Part Two: The Sacred Economy:
Living on God's Land and from God’s Hand
Maintenance and Redemption
Chapter #4 - God, Giver of a Bountiful Land and the Poor’s Entitlement:
Maintenance of the Poor via Tithes, Peah and Shared Festival Meals
Chapter #5 – Redemption of Debtors/Slaves and the Jubilee:
God and/or Brother as Redeemer (Geulah)
“Proclaim Liberty in the Land to All the Inhabitants” (Lev. 25:10)
Chapter #6 - Paradoxes of Generosity:
Ancient Israel’s Free Loan Society and the Sabbatical Amnesty on Debts
Chapter #7 - The Triple Shabbat and its Implications
for Poverty, Accumulation of Wealth, and Human Freedom
Chapter #4 presents the agricultural support for the poor related to the third metaphor, God
as a landlord. Biblical texts warn us to refrain from taking complete credit and possession
over our accumulated wealth or land. Here we shift our discourse from the motivations
behind giving such as empathy and a variety of emotions to one focusing on the rights of the
poor. The category of Biblical welfare law significant to this chapter is geared to
maintenance, not rehabilitation. Its mode of giving is land-based, and it provides entitlements
to the poor by designating marginal portions of the produce of otherwise privately-owned
land. The old delivery of aid was seasonal in the land of Israel, occurring at harvest time
through the institutions of peah, leket, and shikhikha, whereas the modern approach has
acquired a broader application to include individuals outside of Israel and monetary
relevance. The monetary tithe under the ‘poor tithe’, is of particular interest because of its
widely bearing interpretation over the ages having run the gamut from a voluntary pious act
to an institutional obligation, and from personal, communal or ritual use to the benefit of the
less fortunate. The idea of tithing within the Jewish tradition will also be compared with a
variety of Christian interpretations, which are based on the idea of grace and tend to value
greater generosity with one’s possessions.
The great American oil baron and Baptist philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller, explained his
legendary generosity simply by acknowledging: “The good Lord gave me the money.”i The
story one tells oneself about the origins of one's wealth is essential to the narrative of why
one gives it away and to whom. In the next two chapters we will explore the rationale
behind four modes of agricultural giving to the needy that are all commanded in the Torah
by God. Those gifts are land-based and apply only to Jews living as farmers on their own
land in Eretz Yisrael because their narrative of wealth teaches them that God gave them this
promised land and allotted them their particular ancestral property, so they can say almost
like the Baptist, Rockefeller: “The good Lord gave me the land.”
What are these agricultural gifts to the needy from God’s gift to the farmer and how does
each add a twist to its rationale for being generous? In chronological order of their
distribution, the farmer first designates, during his harvest, the “corners of his field” – peah
– still filled with produce and still attached to the ground and to the vine. At that point “No
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Trespass” signs can be removed, so-to-speak, and the peah is now accessible to the poor and
that only the poor may harvest themselves. In the meantime the farmer harvests the rest of
the field a first time, but all that was left behind – still on the plants – now belongs to the
impoverished gleaners who collect what is called leket. After the harvest the farmer has his
produce bundled in the field and then removed for storage. Whatever bundles forgotten –
shikhikha – are reserved for the poor and prohibited to the farmer who accidentally forgot
them. In the meantime the bundled produce is counted, and a tenth is set aside – the tithe,
ma’aser – which is designated for the Levi or the poor depending on the year of the seven
year cycle. The tithe is presented to any chosen poor person at the farmer’s discretion, while
all the other gifts – peah, leket and shikhikha – are collected at the initiative of any indigent
and by their labor. When the farmer finally gathers his family for a feast after the harvest on
his agricultural holidays – Sukkot (Hag HaAsif) and Shavuot (Hag Hakatzir) – then too the
farmer shares his ready-made food with the needy at his table. Every seventh year, the
Sabbatical, the farmer is commanded to abandon his own field leaving it fallow, and thus
returning it to a state of ownerless nature. All the produce that grows naturally on what was
once a cultivated field is accessible at any time to the limited subsistence foraging of the
farmer and the poor equally. Finally on the Jubilee, once every 50 years, the land itself – not
its produce – is given away by whoever owns it to the original owner in the same ancestral
plots once distributed by God in the days of Joshua when the land was first conquered and
given out by a divinely regulated lottery. Thus the poor male citizens regain their
agricultural capital. Sabbatical and Jubilee will be discussed in future chapters.
The rationale for these gifts is, first and foremost, that:
Adonai our God brought us to this good land of river beds, springs and deeps in the valleys and
mountains. A land of wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, a land of olives, oil and [date] honey.
A land in which one may eat bread without scarcity, and nothing is lacking in it. ...You shall eat, be
satisfied and bless Adonai your God for the good land God gave you. (Dt. 8: 7-10)
Hence one is commanded to share one’s gift from God both with God directly through
sacrifices and offerings, and first fruits and hallah for bread with the priesthood and tribe of
Levi who serve God with these gift-offerings in the cult ’s gift-giving and one shares one’s
agricultural gift from God with God-designated needy from the land of Israel. Note that the
verse describes this land as one without “lack” (lo-tekhsar), so logically when there are
indigent in this land that God gave you, one is obligated to “open one’s hand” and provide
from God’s bounty “enough for their lack which they lack” - dei mahsoro asher yekhsar lo
– Dt. 15:8).
These methods of distribution of agricultural produce and the reasons for giving make no
sense outside of Eretz Yisrael unless we universalize the meaning of Divine giving as does
John Rockefeller, for example. In Jewish law most of these gifts to God, to the clergy and to
the poor have no legal standing from the Torah outside of Eretz Israel, though the rabbis
extended some of them such as peah to Jewish farmers outside Israel.
“All these gifts to the poor [peah. leket, shikhikha] are practiced according to the Torah solely in
Eretz Yisrael, as it says regarding terumah and tithes: when your harvest in your land, and in your
field (Lev. 19:9; Dt. 24:19). But the Talmud already commented that peah is practiced outside of
Eretz Yisrael according to rabbinic authority. It appears to me that this is also the case for the other
gifts to the poor that are practiced as rabbinic injunctions.” (Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor
1:14)
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An extension of the poor tithe from land to money, and from Eretz Yisrael to anywhere, is
promoted as ma’aser kesafim, a tithe on monetary income earned anywhere. The monetary
tithe is often given today to the needy according to a pietistic practice developed in the
medieval era.
Yet the Torah does have a broader concept of a provident God who feeds and cares for all
of God’s creatures inside or outside the land of Israel, while the gifts in the Torah are a
particularization and localization of this universal narrative. The first description of God
providing for human need is the creation story in Genesis 2 where the human being is
created first before the world of plants, unlike Gen. 1, so the human has no place to live or
any resources for food. Then immediately God plants fruit trees for Adam and Eve.
Yochanan Muffs characterizes the Biblical God as a proud provider of each human need –
especially food. “God provides and saves, and almost needs to be needed. He craves
situations that demand His sustaining care. God seems to plead,” as the prophet Malachi
reports in God’s name:
Please, just test me, said YHWH of Hosts.
I will surely open the floodgates of the sky for you and pour down boundless blessings.
(Malachi 3:10)
God's concern for man begins before birth. Even more than the gynecologist, God is
intimately concerned with all aspects of childbirth. He knows what goes on in the womb of
both man and beast.
Do you know which month every pregnant animal is in? Do you then feed every animal according to
its own diet and in its proper time? (cf. Job 38:39 - 39:4)
The noble lionii that utters a triumphant roar when he has caught his own breakfast is
converted by the Bible into a dependent client of God who supplicates the Deity with a roarlike prayer to provide him with his food: The young lions roar for prey, seeking their food
from God (Ps. 104:21).
Truly amazing beyond all of the Divine concern to provide for all God’s creatures, however,
is how concerned God is about the ability to provide food for Adonai’s own people, Israel.
Thus, God is especially disturbed by Moses' sarcastic remark:
"If all the sheep and cattle of the world were slaughtered and all the fish of the sea gathered up, would
this be sufficient for them?" (Num. 11:22)
God is equally incensed over the people's question:
Is God really able to set a table in the desert? We have seen that He can hit rocks so that water will
gush forth and streams quickly flow, but is He also able to provide bread and can He supply His
people with flesh? (Ps. 78:19-20) iii
Perhaps most indicative of God’s role as provider – independent of the gift of the land – is
the fact that even before entering the land God cared for the whole Jewish people’s food
supplies in the desert – by giving them manna. Thus the Rabbis can easily extend the
obligation for gratitude for God’s beneficence from its specific context in the Torah
regarding the gift of the land of Israel to all gifts from God. The law for thanking God for
one’s meals – Birkat HaMazon – is derived directly from the verse we cited above about the
3
giving of the promised land to Israel - You shall eat, be satisfied and bless Adonai your God
for the good land God gave you (Dt. 8:10).
One might have hoped that a more financially “satisfied” and a more religious nation would
gladly tithe their income. Yet there is still much to be done to close the gap between the
duty of the tithe and actual giving. Ten percent might still constitute an aspirational goal for
Western society which is far from the social norm even in the richest nation in the world
with the strongest Christian religious consciousness in the West. In 1996 Waldemar Nielsen
summarizes the moral challenge to American philanthropy as follows:
“The United States has just been through the most massive period of private wealth gathering in its
history. A good indication of the magnitudes involved over the past decade can be gained from U.S.
Treasury figures on individual income. According to these data, the number of taxpayers who have an
annual adjusted gross income of $1 million or more increased from 4,377 in 1980 to 63,642 in 1990, a
fourteen-fold increase.
However, the charitable contributions of the present class of wealthy Americans are not only not in
proportion to their income: they are in inverse proportion. Thus in 1990 taxpayers in the lowest
category, with income up to $20,000, gave 6.6 percent of it to charity. Those with income from
$50,000 to $1 million gave on average about 3 percent. Those with income of $1 million or more
gave slightly more, 3.8 percent.1
The rather uninspiring picture that emerges from these data is that wealthy Americans are not only
much less inclined than poorer people to give to charity from their current income, but when they do,
the level of their giving is carefully calculated in response to the tax incentives they are offered.”2
1
The top 2% of Americans hold 25-30% of the wealth and yet only 2% of them have established philanthropic
foundations and they generally contribute no more than 5% of their capital in any one year and most of that does
not go to the poor. Bequests however do approach 24% of total assets. (W. Nielsen, 273)
“Moreover, a number of studies indicate that for the very high income groups, giving as a percentage of income
has been going down significantly as a result of recent ‘tax-reform’ measures. Twice during the 1980s (in 1981
and 1986) the top marginal income-tax rates were substantially reduced by Congress. These measures had
dramatic impacts on the rate of giving of the wealthy because of their effect on what is called ‘the cost of
giving.’ By this reasoning, the higher income tax rates are, the greater the ‘benefit’ (tax savings) a donor gets
from each dollar given to charity; the lower tax rates are, the smaller this incentive. And the data available
indicate that wealthy givers calculate these ‘giving costs’ very carefully in deciding the level of their charitable
contributions.
As a direct result, therefore, of the sharp cuts in the tax rates on high incomes, average contributions by those in
the $1 million and above category dropped by about 50 percent in the 1980s. In the $200,000-to-$1 million
income category, contributions decline, over the ten-year period by some 24 percent. In this regard, I should be
noted that about 80 percent of the givers in the lower income category get no tax benefit whatever from their
charitable contributions because of the ‘Standard Deduction,’ which they receive in computing their income
taxes regardless of whether or not they have made any such contributions.” (W. Nielsen, 271-272)
2
4
Chapter #4
God, Giver of a Bountiful Land,
and the Poor’s Entitlement:
Maintenance of the Poor
via Tithes, Peah and Shared Festival Meals
Biblical Agricultural Gifts
Peah (Leviticus 19:9 -10)
Poor Tithe (Dt. 14: 28-29; 26:12-15)
Sharing Harvest Festival Feasts (Dt.16:11-17; Dt. 12:12, 18)
Theories of Biblical Tithes: Taxes or Tribute or Gifts?
The Rabbinic Codification of Peah:
From Charity to Socio-Economic Welfare Rights
Christian Tithes: By Law or by Grace? For the Church or for the Destitute?
Rabbinic Tithes Transformed: The Problematic Status of Ma'aser Kesafim, The Monetary Tithe
Postscript: The Gift Community of Lewis Hyde and the Spiritual Ecology of Gift-Giving
Appendices:
The Gift in Ancient Israel: Gary Stansell
"This also is theft, not to share one's possessions": John Chrysostom
In the Torah God is the giver not only of the holy land (ha-aretz), but of the whole landmass of
the world (also called ha-aretz). God gave all the earth to humanity when God the Creator
appointed human beings – male and female – to be stewards and rulers over the whole earth
(Genesis 1: 28-29). Then, by analogy on the national level, God gave the land of Canaan, the land
of goat milk and date honey with its ready-made fruit trees, houses, springs, and ores to the
people of Israel as promised to their ancestors.iv Similarly, God gave to all the peoples their lands
and established their borders, as well as assigned them astral gods to care for them (Dt. 4:19;
32:8-9). In particular God gave to Abraham's cousins – Edom, Moav, and Amon – their lands
too.v The land of Canaan given to Israel was further subdivided by lot for the clan “allotments,”vi
so that each family would owe its portion to God directly. Further God continues to give the rain
necessary for the land’s fertility but conditional on Israel’s observance of the covenant (Dt. 11:
14-17). Therefore one owes God gratitude for our food in every sense. The rabbinic blessing for
food, Birkat HaMazon, is derived from Deuteronomy 8: 10 – You shall eat, be satisfied and bless
Adonai your God for the good land God gave you. One owes God fealty for the ongoing Divine
blessings as well as for the use of the land that God gave you and yet of which God is still the
master (adon):
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“Three times a year every male shall be seen before Adonai your God’s face in the place Adonai has
chosen on the pilgrimage holiday of Matzot, Shavuot and Sukkot. However you shall not be seen/appear
before Adonai empty-handed. Each person will bring his gift according to the blessing received from God
who gave it to you.” (Dt. 16:16-17)3
A legal analogue underlying the gift of land and the obligation to set aside gifts for God is the
ancient Near Eastern royal land grant4 which was bestowed on a loyal servant out of
appreciation. However, periodic marks of loyalty and gratitude are expected, lest one think all
these blessings were the result of one's own military and economic power – saying in your heart:
It is my strength and the power of my hand that made all this success for me (Dt. 8:17).
Deuteronomy is saturated with the ideology of the conditional Divine gift of land and the
Leitwort verb root, natan, give.vii The most representative text is the credo regarding the first
fruits in which each farmer recalls – while standing with a basket of his own first fruits on his
shoulder before God at the altar – that he was once a landless, wandering, persecuted, resident
alien in Egypt. Now he acknowledges before God that God has given this land as a gift (Dt. 26:
1-11).
The basic covenant of reciprocal gift giving is between God and the people, who are the
farmers. Since their land is a gift and their produce is a gift and even their strength to cultivate
the land is a gift, they owe to the Giver a portion as the recipient’s acknowledgement of the
Divine gift. Further God insists that the landowners give portions of their produce to the Levis
and the priests, for these sacred families represent all of Israel in the daily cult of God even
though they received no land as their own private inheritance as the farmers did. While not
serving in the army risking their lives for national salvation, the work of the priest and Levi is
also a dangerous task that may incur sin and even death in the process of bringing sacrifices
and moving sacred objects in order to propitiate God's blessing for the whole community.viii
The Levis help bring prosperity to Israel by functioning as intermediaries for the sacrificial
3
In medieval Germany when on the pilgrimage holidays the Jewish community read the Torah reading about
“giving according to God’s blessing” (Dt. 16:17), they solicited pledges to support the poor (Y. Bergman,
Hatzedakah,. 60).
4
The Spoils of War, the Tithes and Taxes
The Muslim tradition uses the model of a portion of spoils dedicated to Allah to regulate tithes for these seminomadic Arabs were first enriched primarily when they conquered in short order in the 8-9th centuries the lands
from Spain to India. They distributed spoils among their warriors and also expected them to pay a portion for
religious purposes. Thus as Amy Singer explains:
“In theory, zakat is a tax, one of five recognized by Muslim jurists. While zakat is a manifestation of belief,
the other taxes all derive their legitimacy from the theory of holy war. Historically, the poll-tax (jizya),
assessed at rates of high, medium, and low depending on the status of the taxpayer, was paid by non-Muslims
living under Muslim rule. The tithe (`ushr) was a tax of 10 percent on agricultural produce from lands allocated
to Muslims from conquered territory, while tribute (kharaj) was the tax, usually fixed at a higher rate than the
tithe, imposed on agricultural produce from conquered lands that were left in the hands of non-Muslims. The
fifth (khums) is the percentage taken from moveable goods captured in war. The khums was divided into six
parts, according to the Qur'an verse: "Know that, whatever booty you take, the fifth of it is God's, and the
Messenger's, and the near kinsman's, and the orphans', and for the needy, and the traveler." (8:41) (A. Singer,
Charity, 38).
This pervasive Muslim legal metaphor recalls the Biblical division of spoils in the Torah when Moshe led
Israel to take vengeance on the people of Midian. The vast booty was divided up after taking a 20% allocation to
God like the Muslim as well allocations to the priests and Leviim khums (Numbers 31:28 - 54). This metaphor of
Divine distribution of spoils as the rationale for tithes may also apply to Deuteronomy's understanding of the
possession of the land of Israel as God’s gift to Israel for it is a result of a Divinely sponsored conquest of
Canaan (Dt. 1:8; 3:28; 8:17-18).
6
service of gratitude for Divine blessing. In exchange, the priest receives as gifts or, if you
will, as remuneration in kind, portions of the sacrifices: first fruits, first bread, hallah, and a
tithe from the Levis of God's tithes to them – to be consumed by priests (or otherwise
redeemable by the donor only upon payment of a 20% fine).ix The Levi gets a tithe from the
tribes' annual produce (Numbers 18: 21-32). The priests and the Levis are landless for they
are not included in the allocations of the Promised Land by God’s lottery nor do they have
direct access to the spoils of war since they do not serve in the army. Therefore, besides the
48 Levite cities with gardens, x whatever they have in housing and in regular income are
“gifts” from the people of Israel, tithes from the other tribes including their spoils of war,xi
gifts of produce and sacrifices.xii
While similar tithes on agricultural produce dedicated to the temple or the state are found in
other ancient Near Eastern law codes,xiii obligatory gifts to the poor are unique to the Torah –
especially to Deuteronomy. That innovation appears first in Deuteronomy 14:28-29 and it is
reiterated in Dt. 26: 12-15. However, it is not mentioned in Exodus, in Leviticus 27:30-34 or
Numbers 18:21-25, where tithes are legislated for the temple and the temple personnel, the
tribe of Levi. Only in Deuteronomy 14:22-26 does the poor tithe appear. Moreover, its
formulation is quite confusing – for it is given only once every third year and unlike other
tithes, it is to be distributed in one’s local community for the local poor and Levites, not in the
cultic center, even though one consumes a “second tithe” in the cultic center (Dt. 12:17-19).
