R. Yochanan b. Zakkai said to
[his nephews], “Do not fear [that you will lose more]; you had seventeen dinarim and these they have taken [i.e.,
they cannot take more].” They said to him, “How did you know that this was
going to happen?” He replied, “I saw it in a dream.” “Then why did you not tell
us?” they asked. He replied, “Because I wanted you to do the mitzvah [of giving
tzedakah] for its own sake,[2] without knowing you would
lose the money anyway.” (BT Baba Batra 10a)
R. Yochanan b. Zakkai
receives divine intelligence (the dream) that on Rosh Hashanah God determined
that his nephews would lose a great deal of money in the year just beginning.
He coerces them into giving most of it—all but 17 dinarim—to tzedakah. As a result, when the Roman tax collector come
to town and knock on their door, they have a mere 17 dinarim to hand over. Better the money should be in the hands of
the poor than in the hands of the Roman government. This passage raises some troubling
questions: If Rabban Yochanan must pressure his nephews into giving—indeed
hounding and coercing them, as the story suggests—they are certainly not the models
of altruistic generosity. Rather, tzedakah is here a scheme to avoid paying
taxes: if you don’t have it, you can’t pay it. Or, as economic John List
expressed the fundraising tactic, “If you don’t give today this will
actually be taken away and you will no longer be able to use it.” Tzedakah
here is a tax dodge, echoing R. Abba’s contention that God protects those who
give tzedakah from the tax collector’s reach.
In the Yerushalmi
(Jerusalem Talmud), the Gemara supports R. Abba’s troubling contention with a
story about King Munbaz[3]
who lived in the first century of the Common Era. (The Bavli has a version of
this story, as well, in Baba Batra 11a.)
King Munbaz arose and dissolved all his possessions [to feed] the
poor. His relatives sent [a message] to
him saying: Your forefathers added to what was theirs and their fathers, while
you have squandered what is yours and your forefathers! He said to them: All
the more so! My forefathers stored away [wealth] on earth, while I have stored
away [wealth] in heaven, as it is says, Truth
springs up from the earth and tzedakah looks down from heaven (Psalm
85:12). My forefathers stored away treasures that do not yield fruit, while I
stored away treasures that yield fruit, as it is said, Say of the tzaddik that it will go well because he will eat the fruit
of his deeds (Isaiah 3:10). My forefathers put away that which the [human]
hand has the power [to destroy], while I have put away that over which the hand
has no power, as it is said, Tzedakah
u’mishpat) are the foundation of his throne (Psalm 97:2). My forefathers
put away money, while I have put away souls [i.e., saved lives], as it is said,
[The fruit of the tzaddik is a tree of
life] and one who acquires souls is wise (Proverbs 11:30). My forefathers
put away [wealth] for others, while I put away [wealth] for myself, as it is
written, it will be for you tzedakah
[before the Lord your God] (Deuteronomy 24:13). My forefathers amassed
[wealth] in this world, while I amass [wealth] for the world-to-come, as it is
said, Charity will save from death (Proverbs
10:2 and 11:4).
Munbaz’s relatives
are appalled that the king is depleting the family’s storehouse of riches
accumulated over many generations, “squandering” them by distributing money to
the poor. We might presume that previously they could tap into it for their own
purposes. Munbaz, however, is invested in assuring his chelek in olam ha-ba (his
portion, or reward, in the world-to-come). While King Munbaz’s actions can only
be described as righteous, his motivations are hardly altruistic. He fully
expects to be compensated in olam ha-ba,
yet the Rabbis applaud his intentions and hold him aloft as a model of
righteousness. They place in his mouth all their arguments concerning the
benefits of giving tzedakah.
All of this seems at first glance a
far cry from the idealism expressed in BT Ketubot 67b, which seeks to interpret
the claim in Deuteronomy 15:8 that we are to give someone in need, Sufficient for whatever he needs, even
if that borders on the ridiculous, or indeed leaps entirely over the border (e.g.,
Hillel running like a horse before a recipient of tzedakah, providing expensive
meats and wines to the poor). But Ketubot 67 does not deny the payoff of
tzedakah; rather, it focuses on how to
go about the important business of distributing money to those in need.
Fundraisers remind us that the size
of a donation is not as important as habituating people to giving. The Rabbis accept
human nature for what it is and seek to maximize the good that can come of it.
R. Dostai ben R. Yannai preached: Observe that the ways of
God are not like the ways of flesh and blood. How does flesh and blood act? If
a man brings a present to a king, it may be accepted or it may not be accepted;
and even if it is accepted, it is still doubtful whether he will be admitted to
the presence of the king or not. Not so God. If a man gives but a farthing to a
beggar, he is deemed worthy to receive the Divine Presence, as it is written, I shall behold Your face in tzedakah, I
shall be satisfied when I awake with Your likeness (Psalms 17:15]). R.
Eliezer used to give a coin to a poor man and straightway say a prayer, because
he said it is written, I shall behold
Your face in righteousness [i.e., when I perform an act of righteousness, I
will be able to behold God’s countenance]. (BT Baba Batra 10a)
The Rabbis are pragmatists. They see
no problem in people feeling good about the acts of righteousness they perform.
The better we feel, the more we are likely to do. Truly, as R. Yehudah teaches:
Great is charity, in that it brings the redemption nearer,
as it says, Thus said the Lord: Observe
what is right and do what is just (tzedakah), for soon My salvation shall come, and my deliverance be revealed
(Isaiah 56:1). (BT Baba Batra 10a)
© Rabbi Amy
Scheinerman
[2] In
Mishnah Pirke Avot 1:3 we find: “Antigonus of Socho received the Torah
from Shimon ha-Tzaddik. He used to say: Do not be like servants who serve their
master for the sake of receiving a reward, but be like servants who serve their
master not upon the condition of receiving a reward; and let the fear of Heaven
be upon you.”
[3] Munbaz
II (also written Monobaz) was the first century C.E. king of Abiadene, which is
in present-day Iraq. King Munbaz was the son of Queen Helene (d. ~56 C.E.) and
Munbaz I. Josephus (I.c. #5) writes
of Queen Helene’s generosity, describing how she had corn brought from
Alexandria and dried figs from Cyprus to distribute during a famine. It appears
that Talmud may have transferred credit for her deeds to her son, Munbaz II.
1 comment:
An hon
Post a Comment