At this point it becomes obvious that even though our book is about our duties to the poor,
most of the agricultural gifts, including the tithes, have little to do with the poor as such, even
though the tithes are devoted to those without land. Tithes, in particular, in almost allxiv
their appearances in the Bible, are unconnected to the welfare of the needy as such.
Incidentally Christian tithing is also for the most part dedicated to the church and its clergy,
not for the poor, just as most Biblical tithes were for the Temple, priesthood and tribe of Levi.
Only in Deuteronomy do the Levites become a prototype of the poor since most of them have
lost their role as public servants in the local cultic centers, which have now been centralized.
But even when the poor tithe is extended from the landless Levite to the landless poor,
orphan, widow and resident alien stranger,xv it is allotted only once every three years (the
third and sixth year of the seven year sabbatical cycle). Therefore other forms of support of
the poor are much more significant in the Torah – gleaning the corners of the field each year
and the entire field on sabbatical years – though unlike the tithe, peah and leket have no fixed
amounts set aside for corners or gleanings. Furthermore, these uncertain sources of support
for the poor are available only during the harvest seasons and it is unclear if they sufficed for
the poor to save a surplus that might be consumed during the rest of the year.
Let us review these agricultural modes of aid for the needy and the narrative rationale for
these gifts. Insofar as the primary religious community showing gratitude to God on
agricultural festivals is the farmers who benefit directly from God’s land, the landless are
excluded, but insofar as the landless are also part of the historic covenant, they are included in
the religious community (Dt. 29:9-10). Thus the recipients of gifts to the poor are both
included in and yet excluded from the community. The landowners share with the landless
members of the covenant in multiple ways which we noted above. First, in the era in which
Deuteronomy was composed (7th C. BCE?) the landless tribe of Levi who has, for the most
part, lost its status as a class of paid, sacred public servants,xvi is now relegated to the category
of the poor with the ger, the orphan, and the widow. All receive a "trickle down" of food
benefits. That occurs at every agricultural feast celebrating Divine blessing and the gifts of the
land.xvii
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Make the holiday of Sukkot for seven days when you have collected [produce] from your granary and
your vineyard. Celebrate your joy on your holiday – you, your son, your daughter, your male slave,
your female slave, and the Levixviii, the stranger, the orphan and the widow in your gates. (Dt. 15:1314)
A most important way to show one's gratitude for God's land and blessings is the celebration of
harvest festivals. These entail pilgrimages up to the sacred center to “see” God, “the Master
Adonai” (Ha-Adon Adonai) of the land, and to demonstrate one’s joy thankfully, before God (Ex.
23:17). According to the Rabbis’ understanding of the tithes, in specific years, i.e., the first,
second, fourth and fifth ones - a tithe is taken to the cultic center to be eaten there as part of the
festival.xix Manifesting that joy publicly in psalms of thanksgiving, feasting, sacrifice and
generous sharing with the needy is essential to guarantee the ongoing blessings of the covenant.
Failing to express the joy of gratitude is a sin meriting the direst punishment - national
dispossession and exile from the land (Dt. 28:47). Such is God’s response to ingratitude.
Sharing with the poor and landless on agricultural holidays is a form of gift-giving - not strictly
speaking an entitlement, but an expression of solidarity with those with no crops of their own (Dt.
16:10-11). It behooves one who celebrates God’s generosity with his family to share some of
God’s bounty with all.5 Paradoxically, at the moment that each family gathers in produce to their
private stores (asif) and exults in what “their own hands” (ma’asei yadekha) have achieved by
their hard labor on their land (Ex. 23:16; Dt. 16:15), they also give out and share that produce
with the poor.
The Christian theologian John Milbank describes festival giving as an act that marks the passing
of time, of seasons, and of gifts and thus generates solidarity and community. It also seeks to
counteract the natural but sinful forgetfulness of the recipient:
“Where life is realized and enjoyed as passage, there wealth lies in glorious expenditure, and personal
freedom in acts of generosity which bond us to others. This passage [of time] is a passage of gift, as
the Christian theologian Catherine Pickstock says: ‘A gift must go on giving itself, if it is not to
lapse into mere possession, in forgetfulness of the donor.’ In consequence, life celebrated as
passing gift is life thankfully received from the outset, and also life shared without restraint. Charity is
also celebration, kinship, fraternity, eros and ritual. From this perspective charity ceases to be an
anxious duty, instead to give has its seasons. Giving, therefore, is primarily a matter of shared
expenditure and celebration.
‘Primitive’ societies know this, and group themselves around such ecstatic transition, not around
accumulated illusions…..For these societies a thing exchanged is not a commodity, but a gift. It is not
alienated from the giver but expresses his personality, so that the giver is in the gift, he goes with the
gift. Precisely for that reason, a return on the gift is always due to the giver."xx
“In medieval and early modern European agricultural communities: “Wealthy landlords and even fairly modest
farmers fed passing vagabonds and left unharvested portions of their fields for the benefit of scavengers. From the
early Middle Ages on, there are also examples of lords of the manor extending loans to nearby peasants, allowing
them in harsh years when they had consumed all their grain to acquire seed to plant for the next harvest. Some
landowners set up funds in their wills to help with seed money. In some societies, there were formal arrangements
for the care of the poor; for instance, in Iceland, the communal authorities assigned the poor to a family, the length of
stay being proportionate to the host farmer's wealth. Throughout Europe, most villages owned commons - common
land that the poor had access to for grazing or collecting kindling wood.” (William Cohen, “Epilogue,” in L
Friedman, Charity, 391)
5
8
In just this sense, the Torah insists on expressing gratitude for all God has given Israel and
admonishes: Guard yourself lest you forget Adonai your God, lest while enjoying all that God has
given on this land your heart grows haughty and you forget Adonai your God and you say in your
heart: My strength and my power made me all this success. You shall remember that it is Adonai
your God who gave you the strength to make all this success (Dt. 8:11-18).
A second mode of giving to the poor, the landless poor including the Levi, is the tithe (Dt. 14: 2829). The most explicit narrative for the giving of tithes in general, including the poor tithe, is in
the ritual confession at the end of each three years cycle of tithes in Dt. 26: 12-15. This is a sacred
duty and the tithe itself has a sacred status deriving from the narrative of God the Giver and
Blesser of the land and its people:
Look down from your holy abode in Heaven and bless your people Israel and the land you gave us as you
swore to our ancestors, a land of milk and honey. (Dt. 26:15)
At the end of three years, take a tithe (tenth) of your produce on that year and leave it in your gates.
Then the Levi – who has no land portion and inheritance of his own along with yours – the stranger,
the orphan and the widow in your gates will come, eat and be satisfied , so that Adonai your God will
bless you in all the activity of your hands that you do. (Dt. 14: 28-29)
The Torah regards the poor as citizens of the society who are owed not just fair treatment under
law, but are also entitled to a portion of the produce of the land given by God. That is a “radical”
notion that one’s land and one’s work to produce crops do not belong exclusively to the
landowner and farmer. Having given the land of Israel collectively to Israel, God has obligated
every Jewish farmer in Israel to give a tithe portion to the poor.xxi
The third mode of transferring agricultural gifts to the needy relates to the corners of the
unharvested field (peah), the unharvested grains left behind after harvest (gleanings – leket) and
the forgotten sheaves during the harvest (shikhkha).xxii The poor have direct access to these three
of the above mentioned agricultural resources even though they are located on the owner's land.
When you harvest your harvest in your land, do not finish off harvesting the corners of your field, nor
collect the gleanings dropped in the process of the harvest.......for the poor and stranger you shall
leave them, I am Adonai your God. (Lev. 19:9-10)
Later the Rabbis insisted that the owner may not decide which poor person will get the benefits of
his field. Rather the poor would harvest it as their own right without being beholden to anyone –
in an "honorable way," meaning without the shame of dependence on other human beings.xxiii xxiv
The poor would not have to ask for it as a hand-out from the land owner: The peah, the leket and
the tithe are, it appears, more radical than the commandment to share the celebration of our
harvest feast because they are explicitly entitlements. In giving the tithe of the ingathered harvest
to the poor or commanding the corners of the field to be harvested at will by the poor, the Jewish
citizen landowner relates to the poor recipient not as someone for whom to pity but as one granted
rights to the land by the same God that gave the land and its fertility to the farmer. Therefore, the
farmer relinquishes control over access to his own property in the corners of the field and, even
more so, on the sabbatical year when all have equal access to the farmer’s land to harvest
whatever grows. The property barriers between human beings fall.
9
The Rabbis seem to imply that that "good fences do not make good neighbors!" for such
exclusivity undermines the neighbors’ feelings of solidarity, of one people residing in the
commonwealth of God's land, given to them collectively – not just individually.
“From the standpoint of the landholder, peah was a powerful physical assertion that no one’s property
stood apart, that no person stood alone, that “I” do not stop at a sharply defined fence or wall where ‘you’
begin. Instead, my property and my identity fade away into that of the community, represented not by the
king or priest, but by the poor. At its corner, the land I hold is not fully mine, because its produce does not
belong to me.” (Arthur Waskow, Down-to-Earth Judaism, 163)
Rabbi S. R. Hirsch explains how the Sabbatical year carries that same message of relativized
property ownership that first attributes all ownership to God and then translates that into a
practice of common and egalitarian ownership of produce among human beings:
“In the Sabbath year, the right of private ownership of land is in abeyance. Nothing is considered as
growing for the special benefit of the owner of the field. Everything grows for common use, right
down to that of animals. No field may be fenced off, men and animals must be given free entry, and no
hindrance may be made to their picking or eating. That which the land bears in the Sabbath year is
hefker, ownerless property, the owner of the field may only have use of it in participation with all
others: and he himself may, like everybody else, only take home small quantities at a time for his
immediate requirements.”xxv
Once God is understood as a giver of substance and once one accepts that human life means
neediness, not autonomy, then the most important exchange is a constant alternation between
generosity and gratitude (hakarat tova = the acknowledgment of favors). God both gives gifts
and also receives them (as tokens of recognition, not as ways to fulfill physical needs). So too
human beings not only receive but give gifts. In fact, as we have seen, to receive a gift
involves both gratitude to the giver and willingness to share that gift with others in everwidening circles. In Brazil Rabbi Nilton Bonder has transformed this ancient philosophy of
life into a way of life based on Jewish wisdom but directed to the modern dilemmas of all
whose lives are dedicated to accumulating and possessing too much wealth. He cites the
Rabbinic adage that human character is tested in the way handles one’s pocket (money), one’s
drinking (alcohol), and one’s anger (or jealousy). His three best sellers treat those three
challenges. In his book The Kabbalah of Money he writes about a spiritual practice of
tzedakah that balances one’s acquisitiveness with one’s gratitude and leads to generosity:
“The dynamics of tzedakah are linked to gratitude ... Tzedakah should be an everyday practice, performed with grace and wisdom. It should be one of the most desirable goods for sale at the huge,
supermarket of existence. There are few pleasures that match that of tzedakah when it is well
performed - namely, when it is the product of spontaneity and sincerity as opposed to social demand.
Those who practice and apply tzedakah will find themselves drawn to involuntary acts that are a great
source of joy and surprise. These acts reveal an inner self that becomes better, richer, and more
capable of enjoying the various worlds.
Try to measure [the amount of tzedakah you give] by tuning in to your livelihood: how much gratitude
[does] each personal gain affords you? This gratitude is the measure you should use to tax your
gains. And the more accurately taxed these gains are, the more life they will provide. If you are
blessed with gains that exceed your expectations, and your efforts were surprisingly low, you should
take pleasure in taxing this profit with plenty of tzedakah.
When you lose an object and find it again, tzedakah is also called for. For a few moments you no
longer possess that belonging and you realize how ephemeral ownership is. When this object returns to
you, try making a movement towards tzedakah, donating part of your gain. When we lose something,
10
we understand not only the cost of things but also the implicit value of ownership. This is the gratitude
of: becoming aware of the value that something or somebody has for us.
When we lose our health and later recover it, there should also be some tzedakah involved. Of course,
we don't need to lose something to be grateful for what we have. In fact, the true essence of tzedakah
is to be able to tax ourselves more accurately when we're well and in good health. But we know that
it's part of the learning process towards being a constant performer of tzedakah, to test our training in
situations that speak of our true possessions, their vulnerability, and the gift they represent.”xxvi
For Nilton Bonder, tzedakah is not only a response to having received God’s generosity in
material blessing, but the very opportunity to give is itself a gift:
“Taking advantage of the tzedakah opportunities that life offers is an art accessible only to those who
are more sensitive to life's mechanisms. Tzedakah is to be seen as a genuine opportunity for a blessing.
According to him, someone who is really wealthy and knows how to enjoy all the Market possibilities
is grateful even for the opportunity of being an agent of tzedakah. From this we conclude that it is a
great gift and advantage to have the opportunity to perform tzedakah.”xxvii
Theories of Biblical Tithes: Taxes or Tribute or Gifts?
“The gods are the true owners the things and possessions of this world...gods give something great in
exchange for something small. ...Gods are free to give or not, and the men approaching the gods are
already in their debt, since it is from them that they have already received the conditions for their
existence. ..The human donors are from the outset inferior to the godly receivers.” xxviii
While Jesus calls on a would-be disciple interested in securing a place in the world-to-come to
sell all his possessions (Luke 10), generally both Judaism and Christianity have only
institutionalized obligatory gifts to the poor of 10% of one’s income following loosely the
Torah’s model of tithing from agricultural produce to God. But it is open for debate in the
Bible, Talmud, Christianity and even contemporary rabbinic legal theory whether the tithe is
more like a free gift, a voluntary vow that becomes obligatory only for the individual, or a kind
of tax assessed by the court, state or the municipality. Since the designees of the contribution
are also diverse, this makes it difficult to conceptualize all forms of tithe under the same
essential rubric.
Let us clarify the multiple understandings of tithes in general before focusing on tithes to the
poor. In the Biblical narratives of the patriarchs tithes are described as occasional, private and
voluntary gifts to God that are dedicated to the sacred cult. As attested by Abraham and Jacob,
the occasion calling forth these gifts to God was a crisis in which they were beneficiaries of
extraordinary Divine aid that ended felicitously. Abram, returning from a battle with four great
kings was hailed by Malki-tzedek, king of Salem (Jerusalem) who was also the priest of El
Elyon ("the Most High God"):
Malki-izedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.
And he blessed him, and said: Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth,
and blessed be the most high God, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he [Abram]
gave him tithes from all. (Gen. 14:18-20)xxix
Thus Abram models the first tithe which has nothing to do with the poor and which has no
regularized form as an annual tax. His gift is a one-time response to a war that nets him
11
extensive spoils, so he gives a tithe to the high priest of Jerusalem (Genesis 14:18-20; Jubilees
13:25-26).6
Later at Beth El, Abraham's grandson Jacob makes a prospective oath to contribute a tithe, not a
retrospective thank-offering. If God will bring him back from his dangerous first journey away
from home, then a tenth of his blessings will be dedicated to the temple Jacob will erect at Beth
El ("God's House") (Genesis 28:22).xxx
In the legal sections of the Torah the tithe is institutionalized. Contemporary Bible scholarsxxxi
differ on their interpretations of these legal tithes, though their views are not necessarily
mutually exclusive.
One view of tithes conceptualizes them as voluntary gifts7 to thank God for blessing the
produce of the land in hope that God will continue to bless them in the future. That is
consistent with Abram's and Jacob's gifts, though they are regularized in the Torah’s legislation
just as God's aid to agriculture is a recurrent blessing. The tithe is most similar to Cain's and
Abel's gifts which are called minha to God from their produce whether agricultural or livestock,
whether offered at the end of the summer season or the beginning of the spring first-fruits (Gen.
4: 3-4). There is both a retrospective and prospective aspect with a hope for future or continued
blessings, but this is no contractual arrangement of so many sacrificial payments for so much
supernatural blessing. Still Cain has an expectation of recognition for his gift which when
disappointed sends him into murderous frustration.
A second view holds that the tithes function as sacred taxes to God for the upkeep of God’s
Temple and its sacrifices (Nehemia 10:38-40; II Chronicles 31:4-12). They belong to God
(kodesh la-Adonai), hence one may not redeem them without paying a 20% surcharge (Lev.
27:30-33). The tithes symbolize the subordination of servant to master, of Israel to God.
These compulsory tributes to God acknowledge God as my landlord, as sovereign of the
land - For to Me is the land and you are resident aliens with Me (Lev. 25: 23) and annually
each of your males must see the Master, Adon (Ex. 23:17). Implicit in this language is a
metaphor of Israel as God’s serf/slave, since the Hebrew slaves were redeemed by God from
Egypt - For to me Israel are slaves (Lev. 25:55). The gifts are compulsory and annual
because, unlike the case with Abram and Jacob, they reflect the permanent status of
dependence and belonging of Israel to God, not a temporary experience engendered by a onetime miraculous intervention on their behalf.
Third, these compulsory taxes can be viewed as salaries for cultic public servants who
perform a cultic service as substitutes representing each family before God. Thus the tribe of
6
Interestingly, in the next verse, Abram refuses to accept as a gift the redeemed property of the King of Sodom he
has just returned to the King of Sodom, lest accepting the gift make him dependent on anyone but God for his
wealth (he-esharti) which has the same root as ma’aser, tithe (Gen. 14:21-23). Here tribute or gifts to the Divine
and gifts to humans diverge. While Abram would be beholden to the King of Sodom even in accepting a gift of
gratitude of what Abram gave the king, God is not viewed as dependent on human tithes. What gift-giving does
share whether tribute to God or to humans is an implicit obligation of the recipient, even the superior, to return the
favor. One’s independence is forever compromised in these ceaseless gifts and countergifts.
“Gift exchange is an exchange in and by which the agents strive to conceal the objective truth of the exchange,
i.e. the calculation which guarantees the equity of the exchange. If "fair exchange", the direct swapping of
equivalent values, is the truth of gift exchange, gift exchange is a swapping which cannot acknowledge itself as
such." (Pierre Bordieu, Algeria, 1960, 22)
7
12
Levi is portrayed in one tradition as having taken over its tasks from the firstborns of other
tribes who were originally responsible to serve God in the cult (Numbers 18: 21-24). Since
the Levites have no time to work their own land, God has not given the Levi tribe an
agricultural inheritance. Therefore, the other tribes must pay their part (helek) from the
produce of their inheritance from God xxxii in lieu of the time their firstborn would have lost in
agricultural work. In short, the rationale of the tithe given to the Levi tribe is to pay public
servants representing Israel who are supported by annual taxes from the private earnings of
the people whose public tasks they perform.
The fourth view of tithes is the anthropological concept of gift-giving. It helps explain the
apparently strange aspect of tithes - they are described simultaneously as both voluntary "gifts"
and institutionalized “obligations.” The logic of tithes sounds like a pure tribute or even tax in
the language of Malachi who presents God’s threat to cut off Divine blessing to the land if the
“gifts” of the tithe are not forthcoming to the Second Temple just built (Malachi 3:8-11).xxxiii
Yet in many other texts, as we have seen, the tithes appear to be expressions of gratitude for
Divine gifts. The theorist who has illuminated the ambivalences of gift-giving more than any
other is Marcel Mauss a French sociologist was a student and a nephew of Emile Durkheim, and
like his mentor, he too was the child of an Orthodox Jewish family. Mauss contends that in
traditional societies individual free gifts serve communal functions by making peace and
forging relationships of solidarity. “Gifts to men and to gods have an aim of buying
peace.”xxxiv The gift is a concrete embodiment of one’s personality which when given freely and
when accepted graciously functions not as the payment of a tax nor as an economic exchange
but as a claim to a reciprocity. Such reciprocity is not a commercial quid pro quo exchange. It
may express solidarity among equals but often it reinforces hierarchies of mutual dependence
and not equality. Gifts reflect, affirm, and sanction larger patterns of reciprocity that make for
the social cement of society, alliances, and hierarchies. Thus giving gifts and reciprocating gifts
are best seen not as discrete acts of free will but as a pattern - “not two acts but one.”8
The gift may bridge alienness or even overcome former hostility because it redefines the
relationship, not because it literally “buys” or bribes the recipient. African Bushmen have a
saying: “The worse thing is not giving presents. If people do not like each other but one gives
a gift and the other must accept, this brings peace between them. We give what we have. That
is the way we live together.”xxxv Therefore, in making a peace offer it is essential that the
person being appeased accept the gift as a sign of reconciliation and, often, forgiveness, but it
must not appear to be bribe. Thus Abram forced a gift on Avimelekh the king in order to
formalize a peace pact after recurrent encroachments on Abraham’s wells, even though
Abraham was the injured party (Gen. 21:25-31). So too Jacob pleaded with Esav to take his
gift, i.e., his blessing, and implicitly not to kill him in revenge for his theft of Esav’s blessing,
while Esav protested he had enough and did not need it (Gen. 33:8-11).
Solidarity is, thus, created by these reciprocal gifts which establish or reestablish relationships
of mutuality, without legally demanding a quid pro quo material exchange of reparations or
bribes. Gifts circulated among friends, such as the gifts given to one’s friends on Purim or on
Philology reinforces this anthropological insight. Thus “the Scottish (dialect) expression giffgaff (mutual
giving, mutual help) suggests the unity of the two actions. In English ‘to take’ can mean to receive or to bring
(and give). Similarly, in Hebrew lakakh can signify both ‘to take’ and ‘to receive’ (BDB: 542-43). In Hebrew a
gift is typically ‘given/ offered’ (natan), ‘brought’ (hei-vi), ‘prepared’ (hei-khin), ‘distributed’ (halak). The gift
itself is often denoted by the substantive (minkha = offering or matana = gift or brakha = blessing). Acceptance
of the gift may be signified by the verbs lakakh = took or nasa = raised, carried.” (Gary Stansell, “The Gift in
Ancient Israel,” 71)
8
13
the Biblical Rosh Hashana (Esther 9:22; Nehemia 8:10) create solidarity. Giving gifts to the
poor on Purim and on festivals (Dt. 16:11- 14) extends the solidarity to include the poor who
might otherwise feel resentment, hostility and jealousy at the celebrations of the landed farmers.
In addition, there is another kind of tithe that was called by the Rabbis ma'aser sheni (second
tithe) (Dt. 14:22-26) which is not only to be eaten by the farmer in Jerusalem but also to be
shared with other pilgrims, thus enhancing the interrelationships between all the distant farmers
gathered at the temple.
Mauss’ theory of gifts explains the relational implications of material gifts, but it may not
sufficiently acknowledge the compulsory nature of the Torah's “gifts” to God, which have
definite covenantal and legal aspects. True the “gifts of one’s hands” to God on the three
pilgrimage festivals are explicitly called “gifts” (matnat yado) and their quantity must roughly
equal the individualized gift of blessing to the farmer which God gave. Still this is a
compulsory gift (Dt. 15: 16-17), but even obligatory offering must be "offered" joyfully, and
willingly. Thus the joyful and compulsory gift expresses the individual’s voluntary
acceptance of the servant-master relationship. Still it is not an act of spontaneous thanks
whose time and place and content is determined by the donor but rather a mitzvah
commanded by God, who gave the land to Israel, to be performed in God’s presence. (Dt. 12:
5-18).
Where then do the tithes to the poor of Deuteronomy fit in among these many gifts to God as
well as to cultic officials? Tithes to the poor are not payment for public service. Even though
the Levi is still a recipient, the gifts to the Levi in Deuteronomy are no longer conditional on
service in the cultic centers. The Levi is included among the poor, not among the servants of
the cult, as in Leviticus, for the Levi is no longer employed in the local sanctuaries – which,
according to Deuteronomy, have been shut down in favor of the centralization of the cult.
Now lacking the land distributed to all the other tribes, the economic status of the tribe of
Levi is more or less the same as the alien resident who has no landed ancestral inheritance.
Perhaps the fatherless orphan and the widow have lost their hereditary land, like Naomi in the
Book of Ruth.
So what is the rationale for the poor tithe and the tithe for the unemployed Levi? It is partially
a response to their neediness and lack of economic self-sufficiency, as the Torah emphasizes for they have no inheritance with you (Dt. 14:27; 12:18-19). Therefore God gives a stern
warning not to “abandon” the Levi through the tithe and the pilgrimage offerings. The
warning term – do not abandon/azov, is also used when someone encounters a beast of burden
in distress – When you see the donkey of our enemy collapsed under its burden, stop and do
not abandon him – help yes help him (Exodus 23:5). Even though you have no apparent
personal relationship to an enemy or to the Levi, do not abandon them in their time of
distress.
Thus the poor tithe is not merely a voluntary gift of a Good Samaritan for implicit here is a
moral and legal obligation to provide a portion of one's agricultural profit - earned by
one's own labor on God's gift of land - to those to whom God did not give a portion of
land directly, like the Levi and the resident alien. As the Rabbis put it when explaining the
obligation of giving tzedakah to the Levi: "Every place you find this Levi mentioned, it
means: Give him his portion!" (Sifrei on Dt. 12:12). A more permanent solution of the
landlessness of the resident alien is envisioned in the redistribution of land to take place after
the Babylonian exile. The prophet Ezekiel imagines that God will make land grants to the
resident aliens who have become part of Israel along with the descendants of the original
14
tribes (Ezekiel 47:13-14; 21-23), while continuing to provide the priests and Levites directly
through God's first offerings and sacrifices for I am their portion and no holding shall be
given them in Israel (Ezekiel 44:28-30; 45:4-5).
Interestingly, the poor tithe – even though some have seen it as a secularization of the original
tithes to the cultic centers and their personnel – still requires a sacred oath. On the third year
after finishing all his tithes each farmer must solemnly declare they have given a tithe to the
Levi, the poor, the orphan and the widow (Dt. 26:12-13). All types of tithes, including those
for the poor, have sacred power and one must declare that none of the tithes have been kept
for oneself at the expense of the disadvantaged (Dt. 26:12-15).
Finally, just as the tithe for the cultic servants can be seen as a tax, so too the poor tithe is also
a kind of ten percent tax given from the produce of a successful landowner and given to the
landless and destitute in accord with the blessing the farmer received.xxxvi The poor tithe
functions as a progressive social tax – in kind – by redistributing the Divine bounty of the
holy land to the poor in lieu of God directly giving them land as means of production. These
gifts then are not a payment of what Israel owes to the needy, but actually what God
owes since God did not give land to the poor and impoverished landless Levites. God
gave “their” land so to speak to the rest of the tribes who are taxed by God to provide God's
portion for the poor.
This analogy of the poor tithe to taxes is incomplete since in the Torah these tithes are not
centrally collected or centrally redistributed with an eye to the relative needs of the destitute
or to the equality of their portions. However, in the book of Nehemiah the collection of tithes
for Levites and the distribution of terumah to the priests (Nehemia 13:5) is performed by state
officials appointed by Nehemia the Persian king’s governor of Judea in order to gather these
mandatory tithes and to place them in specially designated chambers which eventually came
to be known as storehouses (Nehemia 12:44). In the Rabbinic era tzedakah was also to be
collected in this centralized fashion, thus becoming a progressive welfare tax in a fuller
sense.
Now we turn from the subject of Biblical tithes to Biblical and Rabbinic conceptions of peah,
the produce left in the corners of one's fields for the poor to harvest themselves. Our central
research question about peah is again: to what extent is it like a tax or more like voluntary
charity.
The Rabbinic Codification of Peah:
From Charity to Socio-Economic Welfare Rights
Greg Gardner, in his book, Giving to the Poor in Early Rabbinic Judaism, distinguishes two
narratives of giving to the needy which both appear in rabbinic law:
“Social justice is often contrasted with charity, whose duties are imperfectly (i.e. incompletely)
defined, and the identities of the parties and things given are indeterminate. That is, charity grants the
giver a great deal of personal discretion in deciding when, what, and to whom one gives. Unlike duties
of justice, those of charity cannot be coerced or mandated by law. Whereas systems of justice provide
the recipients with correlative rights, in charitable giving, the recipients cannot claim that they are
owed anything. Instead, by definition, charity is performed at the pleasure of the philanthropist.”xxxvii
15
The Mishna's Rabbinic account of the Biblical peah gradually moves from the voluntary
charitable model to the obligatory justice model. In the opening of Mishna Peah the setting
aside of peah has no limits but depends on good will, hesed, so that it is more like voluntary
charity than social justice. By contrast, the Tosefta Peah and other texts in Mishna Peah
redefine peah as a right of the poor and a duty of the landowner.
The Mishna Peah begins by treating peah as a voluntary act with no specification and, hence,
no possible enforcement. Therefore, it must wax sermonic in promising Divine rewards, now
and in the world to come, to motivate generous designation of peah precisely because it is not
a legal obligation with social or institutional sanctions:
“These are things that have no measure: peah, first fruits, the appearance offering, acts of loving
kindness, and Torah study.”
“These are things whose fruit/profits one consumes in this world, while the principal endures for one
in the world-to-come: Honoring father and mother, acts of loving kindness, and creating peace
between a person and his/her fellow. But the study of Torah is as important as all of them together.”
(Mishna Peah 1:1)
However, this lack of specificity is rectified by the rabbinic reformulation of the mishna in
Tosefta Peah:
“Things that have no measure: peah, first fruits, the appearance offering, acts of loving kindness, and
Torah Study. Peah has a lower limit, but no upper limit. If one designates his entire field as peah,
[then] this is not peah.” (Tosefta Peah 1:1)
“Peah should be not less than one sixtieth. Although they have said that there is no measure for
peah, everything is according to the size of the field, and according to the number of poor people,
and according to the yield.” (Tosefta Peah 1:2)xxxviii
As such peah has a set minimum quantity, which must be set aside publicly near the edge of
the field where it may be supervised. “They devote/designate peah from the beginning of the
field or from its middle.” (Mishna Peah 1:3). However, the peah corners of unharvested field
may not be assigned to a particular poor person, lest it become an indirect benefit of the
owner of the field. Abuse of the "gift of peah" is considered "theft from the needy" (gezel
aniim).
“One may not hire a laborer on the condition that his son would gather the gleanings after him. One
who does not allow the poor to gather gleanings, or allows one but not another, or one who helps one
of them, he is a robber of the poor, as it is said: Remove not the eternal landmark made by your
ancestors (Proverbs 22:28).” (Mishna Peah 5:6)
Since peah is left in the field by each farmer to be harvested by wandering poor, how can
such a diffuse organization of supporting the needy be regulated to avoid abuses? Lacking a
system of roving official regulators, the Rabbis sought to make the designation of peah visible
to society who could exert social pressure. They interpreted the Biblical verse: do not finish
off (tikhaleh) harvesting the peah (corner) of your field (Lev. 19:9) to mean - specify the peah
section in plain view at a set time:
“Rabbi Shimon says: For five reasons one (a farmer) should not designate the peah just anywhere but
only at the edge (end) of the field:
16
(1) to prevent gezel annim, robbery of the poor – so that one should not await a free hour [when no
other poor gleaners are about] and say to his poor relative: Come and take the peah to yourself.
(2) to prevent making the poor idle [wasting their time] – so the poor should not have to sit and
watch all day saying to themselves: Perhaps now he will give the peah, perhaps now he will give the
peah [since they cannot predict the moment that farmer will declare a portion of the field peah]. But
rather [when the designation of peah has a fixed time] they can go to another field to glean and come
back at the hour of the finishing off [of the farmer’s harvest when the peah is declared].
(3) to prevent [farmers from being] deceivers - who may say: I already gave [the peah], while he is
selecting out the best of the harvest [for himself] and separating out the worst [which he declares
peah].xxxix
(4) to prevent making the [incorrect but] negative impression [on the public] (mar’it ayin) - so that
passersby might not say: Look how this person harvested the field and left no peah for the poor [for
the peah he did designate form the poor was far from the edge of field where passersby could have
seen it.]
(5) and because literally the verse says: do not finish off – [leave the edge].”
(JT Peah Chapter 4 folio 18)
Thus, to respect the dignity and the time of the poor during the harvest, the landowner offers the
peah to the poor at three specific times. For the poor may not claim the peah until the farmer
explicitly designates it as such.xl Thus the peah will be accessible to the poor at their
convenience, so that the poor will know when to arrive (so some do not have an advantage
over others) and so they do not need to waste their time waiting around to see when the peah
is set aside:
“There are three displays9 [of peah] in a day [making produce accessible the poor]:
in the morning, at noon, and in the late afternoon.10
Rabban Gamaliel said: This rule is said only so that they [the number of displays] will not be lessened
[less than three – so the poor can conveniently access the field].
Rabbi Akiba said: This is said so that they [the number of displays] will not be increased [so the
farmers will not be bothered at all hours of the day by foragers].” (Mishna Peah 4:5)
The halakha determined that exactly three fixed times – no more and no less – are set aside
for collecting peah, so the poor will know when to come and will not waste their time nor the
farmer’s. Maimonides adds that the fixing a time for the poor to gather the peah means that
“all of them can gather together to take,” such that each has a fair chance, and not those who
happen to be there when the farmer decides to declare the peah.xli
In all forms of setting aside portions of field for peah, the owner does not physically hand
over the peah to the poor, as if it were the farmer’s gift to the poor. Peah is not an expression
of the owner’s voluntary charity nor does the owner control the process. Yet the farmer may
intervene to harvest and to distribute the produce in certain situations when it is for the benefit
of the poor, not the farmer.
“Peah is given from that which is attached to the land.
Even if ninety-nine [poor gathers of peah] say [that peah ought best to be] distributed [via the owner’s
harvesting], and only one says to snatch [the peah directly themselves], they listen to this single
“Display” may mean collection periods in which the needy obtain access to the part of the field declared
“peah;” or appearances of the farmer who must be present when the corners of his crop are foraged.
10
“In the morning” – so nursing mother eat early; “at noon” – so poor children who wake up late may eat; and
“in the late afternoon” – for the elderly who walk slowly and arrive late in the day.
9
17
[dissenting] individual, for that person alone has spoken according to the law (halakha).” (Mishna
Peah 4:1)
The right to harvest directly from the farmer’s field is a matter of the poor’s dignity. But what
if this anarchic method of gathering and distributing peah is less convenient, less orderly, less
equal, and less fair for those with greater needs and lesser capabilities as foragers? None of
those legitimate concerns matter. It is shocking that even the concern for equal
opportunity for the poor to get benefits and the concern to provide the most needy first
which are essential principles for any welfare state and for the rabbinic tzedakah system
are wholly disregarded in the rabbinic view of peah in the name of the right of each
individual to harvest directly a corner of the field. The right of the poor in actualizing their
entitlement to treat the peah as their produce to be harvested as if they were the farmers
trumps the efficiency and fairness of distribution among poor of various skills, ages and
degrees of aggressiveness. Even though that one who objects may well do so simply because
he is stronger and more agile and will get much more for himself (Sifra on Lev. 19:9). The
Mishna only mentions one regulation to prevent gross accumulation of peah by one person by
questionable but legally effective means:
“If one [gleaner] took some peah [which he had already harvested for himself] and threw it over the
rest [of the unharvested peah to claim it as his property] – then he has no right to any of it [not even to
what he had previously harvested]. If he fell on top of it [the unharvested peah] or spreads his cloak
over it, then they physically remove it from him. The same applies to leket (gleanings) and shikhikha
(forgotten sheaves).” (Mishna Peah 4:3)
Only on the issue of pikuah nefesh, physical safety of the poor, do the Rabbis suspend the
poor’s right to harvest themselves.
“Yet that which is on a trellis and in a palm tree - the householder (farmer) brings down and
distributes to the poor.
... Even if ninety-nine [poor gathers of peah] say: [Let the peah on the tree or the trellis be] foraged
[individually], while only one [objects and] says: Distribute [via the owner’s harvesting and dividing
the produce of peah from the tree etc], they listen to this single [dissenting] individual, [for that person
alone has] spoken according to the law (halakha).” (Mishna Peah 4:2)
Even if the motive of the one who objects is his own self-interest, since he may be old and weak
and cannot climb the tree to claim a portion of the peah, still we follow the halakha that protects
public safety. In fact Maimonides rules that “the farmer owner is obligated to harvest and
distribute” the peah in a situation of “great danger.”xlii Preserving life trumps the dignity of the
poor, but not equality or justice. For the same reason:
“Peah [found in whatever location] is not harvested with scythes, or uprooted with rakes [with a
sharp cutting edge] so that people will not beat one another.”
The anarchic foraging of peah encourages a Darwinian struggle for control and accumulation
that must often lead to blows. What nightmare of violence as well as immorality is the result of
peah’s suspension of property rights, denial of supervision by the land owner, desperate need
where there is no guarantee that there is adequate supply for all who have come to the field
waiting the farmer’s declaration: “This is peah.” Blows with rakes and scythes are prohibited,
though it is not clear who will enforce these public safety measures, while blows with arms and
legs are likely and wholly unregulated. While the principle of the dignity of the individual poor
that underlies the peah is important, there are very good moral reasons as well as practical
18
considerations to create and prefer the tzedakah fund developed by the Rabbis which we will
describe in detail below. In book two of our trilogy we explore in depth the perennial tension
between fair and efficient distribution of benefits for the poor and the concern to maintain the
dignity of each individual.
Christian Tithes: By Law or by Grace? For the Church or for the Destitute?
In the New Testament and subsequent Church practice two separate tithes deriving from the
OT were recognized as valid: (a) tithing for the Church, which became highly regularized,
and (b) tithing for the poor, which generally remained a private matter of piety. The Church
Fathersxliii regarded Biblical tithes for the priests and the tribe of Levis as a binding precedent
for collections of charity to support Christian apostles, clergy and later the church itself, while
the Biblical poor tithe applied to the poor.
Yet it is somewhat dissonant with Christianity’s general thrust to collect tithes as a legal tax
and thus to imitate the Torah’s institution of a compulsory, legally obligated “gift." The legal
tradition and the religious rationale are at odds. Two theological objections may be raised to
such a “lawful charity.” First, according to Paul the law, especially ritual law, has been
superseded by love, and second, the model for human charity is the altruistic gift of love as
modeled by God who gave his only son in a free-will sacrifice for humankind. Therefore in
tracing the history of Christian tithes we also find expressions of ambivalence about the
appropriateness for Christian practice of this OT law. Jesus himself ridicules the punctilious
dedication of the tithesxliv by Pharisees. Nevertheless, the early Church adopted with few
compunctions the contemporary Jewish practice of tithing which helped the Church to
institutionalize collection and distribution of alms.
Let us examine first the tithe for the church’s needs. The Didache summarizes the teachings
of the earliest Church organization (50-120 CE). It stipulates that apostles have the right to
payment for their work as teachers of Gospel which is to be taken from the first fruits of the
individual Christian’s harvests:
"Every genuine prophet (apostle) who wishes to settle with you `has a right to his support.' Similarly, a
genuine teacher himself, just like a `workman, has a right to his support.' Hence take all the first
fruits of vintage and harvest, and of cattle and sheep, and give these first fruits to the prophets. For
they are your high priests.
If, however, you have no prophet give then to the poor.
If you make bread, take the first fruits and give in accordance with the precept."xlv
Origen (2nd C. CE) argues that clergy should be paid on the same basis as the Biblical priests
were:
"God orders the priest-Levite who possessed no land himself to live together with an Israelite who
possesses land. And the priest-Levite should receive those earthly things which he does not have
from the Israelite; and the Israelite should correspondingly receive the heavenly and divine
things from the priest-Levite. The priest should be completely free to devote himself exclusively to
the service of God. He should be supported, just as we provide oil for a lamp, so that it can give
light." (Homilies on Joshua 17:3)
Yet many of the earlier Church Fathers and especially the early monastic writers regarded the
OT commandments on tithing as superseded by Jesus’ teachings which made higher demands
19
than the OT. While the Hebrews were to give a tenth [to the poor], Jesus told a rich young
man to sell all that he had to give to the poor.xlvi Irenaeus writes that the Jews "had indeed the
tithes of their goods consecrated to God, but those who have received liberty [from the law]
set aside all their possessions for the Lord's purposes, bestowing it joyfully and freely."xlvii
xlviii
For Irenaeus tithing is an inferior Old Testament law not worthy of adoption by the
Church. Jesus has transformed alms by turning them into voluntary charity that cannot be
quantified. “The offerings are no longer limited to the tithes, but are extended to cover all of
one's possessions.”xlix
Similarly Abbot John responded negatively to a gift of a tithe, which for him still reflects the
Old Testament spirit of the Law:
"The righteous [Christians], to whom no law is given, prove that they are under no law by not only
fulfilling the righteousness of the law but rather by trying to exceed it. Their piety goes far beyond the
commandment of the law; they transcend that obedience to the law which is their duty by bringing
voluntary sacrifices.
[About Abraham, David, Elijah, Jeremiah and the Rechabites, Jesus said]: "None of them were
satisfied to give tithes of their possessions; rather, they renounced all earthly possessions and
presented themselves and their souls to God. By doing this they offered a sacrifice so valuable that no
one can redeem it with anything else." And this is also true for us.
The mere fulfillment of the law is not enough; if we wish to achieve eternal salvation, we must
voluntarily fulfill the admonitions of the gospel. Obedience to the law gains us a reward only in this
life (Leviticus 18:5); eternal salvation can be achieved only by following Christ as his disciples.
"When we bring God tithes of our possessions, we remain under the yoke of the law and have
not yet achieved the pinnacle of the gospel. If, however, we strictly conform our lives to the gospel,
we will be rewarded not only with good things in this present life but also with a reward in the life to
come." (John Cassianus)l
Jerome (4th CE) sought to mediate between this radical Christian ideal and the minimalist
Biblical law by offering his own interpretation of Matthew 22:21:
"Give Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, namely coins, taxes and money; and give God what
belongs to God, namely, tithes, first fruits, contributions, and sacrifices, just as Christ paid the tax for
himself and Peter and gave God what belongs to God by fulfilling the will of the Father."
“Though it would be better to sell all one’s property, at least give tithes and first fruits.” (Patrologia
latina xxv 1571)
The second tithe in Christianity was meant to benefit the poor but it never was
institutionalized as effectively as the church tithe. Therefore, Christian champions of the poor
complained bitterly about lax giving to the needy. Cyprian (3rd C) complains of the decline
from the early Church practice of the giving all one's goods for the needs of the poor.
"They [the early church] sold their homes and estates, and laying up treasures for themselves in
heaven; they offered to the Apostles the proceeds for use among the poor. But now we do not even
give a tenth of our patrimony, and, although the Lord orders us to sell, we rather buy and increase."
(Cyprian, The Unity of the Church, 26).
Augustine, like Jerome, seeks to maintain a healthy tension between the ideal of giving all
and the legal concession to human weakness that accepts a tenth for the poor:li
20
"Let us therefore give a definite portion. How large a portion? A tenth.
The Scribes and the Pharisees gave tithes. We must blush for shame brethren that these men for whom
Christ had not yet shed his blood gave tithes. lii Scribes and Pharisees gave tithes; you, therefore, may
not think you have done something great when you bring your bread to the poor - and yet this is hardly
a thousandth part of your possessions! And yet I do not condemn this; do at least this much!"liii
To motivate giving the tithe to the poor, preachers used various rhetorical gambits. Some like
Augustine sought to shame Christians into giving by comparing them to the contemporary rabbinic
practice of tzedakah. Others appealed to the spiritual benefits it would provide for the donor. The most
radical spoke in the voice of Biblical prophets like Amos accusing those who did not give their tithes
as thieves who had robbed the poor. That is precisely the point of John Chrysostum (4th C.
Antioch):
"Whoever will not give the tithe appropriates property that does not belong to him. If the poor die of
hunger, he is guilty of their murder and will have to answer before God's judgment seat as a
murderer; he has taken that which God has set aside for the poor and kept it for himself."liv
Preachers also appealed to positive incentives for giving tithes. John Chrysostum told his
parishioner:
"Now harvest-time is coming. If we now want to give thanks to God the Giver, we must also plan to
bring the tithes to God or, more accurately, back to God. Our God, who has given us everything,
requires of us only that we return a tenth part to him. He requires this of us not for His own
benefit but without doubt for our own benefit.
For this is what he has promised us through the prophet: `Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that
there may be food in my house; and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open
the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing' (Malachi 3:10). God
promises eternal salvation to the man who gives tithes.
Now since you can merit both earthly and eternal gifts for yourself by bringing tithes, why do you
want to cheat yourself out of this double blessing through your own greed."lv
St. Pirmin (c.718-724) preached to the rich a double tithe:
“Give to the churches every year the tithes of all your fruit and animals [the church tithe for upkeep of
the church and clergy].
Give alms [to the poor] from the remaining nine parts remaining to you and from these redeem your
sins as it is written (Tobias 12:9): for alms delivers from death and purges away sin.” lvi
But he also provided a spiritual path to tithing for the poor who are too destitute to make a
material contribution:
“He who is rich and has much should give much ... and he who is poorer should give little in
accordance with his means ... and he who has nothing from which to give alms, let him have good
will to do so and this will count for the deed.”lvii
In order to achieve spiritual perfection one must transform one's material wealth into a
spiritual boon for the giver’s soul. Theodulph of Orleans (813 CE) preached:
“For God gives everyman an art by which he may live and from that art from which he derives the
necessary support for his body, everyman should also administer to his soul.”lviii
A spiritual tithe is suggested by Cassian such that one tithes not only all of one’s profits but
also one’s time as well:
21
“We who are ordered to give tithes of our property and all our profits should even more also give
tithes of our conduct, occupation, and achievements... The number of our days of the years are tithed
by the number 36 ½.”lix
How does one dedicate 10% of one’s days to God? Pope Gregory the Great suggested those
be dedicated to fasting, and the money saved from abstinence from eating given to the
hungry.
Initially the collection of both tithes was chiefly a pious practice that few performedlx until the
8th-9th C. Then in France King Pepin (764 CE) and afterwards, Charlemagne, his son,
enforced the Church tithes as a civil obligation to be paid to the ecclesiastical
authorities.lxi “You shall so provide and ordain on our authority that everyone willy nilly
must pay his tithe.”lxii lxiii This form of taxation continued for more than 1000 years.
The Church sometimes made that distinction between tithes devoted only to the needy, on one
side, and to the servants of God and the maintenance costs of the churches themselves, on the
other, as did St. Pirmin, but very often the Church lumped all gifts into the same kitty of
charity. Then the bishops, officially designated as “overseers of the poor,” were expected to
divide church tithes into four parts:
“(1) alms for the poor; (2) building churches; (3) equipment of the altars;
(4) decoration of the church.”lxiv
In Europe, special barnslxv were built in villages in order to store the tithe. These were often
the largest building in the village after the church. The priest or the collector (decimator)
collected tithes of two kinds. The "Great Tithe" was exacted from grain and large farm
animals; the "Little Tithe," from kitchen herbs, fruit, vegetables and small farm animals. The
produce subject to tithing was not restricted, as in the Torah and Rabbinic sources to the Holy
Land (Israel) nor to agricultural produce alone. It included manufactured goods as well.11
Even after the Protestant Reformation with its increasing separation between church and state,
land-based tithes continued to be collected in countries such as Germany, Switzerland, and
England until the 19th C. They were devoted to the support of the national churches and their
clergy including the churches’ administration of the relief for the poor.
After the Protestant Reformation, Nonconformist Protestant sects like the Quakers12 and
American evangelicals were not entitled to state-collected church tithes in Anglican England,
11
Wine tithe (also called the wet tithe) upon wine cellars; hay tithe upon harvest hay; wood tithe upon cut wood;
meat or blood tithe upon slaughtered animals or animal products such as eggs and milk; cleared-land tithe upon
land that has been newly cleared for farming (See Wikipedia).
The Quakers' Protest against the Agricultural Tithes to the Anglican Church: “The Quakers argued that
tithes had originally been given to relieve and maintain widows, strangers and the fatherless as well as priests.
The law of God ordained that a storehouse should be established in every community in which tithes could be
stored, and priests and the poor could remove what they needed. The gates of the storehouse should stand open
so that 'the Widows, Strangers and Fatherlesse, and poore, might passe freely in and take part of the Tithes with
them.’ If ministers were going to attempt to claim tithes, they should act according to the command, given to
Moses by God, which included the provision of storehouses so `that there might be no beggar in Israel'.'
Withholding tithes could only count as robbing God if the tithes had been brought into a storehouse and used
to relieve those in need. The clergy had betrayed the intention behind 'true' tithes. When the priests grew rich and
fat, they withheld tithes from the storehouse and refused to relieve the poor. By doing so, and by continuing to
12
22
Lutheran Germany, Scandinavia, and Puritan New England. As a result they instituted their own
voluntary tithes for the church and for the poor. lxvi In the 20th C. tithing is commonly practiced
in such free churches and conservative Protestant denominations,13 as the Southern Baptist
Convention, Free Methodists, the Baptist General Conference, Assemblies of God, most
Pentecostal groups and independent fundamentalists, as well as among Mormons.lxvii Some
churches use a program called “4T—Tithing of Time, Talent, and Treasure.” This echoes
Cassion from the early church who suggested, as we cited above, tithing not only all one’s
profits but one’s time as well: “We, who are ordered to give tithes of our property and all our
profits, should even more give tithes of our conduct, occupation, and achievements." lxviii
Mormon tithing combines many Biblical and ancient Church motifs of the tithe. For example,
the ten percent rule is kept strictly; tithes are used both for the needy and for the clergy and for
building funds; tithes maintain a sanctity which transcends their functionality; tithes are
necessary aspect of pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Bible and payment of Mormon tithes are a
condition for participation in important religious ceremonies at Mormon temples. As with Jews
who have been persecuted, communal tithes of the Mormons serve to express their solidarity
against outside attack.
"Early Mormons were outcasts from society and suffered extreme deprivation and they needed to take
care of themselves and take care of the church on a day-to-day basis. To this day, Mormons are known
for taking care of their own." (Terryl Givens)
The Mormon scholar Terryl Givens elaborates on contemporary Mormon practice of tithes:lxix
"Mormon children are expected to begin tithing from their very first allowance, and there's never any
variation on the 10%, whether you're on welfare or you're a millionaire."14 "For Mormons, tithing is an
article of faith,lxx not an economic principle. [It is] an important differentiator between devout
Mormons and nominal Mormons."
take tithes for themselves, they became the God-robbers: they were counterfeits who `rob the poor people, and
rob the fatherless, and the strangers and widows, and do not fill them'. Rather than bringing relief, the clergy
created beggars by confiscating cattle and horses, and suing for treble damages. The clergy had become a
monstrous priesthood, devouring and impropriating all the tithes to themselves. People could not have clear
consciences in paying tithes to a priesthood so `exceedingly stained and laden with the blood of the poor'.' Their
greed meant that they could never be satisfied. The sheep's covering was about to be ripped off to expose their
shame and nakedness, their lack of Christianity: 'you have often taken the sheaf from the hungry, and hath withholden water from the thirsty, therefore shall a famine and drought come upon you'. The ideal was one of the
relief of necessity, with the clergy and the poor sharing the increase without covetousness, providing themselves
with a livelihood, but not with superfluity.” (Laura Brace in The Idea of Property in 17th Century England:
Tithes and the Individual , 140)
13
According to surveys conducted in 2002 by the Barna Group, only three percent of American adults donated
10 percent or more of their income to churches. Only six percent of those who self-identified as born-again
Christians tithed. “An informal 2011 survey by the National Association of Evangelicals found that most
evangelical leaders on its 100-person board of directors don't believe the Bible requires tithing. Just 42% of the
board members said it does.” (Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor, “Romney Tax Returns Shine Light on
Mormon Tithing”).
14
Presidential candidate (2011), the Mormons, Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, gave $2.6 million, more than
12% of the roughly $21 million they earned.
23
Professor James E. Faulconer at Brigham Young University shared the following picture of
Mormon tithes based on his contemporary experience. He emphasized three points in an email to me:
(1) “Tithing is entirely voluntary. In fact, the individual must make the decision as to how to decide what
constitutes a tithe.”
(2) “Tithing is for building and keeping up temples and meeting houses, doing missionary work,
supporting the church's educational system, and such. It is generally not used to care for the poor. We
expect additional donations from our members for the poor.”
(3) “Fast Offerings: we are expected to fast for two meals on the first Sunday of the month and to donate
at least the equivalent of the cost of those meals for the poor. We are also expected to make other freewill offerings for the poor and to support the Church's humanitarian aid efforts. No particular
percentage or amount is specified for the latter offerings. The bishops of the Church distribute the Fast
Offerings. The bishop decides what the needs of those in his congregation are and has wide discretion
in using the Fast Offerings to help them. Bishops tend to prefer to offer help in kind, such as food from
the Bishops Storehouse, rather than money, though it is not uncommon to help by paying a person's
bills, such as rent or hospital bills. Bishops are responsible for the well-being of all of those within the
area of their congregation, not just members, though they have a first responsibility to members.”
Despite theological reservations about obligatory tithes expressed by many Christian
theologians stretching back to the New Testament, in various periods and churches Christian
giving has not been wholly voluntary. It has sometimes become institutionalized as a tax, not
unlike the Biblical legal model. Thomas Aquinas (13th C.) explained that: "One's obligation to
pay the tithe arises partly from natural law and partly from the institution of the church."lxxi
Nevertheless, the tradition that tithes should be voluntary forms of charity dominates the
culture of Christian giving in many communities to this day. Note that most Christian tithing is
devoted to the church’s needs, not to that of the poor, just as was the case with most Biblical
tithes.
Rabbinic Tithes Transformed:
The Problematic Status of Ma'aser Kesafim, the Monetary Tithe
“Do not refrain from giving tithe from all you earn and even from all you find or whatever gifts you
receive, all income you shall tithe.” (Rabbenu Yona of Gerona, Sefer HaYirah)
While the Talmudic Rabbis analyzed in detail the agricultural tithes of the Bible, they did not
automatically extend them to tithing of business profits or earnings from selling craft products,
as in many Christian and Muslim traditions. Nor did they cite the tithes as an authoritative
Biblical source for the legislation of compulsory municipal collections, basically taxes, for
tzedakah.lxxii However, in the medieval era in Ashkenazlxxiii and, again, today in American and
Israeli Orthodox and especially Ultra-Orthodox circles, there was and is a revival of tithing on
monetary resources in the form of individual, voluntary gifts. The monetary tithe is treated by
scholars as a practice on a continuum between a pious personal custom, often reinforced by a
vow, and a legal obligation applying universally to all Jews everywhere, not just to agricultural
produce in Eretz Yisrael. The recipient of this monetary tithe may be the poor but not
exclusively so, since the funds are often used to day to pay for ritual purposes or study.
In any case, most contemporary halakhic authorities conclude that while tithing all one’s
income sources is in some sense a mitzvah, it is not necessarily a binding legal precept and even
if it is it has been neglected by most religious Jews for centuries and has almost no Talmudic
24
precedents. Some of those Jews who practice the monetary tithe diligently give tzedakah with
the help of an official tithing ledger, or more recently, a computer program for keeping track of
their income to make sure 10% is dedicated to appropriate sacred purposes. Sometimes the
revivers of the monetary tithe have added a dimension of the holy to this form of giving by
prohibiting the use of the tithe for secular or self-serving purposes. This is reminiscent of,
though not identical with, the treatment of sacred first fruits and tithed produce of Eretz Yisrael
which entails a sacred status. However, today most people who tithe generally use their setaside funds for paying for their own children’s Torah advanced education and, sometimes, their
weddings and for supporting Talmudic students with stipends. Earlier medieval authorities had
insisted that the monetary tithe be modeled on the poor tithe and allocated to the needy alone..
Let us now trace briefly the evolution of the Biblical tithes in their post-Talmudic
manifestations and see what they tell us about our duties to the poor in particular. Recall that the
three Biblical tithes are for the priests, for the Levites and for the poor paid on alternative years
during the six year agricultural cycle leading up to each Sabbatical year. Only Jewish
agricultural and animal husbandry produce is assessed, only from land in Eretz Yisrael (owned
by a Jew). Gifts to the priest and the Levi may be justified in lieu of their communal function in
keeping up the national cult from which derives God’s blessings to the rain and hence the
productivity of the land of Israel. Or gifts may relate to their function as s teachers of the law
(Dt. 33:10) and judges (Dt. 17:9). Or the gifts to the Levi and the poor may simply be a form of
tzedakah for the needy. In the revival of the monetary tithe its recipients include any Jew withy
nothing earmarked for priests or members of the tribe of Levi; the form of income assessed is
from all income, and its jurisdiction applies not only to Eretz Yisrael but to any land. Its
rationale includes not only benefits for the recipients but also an opportunity for spiritual growth
for the donors.
The first point to make about the legal history of monetary tithes is that the Talmud does not
mention a “monetary tithe on income.” It codifies extensive rules for agricultural gifts to the
poor; it legislates for the collection of compulsory tzedakah by the community as a tax whose
amounts are set by the tax collectors; it encourages voluntary giving of gifts to the poor from
10%; and it limits the maximum tzedakah gift to 20%. But, surprisingly, only a single midrashic
source speaks of a “tithe of money” (ma’aser kesafim) as a mitzvah:
"Asser te'asser - Tithe, you shall tithe (Dt. 14:22) - so that you shall not be in want, tithe so that you
become wealthy [as if it says asser te'asher]. Said the Holy One: Tithe that which is mine, and I will
make prosper that which is yours.
‘Tithe, you shall tithe all’ (Dt. 14:22) - Said Rabbi Abba bar Kahana (300 CE): This is a hint to
merchants and seafarers [who do not engage in agriculture] that they should give a tithe to those who
labor in the Torah.” (Pesikta d'Rav Kahana, Piska 10).
The modern Israeli halakhic scholar, David Golinkin,lxxiv comments on this source (5th-7th CE)
and notes that it does not speak of a tithe for the poor but of stipend for students of Torah,
though they too are presumably in financial need for their devotion to scholarship, rather than
craft or business. Nor does this Rabbinic source speak authoritatively about legislating the tithe
or institutionalizing it. It is a sermonic recommendation to make a contribution to Talmudic
scholarship, not a legislative text. It promises prosperity to those who pay a tithe, not legal
punishments for those who do not live up to this “obligation.” To be sure, the Talmud does
institutionalize the setting of money aside for the poor. However, it does so without any
association of this mitzvah of tzedakah with tithing.
25
“Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish (ca. 250 CE.) in the name of Rabbi Yosi ben Hanina:
‘They
decided at Usha that a person should set aside one fifth of his income for Mitzvah’ (which often
means tzedakah).” lxxv (Jerusalem Talmud, Peah1:1)
The report from Usha sounds like a new enactment, not an implementation of a Biblical or early
rabbinic tradition. The rest of Talmudic and Babylonian Geonic texts (4th C- 12th C) that have
come down to us are silent about the monetary tithe and its origins.lxxvi
Jay Rovner, a historian who has written extensively on ma’aser kesafim, summarizes the tithe’s
first appearance in Europe:
"The first actual Jewish practice of income tithe is first attributed to Rabbenu Gershom Meor ha-Golah
(10th-11th C. Germany). The claim is made that he was only ratifying the practice of his predecessors. In
Christian European society, the payment of tithe was first made obligatory under civil law by Pepin King
of the Franks in 765, and his son Charlemagne in 779."lxxvii lxxviii
Thus the monetary tithe appears as an institution only 1000 years ago when Ashkenazi sources
reinterpret the tithe as a communal tax that attributes the authority of the collection of
municipal tzedakah back to the Biblical agricultural gifts to the poor. After all God's blessings
are not restricted to the produce of the land of Israel, but extend to all Divinely-inspired
economic blessings of human activity.lxxix
Despite Rabbenu Gershom’s alleged ruling on the monetary tithe, few communities enacted this
communal obligation of tithing, especially from the 13th C. on. Instead the tithe was retooled as
a personal practice of tzedakah of especially pious individuals – whether as a voluntary
custom which they take upon themselves as a vow, or as a rabbinic injunction that intentionally
emulates the Biblical poor tithe – though it lacks any institutional mechanism of enforcement.
lxxx
David Golinkin cites Sefer Hassidim (c. 1200 CE) as one of the first Ashkenazi sources to speak
of a voluntary personal tithe and this too is not institutionalized:
"Bring the full tithe into the storehouse... and thus put Me to the test (Malachi 3:10)... That tithe is the
tithe for the poor, to give to the poor a tithe of everything a person earns from interest, from
hiring himself out, and from everything a man profits from... and Oy! [Woe!] to those who delay
giving their tithes, for in the end, the only thing that will remain in their hands is the tithe, as it is
written: And each person shall retain his sacred donations (Numbers 5:10).” (Sefer Hassidim, 144)lxxxi
A more broadly accepted legal source for tithing money may be attributed to Rabbi Isaac ben
Moses of Vienna (1180-1250), who might have been trying to legislate this custom by
defining it as a rabbinic mitzvah intentionally imitating a Torah injunction:
“We have learned that it is a mitzvah for a man to tithe his money, and the more he tithes the
wealthier he becomes. If he gives to tzedakah more than the tithe, this is praiseworthy on condition
that he does not spend more than a fifth.” (Or Zarua, I #13, end of folio. 8b)
It is in medieval Ashkenaz that the monetary tithe finds its spiritual home and there that a multicentury struggle over its level of binding obligation and its chief beneficiary – the poor – begins.
One of the most principled halakhic authorities to write about the tithe on monetary resources is
Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg, the Maharam (d.1293). He considered this monetary tithe to be a
26
commendable custom rather than an obligatory one. However, he ruled that, once undertaken,
the funds set aside in this pious practice must benefit the poor alone:
“It would seem that the coins of maaser after he put them aside to give to the poor, they cannot
be changed for another mitzvah, because it is like stealing from the poor, because even though it is
not based on the Torah but is rather a custom... But the poor have already acquired the coins
of Maasar Kesafim through custom, for it is the custom in the entire Diaspora, and one cannot change
its purpose from benefitting the poor to another mitzvah which the poor do not need. As we have
learned, "The excess of the poor goes to the poor [even if the other mitzvah is also dedicated to God, a
mitzvah laGavoa.] (Mishna Shekalim 2:5).” lxxxii
The Maharil, Jacob of Molin (1355-1427) holds that this monetary tithe is not merely a
custom, but a rabbinic obligationlxxxiii that relates only to the needs of the poor: “One who
gives from the tithe for oil for the synagogue candles during prayer has acted improperly for
the tithe belongs to the poor.”lxxxiv Even using Purim gifts for the poor as tithes is prohibited,
since the Purim gifts are already required and tithes are an extra contribution to the poor.lxxxv
lxxxvi
This is the position that was adopted by the highly influential Rabbi Moses Isserles
(1525/30-72).lxxxvii
However, a lenient dissenting view was held by Rabbi Menahem of Meerseburg in his Meil
Tzedakah (15th C.) and that has become more dominant in contemporary Orthodoxy:lxxxviii
“I am accustomed to tell people that they may take from their tithe for any mitzvah that occurs such
as arranging a circumcision or a wedding or to buy bookslxxxix to study or lend out for others to study –
if one would not otherwise have the financial capability to do so and would not do so.”xc
This dissenting view generalizes the purpose of the tithe to fund all mitzvot and in effect
removes the priority assigned to the poor as beneficiaries of the monetary tithe.xci Rav Yoel
Sirkis also explains that, unlike the Biblical and Rabbinic tithe, the monetary tithe is not a
legal obligation; it entails no restrictions, though it still often takes the form of a 10%
allocation. Hence, one many devote the tithe to whatever purpose one wishes as it is
effectively a voluntary tithe.xcii
“[The restrictions on the use of the tithe] is only regarding ma’aser for the poor that is given from the
grain, which is a Biblical mitzvah. But that which a person tithes from what he profits in business,
like money, and other profits, is not included in this ruling. And he can use this money towards prior
tzedakah obligations and towards redeeming captives, because he is not obligated in it [ma’aser
kesafim] neither Biblically nor Rabbinically.” (Yoel Sirkes, 17th Century, Lublin, Y.D. 331)
While these rulings that permit the broad discretionaryxciii use of the monetary tithes for any
kind of mitzvah and for Torah study offer no narrative rationale for their rulings, later
halakhic authorities interpret this view in light of the Biblical models of tithes. A late midrash
says that the Biblical tithe hints (remez) that one should “set aside the tithe for those who toil
in Torah” (Midrash Tanhuma Re’eh #18).xciv
In that spirit the great 20th C. halakhic authority, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, makes the point that
the tithes of the Torah were not only for the poor, but also “for the students of Torah15 –
The Hafetz Haim recommends that at least half of one’s maaser be given to Torah students (Ahavat Hesed,
Chapter 19). However, it is questionable whether that counts as fulfillment of the poor tithe, unless the
beneficiaries were impoverished Torah students only. Certainly one is forbidden to spend the maaser on one’s
15
27
whether they were poor or not…. Further one is not restricted [in using the monetary tithe] to
supporting Torah scholars [such that one may expend it] for any mitzvah whatever one
vows.”xcv xcvi Feinstein lumps all tithes together and permits varied beneficiaries and goals to
be subsidized under the budgetary category of the monetary tithe.xcvii Rav Feinstein rules that
since this tithe is not really an obligation but a voluntary vow, it may be dedicated to anyone.
One may donate it to whomever one wants as long as one makes the discretionary decision
explicit in setting aside the tithe (in effect, by making a vow). This discretionary money,
which might be spent on one’s own books or religious ritual items, corresponds to the
Rabbinic understanding of the Biblical second tithe, ma’aser sheni, which may be spent on
one’s own material needs, i.e. food eaten in Jerusalem during the pilgrimage (Dt. 14:22-26).
Thus for most great halakhic authorities the rabbinic “monetary tithe” does not derive its
authority from the Biblical agricultural tithe. Yet the commentators sought to identify the
Biblical lineage of the monetary tithe and thereby explain its conceptual ideal. Rav Bezalel
Ashkenazi explains that Menahem of Meerseburg’s position is one of three views all of which
are derivable from the three Biblical modes of tithes:
“His view relies on the second tithe (ma’aser sheni) ...Therefore one has permission to use it for any
mitzvah, even for himself or his children and household members, such as writing books to study for
oneself and one’s children or others [not necessarily poor] for the second tithe was eaten by oneself
and one’s family in Jerusalem. But the other tithe was for tzedakah for the poor and the first tithe was
for priests and Levites to strengthen God’s Torah.” (Shita Mekubetzet, d. 1592 on TB Ketubot 50a)
In short, there is a major debate between those halakhic authorities who strictly forbid any use
of the tithe for anything but the poor,xcviii on one side, and others who allow more latitude –
especially if one stipulates a more flexible use at the time of one’s founding vow establishing
one’s tithing practice.xcix c Even if poor beneficiaries are to be preferred, but the donor is
temporarily strapped financially, he may use the tithe money for any form of support of Torah
study – for himself or his family.ci Those who hold stringent views strictly require that the tithe
be dedicated to the needs of the poor, as did the Maharam. So books, purchased with the
monetary tithe, must be devoted to use by the needy only:cii
“[If we permit him to buy books] why should we not permit him to buy tefillin or a tallit from ma’aser
money provided he allows others to use them, likewise a shofar or etrog, or sukkah ...
In addition, even if we do permit him to buy books from ma’aser money, he is only one of those who
benefit; the others can say `We do not want the books to be kept in your house but in the bet
hamidrash study house, so that they are available for anyone who wishes to use them for studying.'
It is therefore advisable to avoid using this concession.” (Rav Y.M. Epstein, Aruch HaShulkhan YD
249:10)ciii
Thus, we see that in the early modern and modern period, the rabbis returned to the Biblical
tithe to renew its differentiated function. However, in my judgment it is sloppy thinking both
halakhically and conceptually, to refer to all three kinds of tithes with their differing
beneficiaries as "tzedakah." civ On the one hand, the monetary tithe might be said to include
the features of support for the Temple worship (including the ma’aser sheni) and, hence, they
are applicable to any mitzvah, especially ritual ones like the rituals of Sukkot – the lulav and
etrog. On the other hand, the monetary tithe does involve tzedakah for the needy, even if the
needy are, first and foremost, my family, including my grown children in regard both to their
own children’s Torah education. However Rav Waldenburg would concede that this is permitted if the parent is
very poor. (C. Domb, Maaser Kesafim, 116)
28
material and their spiritual well-being. Maimonides follows the Rabbis (TB Ketubot 50a) in
ruling that:
“One who gives maintenance for food to one’s grown up sons and daughters [over six years old] to
whom he has no legal obligation to support them in order to teach the boys Torah and accustom the girls
to worthy behavior and to avoid their being disgraced, and support for his father and mother – has
performed tzedakah. It is a great form of tzedakah to support those who are closest to us.” (Maimonides,
Gifts to the Poor 10:16)
But it should be stressed that dedicating almost all of one’s tzedakah to pay for one’s children’s
day schools, professional schools, yeshivot and weddings would diminish the idea of tzedakah
from relating to human need to promoting one’s own family solely. To me this would be a
travesty of the poor tithe. That is apparently why the Maharam decided that the poor tithe
should be given solely to those actually in poverty. For him, diversion of the tithes for other
mitzvot was robbing the poor.
In sum, after 800 years of halakhic development in the Ashkenazi world, the income tithe has
not yet become widely practiced or even regarded as an obligation. Y. H. Bachrach (1638-1701)
summed up its uncertain legal status for many 16th C. authorities:cv
“If ma'sar kesafim were [at least] a rabbinically imposed obligation, then the holy nation of Israel would
not treat it so lightly that only one person in a city or two in a family are careful to observe it." cvi
Nevertheless, despite the lack of halakhic, i.e., legislative force, the monetary tithe is an
expression of a spiritually individualized form of piety.
Ma’sar Kesafim as an Expression of Personal Piety
In an outstanding work of scholarship in his “Please Help Me Tithe unto You’”: Ma’sar Kesafim
(Income Tithe) Ledger of Mordecai Zeev Ehrenpreis of Lvov, Jay Rovner has translated,
annotated and introduced an example of this pious revival of tithing in 19th C. Poland. His
introduction will help us make sense of the ambivalent status of the post Talmudic tithe in
rabbinic literature and its relationship to tzedakah. He summarizes the problem:
"As a practice, ma`sar kesafim [the monetary income tithe] is doubly ambiguous right from its inception,
for neither the legal authority of this institution nor the identity of its intended beneficiaries has been
clearly identified. It is not clear whether the obligation derives from Scripture,cvii whether it is a rabbinic
innovation anchored in Scripture, or whether it is merely a custom developed by analogy with scriptural
forms (agricultural tithes), which has been connected exegetically to various scriptural loci in order to
underwrite a desired transfer of divine scriptural blessings onto this innovative kind of gift. The
beneficiary may be from among the poor, but the householder may use the monetary tithe in the context
of his religious and communal life, or a student of Torah may be seen as the proper recipient."cviii
Rovner shows that the rabbinic monetary tithe was seen to express personal piety as in the
Ehrenpreis ledger. There its narrative is about a personal spiritual quest rather than tikkun olam or
social justice or brotherly love.
"I praise the Ashkenazim, who tithe their wealth, and are extremely meticulous about this mitzvah: it has
stood them in good stead, for they inherit and in turn bequeath their property from generation to generation."cix (Shabbetai Horowitz, 16th-17th C. businessman-ethicist, and a practitioner of ma`sar kesafimcx)
29
But the earliest idea of keeping a tzedakah ledger as spiritual practice, though not a tithe, goes
back to the Talmudic tale of Mar Ukba:
"When he [Mar Ukba] was about to die, he requested: ‘Bring me my tzedakah accounts.’ Finding that
seven thousand Sijan [gold] denarii were entered therein he exclaimed, ‘The provisions are scanty and
the road is long’, and he immediately distributed half of his wealth." (TB Ketubot 67b)
The income tithe was dramatically promoted in an unusual family pact by Rabbenu Asher
who came from Germany to Spain. It bound his sons to tithe all their earned and established a
private family foundation (1314).16
The most spiritually eloquent and personally inspiring document regarding the income tithe is
from a simple Jew, not a scholar but a bookkeeper in Lvov who when he began in 1836 was less
than 18 years old. Speaking of the rise of individualism and the search for personalized
spirituality in the 19th C, Jay Rovner calls this worship of God – through tzedakah rather that
the traditional fields of prayer or study – "Bookkeeping as a High Form of Spiritual
Expression." Jay Rovner explains the question that he posed in his research:
“One is left wondering why tithing, of all mitzvot, loomed so large in Mordecai Ehrenpreis' religious
imagination. ...what about the practice of ma’sar kesafim would be so attractive to Mordecai Zeev
Ehrenpreis, who, neither a man of wealth nor a scholar, was an accountant and erstwhile businessman of
Lvov?
Ehrenpreis cites neither halakhic sources nor Scripture or its midrashic expositions, to ground his
decision to tithe. As he describes it, the inspiration came to him as a result of a special understanding at
which he had arrived, or which had been vouchsafed him by God, as he came to know Him."
Ehrenpreis opens his tithing ledger (1836-1851) with a prayer:
“I praise the Lord who has counseled me, having given me a heart by which to know Him, to separate
from all that He will bless me with in my business dealings one-tenth, after the following manner.”
“From the day that I began to go out to the market you have not abandoned me, and you have indicated
to me the way of truth. I greatly thank you, O Lord my God and God of my ancestors, for all of the
lovingkindness that you have worked for me, and for what you will do for me in the future; and for
giving me the idea to separate for you one-tenth of my profit."'
16
Will of Rav Yehuda ben Asher, the Rosh, in Toledo
“My revered father of blessed memory ordained in his city in Germany that every member of the community
should pay a tithe of his total income, and in the district of Toledo he ordained that he and his children should do
likewise. After he had passed away I and all my brothers resolved to maintain the practice (1346 C.E.) ... Each of
us shall be obligated to set aside the proper amount and place it in the hands of the treasurers within eight days of
the sum becoming due.
Our ancestor Rabbenu Asher [wrote]: ‘Hear my son the instruction of your father and do not forsake the
teaching of your mother' (Proverbs 1:8). Seeing that in the country [Ashkenaz] from which we migrated our
fathers and our fathers' fathers were accustomed to set aside to God as tzedakah for sake of the mitzvah one part
in ten of all business profits - this was in accordance with the comment of our Rabbis on a verse in the Torah
"`You shall tithe all of your agricultural produce.. (Dt. 14:22) - from this we deduce that traders overseas should
separate one tenth (of their profits) for those who labor in Torah."
Therefore, we have continued in the footsteps of our fathers, and have taken on ourselves the obligation to set
aside a tithe of all our profits in business, in interest and in trade. Three-fourths of that tithe we will deposit in a
chest, controlled by two treasurers, by whose authorization all grants shall be made to all those in need. And this
undertaking we have assumed upon ourselves and our offspring to observe, to do and to maintain it, and what we
have accepted upon ourselves we have signed on the 9 th day of Marheshvan in the year 1314.” (Israel Abrahams,
Hebrew Ethical Wills, 192-194)
30
“In your abundant mercy, provide sustenance for all your people Israel, and my sustenance among
them... that is, to provide plentiful sustenance so that I may worship you, study your holy Torah, and
fulfill your commandments - and to fulfill that which I vowed and to add more according to my heart's
desire. Amen, amen. ...Help me to serve you according to my heart’s desire.”cxi 17
The religious motivation for tithing was gratitude for Divine care felt personally in his everyday
life, but the binding authority was his own vow. Personal commitment made this spiritual
practice function for 16 years with all the ups and down of his business life.
Following the more lenient view, Mordecai Ehrenpreis permits the use of his funds for nontzedakah purposes related to Torah study and other personal rituals (the purchase of books for
his own study or a fine etrog, a ritual citron for the holiday of Sukkot or for making
contributions to the upkeep of his synagogue). All the latter recall the ma'aser sheni (food for
the donor to eat in Jerusalem, the religious center on a religious "vacation" or pilgrimage – Dt.
14) or the support of the temple and its priesthood and Levites.cxii
However, the main function of these tithes was for tzedakah for the poor and that took
priority for Ehrenpreis. Even the support of Torah studycxiii was – with exceptions – severely
curtailed in the use of tithe funds except for the purchase of books.cxiv In any case the tithe fund
could not become an inheritable foundation that persisted over generations.
"Isaiah Horowitz ruled that one could not hold on to his tithe and bequeath it to one's heirs; on the
contrary, it would fall to the communal tzedakah fund at his death. Not only should the fund be used
17
Mordecai Ehrenpreis' Vow:
“I praise the Lord who has counseled me, having given me a heart by which to know Him, to separate from all that
He will bless me with in my business dealings one-tenth, after the following manner.”
l.
From all profits that God grants me, whether at home or outside, when the profit exceeds the outlay, I am
obligated to tithe from that profit for tzedakah or for a matter of mitzvah, beginning from the date below.
2.
The ‘matter of mitzvah’ enunciated .. refers, for example, to books or other articles that I am not required
to own - [those] I may purchase with tithe money; but articles that I am required to own, such as tallit, tefillin,
mezuzot, and the like, I may not purchase with tithe money, but only from my own purse. Now regarding hiddur
mitzvah [enhancing the mitzvah by increasing the outlay for a more beautiful ritual object such as an etrog], I may
augment the expenses for the purpose of hiddur with tithe money - even though I am obligated in the performance
of the mitzvah anyway.
3.
Tzedakah takes precedence over anything else, and purchasing a devar mitsvah [something used for
performing a mitzvah] takes precedence over hiddur mitzvah.
4.
Since I hope that God, who searches the inner organs (kidneys), will grant me success in my business
dealings (according to teachings of the Sages), it being impossible to figure my profits constantly, I will therefore
do the following: according to my estimate, I will figure how much profit I have made every week, and set aside
my tithe. At the end of the year, when I do a full accounting, and determine my earnings and compute what I have
set aside, then if I have set aside too much, I will take it back; and if I separated out too little, I will immediately
give what is due. (Leket Yosher, Part 2, 76)
5.
In case tithe money is available in my fund, I may lend to myself and pay back into the fund, without
adding any extra amount. (Jay Rovner's translation of JTSA Library MS 10115, fol. 2r, 63-64)
By way of explanation of the foregoing: I accept [it] upon myself as a binding vow, and hope in God for
success, whereupon I will set aside the tithe with good will in accordance with my undertaking. And I beseech the
Creator (may He be blessed) not to bring me to any transgression in this matter; rather, may He present me with
fitting persons, and preserve me from all sorrow, harm, and disease; and send blessing, success, and profit in my
undertakings, and upon those of all of the house of Israel his people; and may He help me so that I may fulfill what
I have accepted upon myself. Amen.
Friday, the eve of the Sabbath of Va'ethanan, 15 Av 596 [1836].
31
up during one's lifetime, but the fund should be emptied totally at least every third year, on the
model of the Biblical poor tithe."cxv
Here we can see an early example of a self-liquidating, rather than a self-perpetuating,
charitable foundation because the ideal of keeping one's name alive through the foundation's
ongoing work is absent from the religious motivation of this personalized tithing vow.
In conclusion, behind the renewed interest in Jewish tithing in the 20th century we may detect a
pursuit of personal piety rather than a concern for tzedakah or social justice or support
for communal institutions. Monetary tithes in the modern era have become spiritual practices
precisely because they are semi-optional and practiced only by those who choose to do so. In
that sense they function as a re-spiritualization of an area of human life that has become
wholly secularized and freed from most religious norms. Indeed, following secular values,
many aspects of private life in general are relatively free both of public scrutiny and moral
judgment altogether. Money and economic life in particular, have been secularized and
privatized. The pursuit and accumulation of wealth are not considered a moral fault or a
religious sin, except in Lithuanian Haredi circles. Furthermore, economic decisions are often
expected to be determined by functional rationality – not moral concern for the others.
In contrast, Maaser Kesfaim, the monetary tithe, turns the pursuit of wealth into the pursuit
of increasing means for doing good. This practice sacralizes the bookkeeping of the
people who tithe their money: at every occasion when they calculate their business
profits, they also take advantage of that opportunity to give a tithe or put it aside for
later donation. The fact that there will be a beneficiary of this tithe – whether a poor person
or a yeshiva or a ritual scribe who writes the texts in the tefillin – transforms the money into
a prime mover in the world of religious values. Thus, the use of disposable income is now
guided by religious values and thereby contributes to the spiritual well-being of the donor.
The 19th C. founder of Modern Orthodoxy S. R. Hirsch reconceptualizes the monetary tithe
as an example of Divine stewardship in which God has granted us an extra 10 per cent in our
earnings in order for us to regard it as a trust for the poor and for other such “holy purposes.”
In our careful bookkeeping we function as God’s accountant or trust manager. However
Hirsch does not treat the monetary tithe as a voluntary pious gift from a conceptual
viewpoint, but as a duty like the Biblical poor tithe which is a legal obligation. Thus giving
to the poor is wholly unlike Christian alms which are voluntary and which might therefore
embarrass the recipients of such pity:
“The Jewish poor receive no ‘alms’ (allemosyne = gifts of pity). The deep insight of our sages takes
its cue from the poor tithe law which has fixed the amount of this tzedakah duty to one tenth. First it
is to be separated out of every fresh capital amount obtained and subsequently from the income it
brings each year .
By this, every Jew has to consider himself the administrator of a small or large fund lying in his
hands, dedicated to God to be used for benevolent and holy purposes, so that he must feel pleased
when he finds opportunities to dispose of this fund, which no longer belongs to him, for the good
purposes for which it has been entrusted to him.”cxvi
We are charged with carrying out God’s desire to be generous to the needy and to provide
God’s allotment to them just as God has given us our allotment of land, health and strength.
Monetary tithing may have the legal standing of a private vow and it may well serve to
enhance our own piety as well as to help others, but our due diligence in keeping these
32
accounts partakes in the business-like discipline of merchant and banker. Ehrenpreis and
Hirsch transform tzedakah into a businesslike responsibility which is not usually the ambience
of charity or tzedakah. It reminds of Charles Bronfman’s appeal to philanthropists to treat the
management of charitable trusts with no less concern for profit and loss and scientific
rationality than their businesses. He seeks to combine piety and good business sense as
expressed in the title of his book The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business Plan.
"In the new philanthropy donors have sought to make a difference. They are ready for their second act.
And they are ready to make use of sophisticated management instruments they have developed in their
business life to achieve greater performance in this new, more challenging arena, and with potentially
more impact. They give purposefully, think strategically, rely on measurements and regular
monitoring. In short, they are relying on the focus and rigor of for-profits to enhance the effectiveness
of their philanthropy. ..Business’ best attributes of purposeful, honed intelligence and strategicmindedness have a place in philanthropy.”cxvii
Clearly Bronfman goes far beyond Ehrenpreis in his strategic giving just as his modern
business enterprises go far beyond Ehrenpreis’ business, but they share the desire to harness a
business mentality for spiritual and ethical pursuit.
Postscript: The Gift Community of Lewis Hyde
and the Spiritual Ecology of Gift-Giving
The anthropologists of tribal societies beginning with Marcel Mauss and continuing with
sharp-eyed cultural observers of contemporary Western society like Lewis Hyde have much to
contribute to understanding how economics can become a most profound spiritual teacher, not
just as source of exploitation, alienation, competition. Making and spending may be
conducted some times as a commercial exchange and at other times as a gift-giving
interaction. These gifts extend upwards to God the great Giver of all possibility, of fertility
and life, out to our friends and allies who can most easily reciprocate in kind, and down to
those wholly dependent on our largesse with little more to return than gratitude. At times we
all find ourselves in each of these roles – as beneficent giver, as mutual exchanger of gifts,
and as humble, empty-handed recipient.
The first principle of a gift-giving society like the Bible is the awareness that we are not born
with inalienable rights and not born entirely free, equal and independent even before entering
into a social compact. Our life, our land, our health, and our ongoing consumable resources
like rain and food depend on God’s gift to us as humans and as members of a particular
society, like Israel in Eretz Yisrael. Lewis Hyde discusses the Biblical view that we have all
received a gift from God and that God expects us to consecrate ourselves in return. Becoming
independent, self-made, free-standing individuals is only a passing stage of adolescence but
maturity is a rediscovery of the importance of gifts we have received and of the ultimate
meaning of gifts we give of ourselves. In giving away the gifts we received we are given back
their full vitality:
“If our lives are gifts to begin with, however, in some sense they are not ‘ours’ even when we become
adults. Or perhaps they are, but only until such time as we find a way to bestow them. The belief that
life is a gift carries with it the corollary feeling that the gift should not be hoarded. As we mature, and
particularly as we come into the isolation of being ‘on our own,’ we begin to feel the desire to
give ourselves away - in love, in marriage, to our work, to the gods, to politics, to our children.
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And adolescence is marked by that restless, erotic, disturbing inquisition: Is this person, this nation,
this work, worthy of the life I have to give? (97)
“A circulation of gifts nourishes those parts of our spirit that are not entirely personal, parts that derive
from nature, the group, the race, or the gods. Furthermore, although these wider spirits are a part of us,
they are not ‘ours’; they are endowments bestowed upon us. To feed them by giving away the
increase they have brought us is to accept that our participation in them brings with it an
obligation to preserve their vitality.”cxviii
If the first principle of gift-giving is that we all begin as recipients of God’s, nature’s and
society’s gift of life and nurture, the second principle is that like God we ought to find
fulfillment in giving, not keeping the gifts. While one might show appreciation for a gift by
treasuring it in one’s treasury, giving it away is an even greater sign of appreciation. Divine
and human greatness derive from largesse not from stockpiling static wealth. Lewis Hyde
acknowledges that a market economy measures human’s worth but he prefers the traditional
religious understanding that the big man is the big giver:
“The mythology of a market society reverses the picture: getting rather than giving is the mark of a
substantial person, and the hero is 'self-possessed,' 'self-made'... where we reckon our substance
by our acquisitions.”
“Every culture offers its citizens an image of what it is to be a man or woman of substance. There have
been times and places in which a person came into his or her social being through the dispersal of
his gifts, the ‘big man’ or ‘big woman’ being that one through whom the most gifts flowed.”
(Lewis Hyde, The Gift, xiii)
The third principle of gift-giving is that the more broadly material blessings are shared, the
larger and richer the community it generates:
“The gift can circulate at every level of the ego. In the ego-of-one we speak of self-gratification, and
whether it's forced or chosen, a virtue or a vice, the mark of self-gratification is its isolation.
Reciprocal giving, the ego-of-two, is a little more social. We think mostly of lovers. Each of these
circles is exhilarating as it expands, and the little gifts that pass between lovers touch us because each
is stepping into a larger circuit.
“But again, if the exchange goes on and on to the exclusion of others, it soon goes stale. D. H.
Lawrence spoke of the egoisme de deux of so many married couples ... who close down for a lifetime,
opening up for neither children, nor the group nor the gods.
[By contrast] the circle of giving expands the ego to include whole society or even all of nature.
Even death, return to the earth from which one was taken or given, is part of cycle of giving
constituting the great ego of all.”cxix
The fourth principle is that receiving a gift is not an insult that establishes one’s impotence
and abject dependence. Rather it initiates an obligation to develop and then pass on the gifts in
an endless material stream of society-building and renewal. The gift-giver trusts the recipient
to be able to appreciate the gift, improve it and pass it on. One may and should be proud of
one’s agricultural achievements as long one does not forget who provided the raw materials –
God – and as long as one shows one’s gratitude to God and to those who have not yet
received their blessings – the needy. Accumulation for its own sake is antithetical to the giftgiving society as we will see later in chapter 7. But rather than giving it all away to get rid of
material blessings, why not “use” them to build more relationships. Instead of denying that
one’s selfhood is related to material possessions, why not define the self not by what we hold
34
in reserve as inert objects that qualify us as “haves” or “have nots,” but by what has passed
through our hands as givers who supervise the dynamic power of our “possessions.” Our lives
are the biographies of our possessions that we no longer possess not because we consumed
them, lost them or were robbed of them, but through our thoughtful intentional donations.
Giving a gift is not a form of “alienating” our property but making it “truly my own” forever
as a defining aspect of my curriculum vita. Hyde explains:
“A gift economy allows its own form of individualism: to be able to say ‘I gave that.’ After he had
lived with the Sioux Indians for a while, Erik Erikson commented about their treatment of children: "A
parent . . . would not touch a child's possessions, because the value of possessions lay in the owner's
right to let go of them when he was moved to do so, i.e., when it added prestige to himself and to the
person in whose name he might decide to give it away." Individualism in a gift economy inheres in
the right to decide when and how to give the gift. The individual controls the flow of property
away from him (rather than toward him, a different individualism).”cxx
The fourth principle is that society is always divided into commercial and gift relations, but
one without the other is spiritually unhealthy. Commercial society often assumes scarcity,
which is why they are so concerned with accumulation, while gift societies celebrate
abundance which is why they are willing to give:
“Marshall Sahlins begins a comment on modern scarcity with the paradoxical contention that hunters
and gatherers "have affluent economies, their absolute poverty notwithstanding." He writes:
“Modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of
scarcity. [Both Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman begin their economies with "The Law of
Scarcity"] Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world's wealthiest peoples.
....The market-industrial system institutes scarcity, in a manner completely unparalleled and to a
degree nowhere else approximated. Where production and distribution are arranged through the
behavior of prices, and all livelihoods depend on getting and spending, insufficiency of material means
becomes the explicit, calculable starting point of all economic activity.” (Hyde, The Gift, 21-23)
For those obsessed with scarcity, giving has a healing function that reconciles competitive
relationships. But giving need not be abstractly altruistic, rather it is an alternative form of
reciprocity parallel to and yet different than commercial exchange. The modern Western
Protestant society has become one-sidedly commercial, so that it often fails to understand the
wisdom of a traditional gift-giving society. To illustrate that contrast Lewis Hyde uses two
clashes between British imperialism at its most morally self-righteous and the emotional
“economy” of the colonized natives:
“When the Puritans first landed in Massachusetts, they discovered a thing so curious about the Indians'
feelings for property that they felt called upon to give it a name. In 1764, when Thomas Hutchinson
wrote his history of the colony, the term was already an old saying: ‘An Indian gift,’ he told his
readers, ‘is a proverbial expression signifying a present for which an equivalent return is expected.’
We still use this, of course, and in an even broader sense, calling that friend an Indian giver who is so
uncivilized as to ask us to return a gift he has given.
“Imagine a scene. An Englishman comes into an Indian lodge, and his hosts, wishing to make their
guest feel welcome, ask him to share a pipe of tobacco. Carved from a soft red stone, the pipe itself is
a peace offering that has traditionally circulated among the local tribes, staying in each lodge for a
time but always given away again sooner or later. And so the Indians, as is only polite among their
people, give the pipe to their guest when he leaves. The Englishman is tickled pink. What a nice thing
to send back to the British Museum! He takes it home and sets it on the mantelpiece. A time passes
and the leaders of a neighboring tribe come to visit the colonist's home. To his surprise he finds his
guests have some expectation in regard to his pipe, and his translator finally explains to him that if he
35
wishes to show his goodwill he should offer them a smoke and give them the pipe. In consternation
the Englishman invents a phrase to describe these people with such a limited sense of private property.
The opposite of ‘Indian giver’ would be something like ‘white man keeper’ (or maybe ‘capitalist’),
that is, a person whose instinct is to remove property from circulation, to put it in a warehouse or
museum (or, more to the point for capitalism, to lay it aside to be used for production).
“The Indian giver (or the original one, at any rate) understood a cardinal property of the gift: whatever
we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept. Or, if it-is kept, something of
similar value should move on in its stead, the way a billiard ball may stop when it sends another
scurrying across the felt, its momentum transferred. You may keep your Christmas present, but it
ceases to be a gift in the true sense unless you have given something else away. As it is passed along,
the gift may be given back to the original donor, but this is not essential. In fact, it is better if the gift is
not returned but is given instead to some new, third party. The only essential is this: the gift must
always move. There are other forms of property that stand still, that mark a boundary or resist
momentum, but the gift keeps going.” (Hyde, The Gift, 3-4)
Another illustration of a misunderstanding between an extreme commercial and a traditional
society is taken by Hyde from E. M. Forster’s novel:
“A paradox of gift exchange: when the gift is used, it is not used up. Quite the opposite, in fact: the
gift that is not used will be lost, while the one that is passed along remains abundant. ....What is given
away feeds again and again, while what is kept feeds only once and leaves us hungry.
In E. M. Forster's novel, A Passage to India, Dr. Aziz, the Moslem, and Fielding, the
Englishman, have a brief dialogue, a typical debate between gift and commodity. Fielding
says:
"Your emotions never seem in proportion to their objects, Aziz."
"Is emotion a sack of potatoes, so much to the pound, to be measured out? Am I a machine? I shall be
told I can use up my emotions by using them, next."
"I should have thought you would. It sounds common sense. You can't eat your cake and have it,
even in the world of the spirit."
"If you are right, there is no point in any friendship . . . , and we had better all leap over this parapet
and kill ourselves."
Dr. Aziz says, "If money goes, money comes. If money stays, death comes. Did you ever hear that
useful Urdu proverb?"
Fielding replies, "My proverbs are: A penny saved is a penny earned; A stitch in time saves nine; Look
before you leap; and the British Empire rests on them."cxxi
The realm of gift-giving must be protected from a utilitarian calculus of private selves
accumulating private wealth:
“Tribal peoples usually distinguish between gifts and capital. Commonly they have a law that repeats
the sensibility implicit in the idea of an Indian gift. ‘One man's gift,’ they say, ‘must not be another
man's capital.’ Wendy James, a British social anthropologist, tells us that among the Urduk in
northeast Africa, ‘any wealth transferred from one subclan to another, whether animals, grain or
money, is in the nature of a gift, and should be consumed, and not invested for growth. If such
transferred wealth is added to the subclan's capital [cattle in this case] and kept for growth and
investment, the subclan is regarded as being in an immoral relation of debt to the donors of the
original gift.’ If a pair of goats received as a gift from another subclan is kept to breed or to buy cattle,
‘there will be general complaint that the so-and-so's are getting rich at someone else's expense,
behaving immorally by hoarding and investing gifts, and therefore being in a state of severe debt. It
will be expected that they will soon suffer storm damage.’"cxxii
36
In the Biblical world of gifts we do not find such sharp opposition between gifts and capital,
immediate re-gifting and storage, between consumption and sharing. God’s agricultural gifts
to the farmer, his fruitful harvest is both for storage (capital) and for consuming God’s gifts in
celebration, sharing and gift-giving. Thus the fall harvest holiday, Sukkot, is called Hag
HaAssif, the Holiday of Collection and Accumulation, but it also requires celebrating before
God and inviting the needy to share in the festival. There is a balance between taking care of
myself (“If I am not for myself”) and sharing with the others in my community (“If I am for
myself what am I?”- Hillel, Avot 1:14). When a family does not know how to balance giftgiving generosity with self-preserving saving, then there are tragic results to the most
commendable expression of solidarity and reciprocity of gift-giving.
Lewis Hyde recounts a tale that about the hard choices between climbing out of poverty ( a
vertical and individualistic ethos of ambition) and mutual support (a horizontal and familial
ethos of solidarity):
“I recently heard a story about an American Indian living on a reservation in North Dakota who, in the
late 1960s, received $10,000 from the government, a lot of money in a place where many people lived
on $2,000 a year. What did the man do with his windfall? He threw a party for the whole tribe, a party
that lasted for days.
“Now, the interesting thing is that on the reservation there are two distinct versions of this event: the
‘Indian version,’ in which the party-giver appears as a hero, a true Indian; and the ‘white version,’
which takes the ‘wasted’ money as proof of the inherently infantile nature of the Indians, thus
justifying the continued management of Indian wealth by the white-dominated Bureau of Indian
Affairs.”cxxiii 18
18
Another story illustrating the tension between taking care of myself and sharing with others can be seen here:
“Carol Stack, in her book All Our Kin, presents an instructive description of the commerce of goods in the Flats,
an urban ghetto south of Chicago. The Flats is a black neighborhood characterized by networks of cooperating
kin. "Kin" in this context are not just blood relations, they are "those you count on," related or not. Each kinship
network in the Flats is composed of as many as a hundred individuals, all of whom belong in one way or another
to one of several interlocking households.
Stack tells a sad but instructive story about an influx of capital into one of the families she knew. One day
Calvin and Magnolia Waters inherited some money. One of Magnolia's uncles in Mississippi had died and left
them $1,500. It was the first time they'd ever had a cash reserve, and their immediate hope was to use the money
as a down payment on a house.
Here's what happened to it. Within a few days the news of their good fortune had spread throughout the kin
network. One of Magnolia's nieces soon came to ask if she could borrow money to pay a bill so the phone would
not be turned off. Magnolia gave her the money. The welfare office heard about the inheritance and cut off
medical coverage and food stamps for Magnolia's children, telling her that she would get no more until the
money was gone. Then Magnolia's uncle in the South became seriously ill, and she and her older sister Augusta
were called to sit by his side. Magnolia bought round-trip train tickets for herself, her sister, and three of her
children. After they had returned, the uncle died, and she and her sister had to go south again. Soon thereafter
Augusta's first "old man" died, leaving no one to pay for his burial. Augusta asked Magnolia if she would help
pay for the digging of the grave, and she did. Another sister's rent was two months overdue; the woman was ill
and had no source of income. Magnolia paid the rent. It was winter and the children and grandchildren (fifteen in
all) were staying home from school because they had neither winter coats nor adequate shoes. Magnolia and
Calvin bought all of them coats, hats and shoes. Magnolia bought herself a winter coat and Calvin bought a pair
of work shoes. The money was gone in six weeks.
The only way this couple could have capitalized on their good fortune would have been to cut themselves off
from the group. To make a down payment on a house, they would have had to cease participating in the sharing
and mutual aid of their kin.
One of Magnolia's sisters, Lydia, had done just that at one time. She and the man she married both had steady
jobs. They bought a house and furniture. Then, for ten years, they cut themselves off from the network of kin
cooperation, effectively preventing their friends and relations from draining their resources. In our modern
symbology, they "moved to the suburbs." Then the marriage began to break up. Lydia started giving clothes to
37
Finally, gift-giving is about building a cohesive society. Lewis Hyde calls that the Eros of
exchange. It is an ecological principle that transcends reciprocity-of-two for circular-giving:
“People live differently who treat a portion of their wealth as a gift. To begin with, unlike the sale of a
commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved.
Furthermore, when gifts circulate within a group, their commerce leaves a series of
interconnected relationships in its wake, and a kind of decentralized cohesiveness emerges.
“It is this element of relationship which leads me to speak of gift exchange as an ‘erotic’ commerce,
opposing Eros (the principle of attraction, union, involvement which binds together) to Logos (reason
and logic in general, the principle of differentiation in particular). A market economy is an emanation
of logos.”cxxiv
“We commonly think of gifts as being exchanged between two people and of gratitude as being
directed back to the actual donor. ‘Reciprocity,’ the standard social science term for returning a gift,
has this sense of going to-and-fro between people (the roots are re and pro, back and forth, like a
reciprocating engine). ...Reciprocal giving is a form of gift exchange, but it is the simplest. The gift
moves in a circle, and two people do not make much of a circle. Two points establish a line, but a
circle lies in a plane and needs at least three points......
“Circular giving differs from reciprocal giving in several ways. First, when the gift moves in a circle
no one ever receives it from the same person he gives it to. Unlike a two-person give-and-take, he
never gives me in return. The whole mood is different. When I give to someone from whom I do not
receive (and yet I do receive elsewhere), it is as if the gift goes around a corner before it comes back. I
have to give blindly. And I will feel a sort of blind gratitude as well. The smaller the circle is - and
particularly if it involves just two people - the more a man can keep his eye on things and the more
likely it is that he will start to think like a salesman. But so long as the gift passes out of sight it cannot
be manipulated by one man or one pair of gift partners. When the gift moves in a circle its motion is
beyond the control of the personal ego, and so each bearer must be a part of the group and each
donation is an act of social faith.”cxxv
“Every gift calls for a return gift. ...We now understand this to be ecological. ...Every participant in the
cycle literally lives off the others with only the ultimate energy source, the sun, being transcendent.
Widening the study of ecology to include man means to look at ourselves as a part of nature
again, not its lord. When we see that we are actors in natural cycles, we understand that what nature
gives to us is influenced by what we give to nature. So the circle is a sign of an ecological insight as
much as of gift exchange. We come to feel ourselves as one part of a large self-regulating system. The
return gift is literally feedback, as they say in cybernetics. Without it, that is to say, with the exercise
of any greed or arrogance of will, the cycle is broken.”cxxvi
her sisters and nieces. She gave a couch to her brother and a TV to a niece. By the time her marriage had fallen
apart, she had reincorporated herself into the network.
It isn't easy to say which is the "better" sister, the hard-hearted one ("far-hearted," the Bushmen say) who
separates herself from a community that would pull her down or the soft-hearted one who dreams of getting
ahead but in fact distributes her wealth and stays in the group. There's no simple moral because there's no simple
way to resolve the conflict between community and individual advancement, a conflict that accounts for so much
of our political and ethical life. But the story nonetheless illustrates our general point, that a group may form,
cohere, and endure when property circulates as gift, and that it will begin to fragment when the gift exchange is
interrupted or when gifts are converted to commodities.
This story treats people who are so poor that one hesitates to praise the virtues of "community," lest it seem to
romanticize oppression and privation. These are groups who adopt a necessary mutual aid, not a voluntary
poverty. And the rewards of community lose some of their luster when they are not a matter of choice.” (Lewis
Hyde, The Gift, 74-76)
38
In gift-giving Hyde identifies not just an anthropological pattern that often contrasts with a
modern capitalist market economy, but the deepest spiritual resources of a society. There is a
religiosity founded not on transcending the material for the spiritual but on experiencing the
truly divine and truly human in material exchanges. Gift-giving is a manifestation of the
Divine life and love that overcomes the loneliness of an individualistic competitive society.
39
Appendices:
The Gift in Ancient Israel: Gary Stansell
"This also is theft, not to share one's possessions": John Chrysostom
Appendix: The Gift in Ancient Israel: Gary Stansellcxxvii
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A cross-cultural model of gift exchange in ancient societiescxxviii will include the following features:
There is an obligation to give, to receive, and to return gifts.
Gifts are presented as though they are voluntary, thus masking the obligatory character of
exchange and hiding economic self-interest.
Gift giving aims at reciprocity, but it is not always balanced (see Sahlins's three kinds of
reciprocity above).
Gifts are not protected by law, yet public scrutiny and one's personal honor requires that
exchanges be reciprocal.
Gift exchange is a public act. As such it may be ceremonial and also emphasize display of
wealth and prestige.
Kinship closeness or distance is related to objects exchanged, function of the gift, and
accompanying type of reciprocity.
Gift exchange is not the same as commodity exchange, which is impersonal. The former
obligates, while the latter does not.
The object given is inalienable; that is, the giver participates in or is a part of the object given
away; hence the giver has a lien on his gift.
Gifts establish a bond between persons or groups or strengthen an already existing social
relationship. Thus the purpose is not simply the circulation of wealth.
Honor accrues to the giver, who must be generous; it is shameful to be stingy. Size of the gift
is correlated with the status/wealth of the giver and the needs of the receiver. But generosity may mask
antagonism or competition, with the power to humiliate the receiver of the gift (the "poison" of the
gift).
The gift is a challenge, which does honor to the person addressed and at the same time tests
his pride. To challenge someone who cannot riposte is a dishonor to the giver; likewise, to make a gift
so great that it cannot be reciprocated dishonors the giver. The gift as challenge must be reasonable.
A gift, like a challenge, is a provocation to reply. He who accepts a gift inescapably commits
himself to a series of exchanges. The counter gift is a fresh challenge.
The refusal of a gift heaps scorn upon the challenger. The refusal to offer a countergift
dishonors both the giver of the initial gift and the recipient of that gift.
The gift must please the recipient and be valued by the giver. One cannot give just anything
away.
The commensurate countergift halts the exchange. Only outbidding someone continues the
exchange. The absence of a countergift brings dishonor to the giver of the initial gift; it also brings
dishonor to its recipient.
The countergift must be deferred and different; an immediate return of an identical gift is
tantamount to a refusal of the gift.
40
Appendix: "This also is theft, not to share one's possessions" - John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom in 388 or 389, in the city of Antioch, the great preacher of the Orthodox
Church, preached seven sermons on the New Testament parable of Lazarus and the rich man.
His tone, citations and radical language speak of a living Christian tradition suffused with
prophetic pathos taken straight from the Hebrew Bible. For him tithes are the rights of the
poor and their neglect is a crime analogous to robbery and even murder:
“Perhaps this statement – ‘This also is theft, not to share one's possessions’ – seems surprising to
you, but do not be surprised. I shall bring you testimony from the divine Scriptures, saying that not
only the theft of others' goods but also the failure to share one's own goods is theft and swindle and
defrauding. What is this testimony? Accusing the Jews by the prophet, God says, "The earth has
brought forth her increase, and you have not brought forth your tithes; but the theft of the poor is in
your houses." Since you have not given the accustomed offerings, He says, you have stolen the goods
of the poor. He says this to show the rich that they hold the goods of the poor even if they have
inherited them from their fathers or no matter how they have gathered their wealth.
And elsewhere the Scripture says, "Deprive not the poor of his living." To deprive is to take what
belongs to another, for it is called deprivation when we take and keep what belongs to others.... Just as
an official in the imperial treasury, if he neglects to distribute where he is ordered, but spends instead
for his own indolence, pays the penalty and is put to death, so also the rich man is a kind of steward of
the money which is owed for distribution to the poor. He is directed to distribute it to his fellow
servants who are in want. So if he spends more on himself than his need requires, he will pay the
harshest penalty hereafter. For his own goods are not his own, but belong to his fellow servants.
Therefore let us use our goods sparingly, as belonging to others....
The poor man has but one plea, his want and his standing in need; do not require anything else from
him; but even if he is the most wicked of all men and is at a loss for his necessary sustenance, let us
free him from hunger. . . . The almsgiver is a harbor for those in necessity; a harbor receives all who
have encountered shipwreck; and frees them from danger; whether they are bad or good or whatever
they are who are in danger, it escorts them into its own shelter. So you likewise, when you see on earth
the man who encountered the shipwreck of poverty, do not judge him, do not seek an account of his
life, but free him from his misfortune....
Need alone is this poor man's worthiness; if anyone at all ever comes to us with this recommendation,
let us not meddle any further. We do not provide for the manners but for the man. We show mercy on
him not because of his virtue but because of his misfortune.... I beg you remember this without fail,
that not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of
life; we do not possess our own wealth but theirs.”cxxix
41
i
Lawrence Friedman ,Charity, 47
cf. Amos 3:4
iii
Yochanan Muffs, The Personhood of God, 69-70
iv
Dt. 8:1, 7-10; Genesis 15:7
v
Dt. 2:5,10,12,37
vi
Numbers 33:53-54; 34:2,17-18; 36:2,9
vii
Dt. 11:10-11, 21; 29-31; 12:10; 17:14; 18:9; 19:1,8; 21:23; 24:4; 25:15; 26:1-2,15; 28:21,63; 29:27; 30: 5, 16,
20; 31:7, 13, 23 32:49, 52
viii
Numbers 18: 21-23
ix
Leviticus 27:30-33 with Leviticus 22:10, 27:21
x
Numbers 35:2
xi
Numbers 31:29-30
xii
Numbers 18
xiii
H. Bennett, Injustice Made Legal, 75
xiv
In the patriarchal narratives Abraham gives a tithe of the spoils of war to the priest and king Melchizedek of
Jerusalem (Genesis 14:17-20, see Hebrews 7:4-10) and Jacob vows to give a tithe to God at the future temple at
Beth El, if God protects him on his journey of escape from his brother (Genesis 28:18-22). In Leviticus 27:30-33
the tithe goes to God and in Numbers 18:20-32 to the cult serving landless Levi tribe who in turn give a tithe to
the priest who get other gifts as well. In Dt. 14:22-27 a tithe is taken to the cultic center to be eaten by the donor
there. In the early Second Temple period Malachi 3:6-11 and Nehemia 12;32-39 and 12:44-45 the tithe also goes
to the priest and Levi for the Temple.
xv
Dt.14: 28-29; 26:12-13
xvi
While the Levi is cared for according to Numbers 18 in exchange for the labor performed as a servant of the
sacred center, in Deuteronomy the Levi is often grouped with the orphans, widow and resident alien who are all
landless. Many modern historians suggest that the impoverishment of the many Leviim is the result of the
centralization of the cult in Jerusalem after Hezkiyahu that would have made many of them unemployed after the
closing of local shrines. That might be parallel to structural unemployment caused by the closing of coal mines
in Kentucky, textile mills in Massachusetts and steel mills in Pittsburgh. ). In so far as the tithe for the Levi
continues on 1st-2nd, 3rd-4th year (Numbers 18:21-32) even after the reduction of roles of the Levi in the sacred
centers, it becomes a tithe for the poor like the explicit tithe for the poor every 3rd and 6 th year.
xvii
Dt. 26:11; Dt. 16:11-17; Dt. 12:12, 18: Dt. 14:27
xviii
Levi is added to list of the destitute in Dt. 14:27,29; 26:11-13 probably because of Josiah’s reform that
centralized cult producing unemployed local Levi who is still landless. (E. Nardoni, Rise Up,. 83, fn #41)
xix
Dt. 14: 22-26 ; Leviticus 27:30-31
xx
John Milbank, On Being Reconciled, 180-181, 167
xxi
J. Tigay distinguishes multiple sources on tithes in the Torah which are not necessarily consistent with one
another or part of one system:
(a) tithes to God, usable by priests and redeemable by the donor only upon payment of 20% fine (Leviticus
27:30-33 with Leviticus 22:10, 27:21) reflect probably a narrative about tribute to God as owner of the land or as
source of blessing or as royalty
(b) tithes to the Levites who have no inheritance of land from God for they may not work the land since
they must work for God and represent the rest of people bearing their sins and endanger themselves in temple
worship to God (Numbers 18:21-32). The Rabbis call this the first tithe. The Levi then gives 10% of the tithe to
temple.
(c) tithes not given to clergy but to be eaten by the owner in the sacred center on a pilgrimage (Dt. 14:21-27
and Leviticus 27:30-31). The Rabbis call this the second tithe for the first, second, fourth and fifth year of the
seven year cycle ending with Sabbatical year.
(d) tithes for the poor in your gates for the Levi, ger, orphan and widow who all lack their own agricultural
land (Dt. 14:28-29 and Dt. 26). The Rabbis call this the third tithe, given on third and sixth year. J. Tigay, JPS
Deuteronomy, 141)
ii
Before the Rabbinic era we have in the Book of Tobit one report of three tithes paid in one year for different
beneficiaries (circa 200 BCE)
"I, Tobit, walked all the days of my life in ways of truth and uprightness. I did many alms deeds for my brothers
and my nation who were taken to the land of the Assyrians, to Nineveh, with me. (Tobit 1:3)
I alone went many a time to Jerusalem for the festivals, as the Scripture commands all Israel in an everlasting
decree, taking with me the first fruits and the tenth parts of my crops and my first shearings, and I would give
them to the priests, the sons of Aaron, at the altar. A tenth part of all my produce I would give to the sons of
42
Levi, who officiated at Jerusalem, and another tenth I would sell, and go and spend the proceeds in Jerusalem
each year, and a third tenth I would give to those to whom it was fitting to give it, as Deborah my
grandmother had instructed me - for I was left an orphan by my father. (Tobit 1: 6-8)
xxii
At the end of Dt. 24:19-22 the law of the forgotten sheaf and gleanings of olive trees and vineyards is
justified primarily by the rationale of the Exodus motif, though the blessing of the land is also mentioned.
xxiii
Maimonides rules that agricultural gifts for the poor, peah, leket, etc do not apply outside of Eretz Yisrael by
Torah authority but they do apply to all lands by Rabbinic authority. However, this practice is not followed,
according to the Tur, because there are no Jewish farmers outside Israel. (Tur Y.D. 332). Christians did practice
agricultural tithes.
xxiv "God, as it were, says, 'One who brings a sharecropper into his field lets him keep a half or a third or a
quarter even though all his labors, his tilling and planting, would come to naught if I did not blow the winds or
bring the rain or lay down the dew. In fact, I do everything, and yet I ask for even less than does a sharecropper -a tithe’.” (Midrash Pesikta on Dt. 14:22)
Thus God here says: "Of the peace-offering that you bring Me as a gift you may eat most of what is offered on
the heavenly table. Now, by this reasoning you should, by rights, give most of your harvest--all derived from
Me--back to me for the poor of My people, yet all I ask from you are the leftovers [of your harvest].
The commentary of Moses Alshekh, a sixteenth century exegete who immigrated to Israel from Turkey and
joined Joseph Karo and Isaac Luria in Safed, builds upon a grammatical anomaly in the text in Leviticus 19:9-11
9 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the corner of your field, or gather the
gleanings of your harvest. 10 You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard;
you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger; I the Lord am your God. 11 You shall not steal; you shall not
deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.
Torat Moshe, by Moshe Alsheikh on Lev. 19:9-11:
“You shouldn't think that you are giving to the poor person from your own property, or that I have despised
him/her by not giving bread to the poor as I have given to you. For s/he is also My child, just as you are, but
his/her portion is in your produce. It is for your merit that I have intended to give his/her portion from your hand.
And this is the reason why the beginning of the verse "When you reap" is plural, but the end "you shall not reap
all the way" is singular.
At the beginning it uses the plural "the harvest of your (pl.) land" ["your" meaning belonging to] the owner, the
poor, and the stranger, for in truth, their portion is there [in the field].
Furthermore, the rich frequently hire the poor and strangers as harvesters, [referring to both] the owner and
harvesters when it says "When you reap the harvest of your land" and afterwards, the command "you (sing.)
shall not reap all the way" is commanded just to the owner.
Hence [the verse]"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way …" begins in
the plural and shifts to the singular. It begins in the plural, "your harvest" to indicate landowner and "the poor
and the stranger" (Lev. 19:10), because in truth it derives from the common [weal], the latter's part included.
This is even more true [when one realizes] that the landowner's hired hands are usually drawn from the "the poor
and the stranger." [The verse] addresses the landowner and the harvesters [in the plural] and then turns to the
landowner, addressing him in the singular: "you shall not reap all the way [to the edges of your field];" rather
you, the landowner [must leave some of the harvest] for the poor man included with you earlier in the verse. The
verse then emphatically says ta'azov: "You shall leave them," even though it would have sufficed simply to say
something like "It will be the poor man's and the stranger's."
It may be argued, "If everything belongs to you, God, why leave such a small amount for your poor?"
Scripture therefore says, "You shall not reap all the way to the edges [of your field, or gather the gleanings of
your harvest]." … [God says]: "From all that I have grown and given you, all your wheat and vineyards and
olive groves, all I ask is the edge of the field and the gleanings that fall away, provided that they are given in a
respectful manner. Do not gather in the edges of your field and hand the wheat to the poor man, for you will
embarrass him. Rather, leave the edges and the fallen gleanings [on the ground] and the grapes [on the floor of
the vineyard], and the poor will come and gather them as their own harvest with dignity...."
In an [alternative but] similar vein: He wanted to teach the value of a discreet gift that will not
embarrass the recipient. His message here would then be: "See, I have given you your harvests without your
feeling that you are receiving them, but rather as if they are, [as the verse says] "the harvest of your land" though
it is I who have given you everything. So too you should be careful not to make it look as though you are giving
him something. Instead, just leave the edges and the fallings [on the ground] and the grapes [on the floor], and
they will come later once the landowners have gone."
43
The meaning of the verse "when you reap" is that I will look upon it as if you were giving of your own
harvests, even though "the land is Mine" (Lev. 25:23).… First He gives you "the harvest of your land" and then
you can go ahead and perform the mitzvah of "You shall not reap all the way to the edges, etc."
(Partially translated and collected by Jeffrey Spitzer, Gann Academy, Boston, MA)
https://fc.gannacademy.org/gannopedia/tzedakah/2philosophy/lwhoseproperty.htm
xxv
Rav S. R. Hirsch, The Pentateuch Commentary, Leviticus 25:5
xxvi
Nilton Bonder, The Kabbalah of Money, 66-68
xxvii
Nilton Bonder, The Kabbalah of Money 68
xxviii
Maurice Godelier, The Enigma of the Gift, 30
xxix
In the New Testament Hebrews 7:2 expresses the tradition that Abram gave Melchizedek the tithes Hebrews
7:4 indicates that Abram gave a tenth of the spoils but not necessarily of all his personal wealth.
xxx
The Book of Jubilees specifies that Jacob included in this tithe both human beings (slaves) and cattle, gold
and vessels and clothing (Jubilees 32:2; on "all" as including both men and other possessions taken as spoils of
war, cf. Gen. 14:20-21). The cattle were sacrificed as burnt offerings (Jubilee 32: 4). Jubilees distinguished the
vowed tithe from the Second Tithe (of grain; Jubilee 32:10-14), and the tithe of first born animals (Jubilee
32:.15).
xxxi
M.Herman, Tithe as Gift
xxxii
Dt. 12:12; 14:27,29
xxxiii
Menahem Herman argues that tithe is not a tax but a gift in Marcel Mauss’ sense that it evokes reciprocal
giving of blessings by God. Thus the prophet Malachi speaks of gifts and Divine blessings.
Bring the full tithe into the [Temple] storehouse, and let there be food in My house; and thus put Me to the
test….I will surely open the floodgates of the sky and pour down blessing on you.(Malachi 3:10) (M. Herman,
Tithe as Gift, 67). However the previous verse has God rail against Israel for defrauding them by withholding
tithes, implying that that the tithe is also God's right, as a tax and tribute but. when it is paid. then God will
reciprocate. Thus giving is circular.
xxxiv
Marcel Mauss, The Gift, 14-15
xxxv
Gary Stansell, “The Gift in Ancient Israel,” Semeia, June 22, 1999, 86
xxxvi
"The Rabbis harmonized the conflicting legislation of the priestly canon, which apportions the tithe to the
Lord or the Levites (Lev. 27:30-33; Num. 18:20-32) with the Deuteronomist's alternating tithes (neither of which
is apportioned to the cultic functionaries; cf., e.g., Dt. 14:22-29). They envisioned a system that mandated the
Levitical tithe every year (ma `aser rishon), with the farmer/ householder's tithe for his own enjoyment two years
running (ma'aser sheni), followed by one year in which the tithe would go to the poor (ma`aser `ani). This cycle
would be repeated a second time, to be followed every the seventh year by a Sabbatical year." (Jay Rovner,
“Ledger,” 22)
xxxvii
Greg Gardner, Giving
xxxviii
Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 1:15
xxxix
Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:12
xl
Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2;14 (see Sifra Kedoshim 1:9)
xli
Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:17)
xlii
Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 2:16
xliii
See sources cited in Lukas Vischer, Tithing in the Early Church (1959), 14-22, 26-27
xliv
Matthew 23:23: Away with you, you pettifogging Pharisee lawyers! You give to God a tenth of herbs, like
mint, dill, and cumin, but the important duties of the Law — judgment, mercy, honesty — you have neglected. Yet
these you ought to have performed, without neglecting the others.
It parallel is Luke 11:42 Woe to you, Pharisees! You tithe mint and rue and every edible herb but disregard
justice and the love of God. These were rather the things one should practice, without neglecting the others.
xlv
Didache 13 LCC 1, 177
Matthew 19:21 = Mark 10:2 = Luke 18:22.
xlvii
Irenaeus 4:18 in ANF 1:485
xlviii
Cited in J. Christian Wilson, “Tithes” in Anchor Bible Dictionary VI 580
xlix
Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV, XVIII, ANF 1, 484 f cited in Lukas Vischer, Tithing, 14).
l
Cited and explicated in Lukas Vischer, Tithing, 20.
xlvi
44
li
Caesarius of Arles (d. 542) acknowledges and confirms the existing Church practice of giving one tenth of all
profits to the Church, but he insists the tithe to the poor be practiced regularly as well: “First of all give tithes of
your profits to the Church for the clergy and the poor and then give alms [to the poor] from the remaining
9/10ths” (Sermon xiv 3)
lii
Augustine complained that Pharisees give tithes and Christians are supposed to be more generous but in fact
“you do not even give one part in one thousand.” (R. Finn, Almsgiving, 49-51).
liii
Augustine, Sermon LXXXV, 5; MPL 38, 522
liv
Sermon CCLXXVII, 1-3; MPL 39, 2266 ff
lv
Sermon CCLXXVII, 1-3; MPL 39, 2266 ff
lvi
St. Pirmin, Scarapsus de singulis libris canonicis xxix
lvii
St. Pirmin, Scarapsus de singulis libris canonicis xxix
lviii
Patrologia Latina cv 202
lix
Cassian, Conlationes xxi 25
lx
Constable does not know of a canonical or conciliar text before the fourth century that requires the payment of
the tithe (p. 16), and the rules were not enforced until the eighth century. Before then the payment of tithes was
seen as a purely moral obligation (G Constable, Monastic Tithes).
lxi
In ancient Greece and Rome agricultural tithes were practiced though not to benefit the poor. Even earlier the
tithe was a typical religious tax in Babylonian culture levied even on garments (The Assyrian Dictionary of the
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Vol. 4 "E").
lxii
Monumenta Germaniae historica 1.42 no. 7
lxiii
Initially the tithe was a head tax based on the earnings of all, even the clergy, and only in the 12th c. did it
become a land tax
lxiv
Letters of St. Boniface xxxi.
lxv
A "tithe barn" is called in German Zehntscheunen.
lxvi
“Coppe the Ranter’s tract was a declaration of the interdependence of rich and poor. The rich could not hope
to separate themselves from the plight of the poor. They must feed, warm, clothe and relieve the beggars and
prisoners as a part of themselves. The poor, including rogues, thieves, whores and cutpurses were the `flesh of
thy flesh'.'" Great ones must bow down to the poorest peasants. They must repent of their appropriation from the
poor or be damned by a plague which would infect their wealth. Repentance involved above all acknowledging
the poor as your own flesh, your brothers and sisters: `Owne them, they are flesh of your flesh, your owne
brethren, your owne Sisters'.- Failure to recognise this union would be avenged by God: `Turne not away thine
eyes from thine owne Flesh, [lest] I pull out thine eyes and throw thee headlong into hell'." (Brace, 143)
lxvii
The Mormon church uses its tithing funds to construct and maintain buildings and other facilities, to print the
Scriptures for missionary work, to provide social welfare and relief, and to support missionary, educational, and
other church-sponsored programs.
lxviii
Cassian, Conlationes xxi 25
Cited in Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor, “Romney Tax Returns Shine Light on Mormon Tithing”
(January 24th, 2012)
lxix
Tithing is presented in Joseph Smith’s The Doctrine and Covenants, a Mormon holy book comprising Smith's
revelations from God.
lxx
lxxi
Acquinas, Summa Theologica II 2 137a
This will be discussed later in chapter #10.
lxxiii
One Christian writer praises the Jews for tithing their brideprice in Germany (Y.Bergman, Hatzedakah, 60)
lxxiv
David Golinkin, “Maaser” His research, following that of Jay Rovner, that combine careful scholarship with
exciting detective-like analysis, have been most helpful in the preparation of this section of my work.
lxxv
On the word mitzvah meaning tzedakah, see Rashi to Shabbat 156a (David Golinkin).
lxxvi
David Golinkin, “Maaser”.
lxxvii
Jay Rovner, Ma'sar Kesafim Ledger, 14
lxxviii
"The legal basis for it is variously that of a minhag (custom) or a takkanah (court or communal legislation),
whether on the strength of a generalized takkanah or Herem de-Rabenu Gershom, the takkanah of the Rosh for
his city in Germany, or of Takkanat ha-Kahal. Neither the authorizing presence of a rabbi nor the guidance of the
halakhah is actually required. Rabenu Gershom provides that once a community numbers ten, anyone may
coerce his fellows into contributing tithe to the communal charity box. The ("agreements") undertaken by the
citizens of Reillanne, 1313 are an example of such a takkanah." (Rovner, Ma'sar Kesafim Ledger p. 26)
lxxii
45
Rabenu Gershom claimed only to be renewing an older practice:
“The herem of Rabbenu Gershom on those who do pay their communal tithe derives from the early Babylonian
Geonim and Gershom renewed it every year.” (Finkelstein Jewish Self Government in Middle Ages, 6-9)
(Rovner, Ledger, 25)
lxxix
Isaiah Horowitz in his work Shnei Luhot HaBrit cites a now lost midrash that: "If a mitzvah comes to you in
the city do not say we are only commanded on the produce of the field to give terumot and tithes rather God said
even in the city open your hand" (Cited in Rovner, Ledger, 20)
lxxx
"Saint Ambrose of Milan (fourth century) and Caesar of Arles insisted that all manner of income be tithed..
In Christian practice the obligation to tithe was extended to manufactured products and personal business profit
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Similarly, in Jewish theory and practice, we find the twelfth-century Sefer
Hasidim calling for the tithing of business profit and interest income.( Jay Rovner, Ledger, p. 15)
lxxxi
David Golinkin considers this related putative ancient midrash as a late Ashkenazi invention (1350 CE):
“Thus it is in Sifre: "Tithe you shall tithe all the produce of your seed which is brought forth from the field every
year" (Dt. 14:22) - we have only the produce of the seed which is liable to tithing. Whence do we learn that
we are obliged to tithe interest, trade and all other profits? Scripture states "all", for it could have said "your
produce". What then is the meaning of "all"? This includes interest, trade and everything which he profits
by.” (Tosafot to Taanit 9a, s.v. Tithe you shall tithe)
lxxxii
Responsa of the Maharam, ed. Prague, No. 74
“The great decisors of the Rishonim who made no mention of the laws of ma’aser ani nowadays in regards
to money, implying that there is not even a rabbinic obligation in any respect. Know that this is so, for
regarding ma’aser ani from grain, one must only give in the third and sixth year [of the Shmita cycle]. Now,
should ma’aser from money be stricter, to have to give every year from what God has blessed him?! Behold,
whatever the Rabbis have established, they have patterned after the Biblical obligation! Rather, there is no
technical obligation here, not even a Rabbinic one, and therefore it is not the accepted practice in all places.
However, in places where the practice (minhag) has spread, or regarding someone who wants to be strict on
himself and practices the custom of separating off ma’aser, for such a person his intent is clearly that the money
be used strictly for ma’aser ani purposes. Thus, the Rema rules, that one cannot use it for mitzvah purposes, like
candles for the synagogue or other mitzvoth, but rather it must all be given to the poor. It is also possible that it
has the status as a mitzvah vow, to treat the money as full ma’aser ani, and thus its status would be that it is
forbidden to use it to pay off other [mitzvah] debts.” (Responsa Shvut Ya’akov 2:85, 17th Century, Prague)
lxxxiii
lxxxiv
Sefer Maharil, Laws of Rosh Hashana . Rabbi Shlomo Laniado (18th C. Syria) warns against the use of the
poor tithe for synagogue contributions that pay for upkeep or communal taxes (Responsa of Beit Din shel
Shlomo, Shlomo Laniado, d.1793, on Shulkhan Aruch Y.D. 249:1 cited in Y. Domb, Maaser Kesafim, 83).
However , several sources, Pnei Yehoshua, Rav Auerbach, and Rav Waldenburg, permit the use ma’aser for that
purpose (C. Domb, Maaser Kesafim, 115)
lxxxv
Responsa of the Maharil 56:7
lxxxvi
Dov Linzer, Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivat Chovivei Torah in NYC explores the issue of restrictions on the
allocation of ma’aser kesfaim. He notes that the restrictive views may be traced back to the mishna on ma’aser
sheni (as discussed in TB Menahot 82) and especially ma’aser ani (Tosefta 4:16) that do not allow use of
ma’aser ani even to pay off other tzedakah obligations. “Ma’aser ani cannot be used to pay a debt, nor to pay
back an exchange of gifts, nor can one use it to redeem captives, nor can it be used for wedding gifts. It may
also not be given to tzedakah.” (Tur, YD 331). Rav Yoel Sirkis comments: “Regarding what the Tur states
that ma’aser for the poor cannot be used towards tzedakah. Beit Yosef writes that this is only true regarding a
tzedakah obligation that has been imposed on him by the people of the city, which is a pre-existing obligation.
To use ma’aser money for this would be to pay a debt with ma’aser money, which is not allowed. It appears
that according to him if there was no pre-existing tzedakah obligation, he can give his ma’aser ani money to the
communal tzedakah fund. But it appears to me that even such a use is not allowed, because the primary
obligation of ma’aser ani is that the homeowner give this ma’aser to the poor above and beyond what the
municipal tzedakah kuppah gives every poor person on a weekly basis. And if this ma’aser ani was given to
this fund, then the poor would receive no more than their standard allotment (Bach, Rabbi Yoel Sirkes, 17th
Century, Lublin, Yoreh Deah, 331).
lxxxvii
Rema, Shulkhan Aruch Y.D. 249:1
Cited by Isaiah Horowitz, Shnei Luchot Habrit on tzedakah
lxxxix
Torei Zahav and Siftei Kohen, Shulkhan Arukh Y.D. 249:1.
lxxxviii
46
xc
Cited in Isaiah Horowitz, Shnei Lukhot HaBrit on Tzedakah and Maaser, cited in C. Domb, Maaser Kesafim.
93, See also David Golinkin.
xci
See Shakh on Shulkhan Aruch YD 249
xcii
Rav Eliezer Waldenburg, 20th C. Jerusalem, Responsa Tzitz Eliezer, 9;1,5; 10:6:
“The opinion of the majority of decisors is that ma’aser kesafim is only Rabbinic, and many hold that it is no
more than a custom, therefore, one who wishes to accept upon himself to separate ma’aser kesafim certainly can
do so, but should adopt the practice according to the opinion that one takes ma’aser from the profit after
household expenses are deducted. And household expenses includes everything that one needs, without any
compromise or limitations. And this will be a good fulfillment of the mitzvah of ma’aser kesafim…
Question: May one use ma’aser money to pay taxes? May one use it to support his or her young children?
Finally, may someone use ma’aser money to perform a mitzvah?
Responsum: When one calculates ma’aser, s/he may take into account the money that was paid for income tax
and other money that was collected for communal needs.
1) The Rema rules that one may not perform a mitzvah with ma’aser money. In reference to that law, the
T”az ruled that “one may certainly not use ma’aser money to pay taxes. Despite the fact that the gemara in the
1st chapter of Baba Batra considers money that non-Jews forcefully take from Jews as tzedakah, nevertheless
this is still called paying a debt from tzedakah. The proof [that something can be considered tzedakah and not a
fulfillment of ma'aser] is that the gemara in Ketubot considers one who supports his / her young children to be a
person who ‘gives tzedakah all the time.’ Yet nobody would think that one could fulfill his / her ma’aser
obligation through supporting his / her children.”
We learn from the Ta”z that one may not pay taxes from ma’aser money. There would be no distinction
between taxes that are paid to a non-Jew or taxes paid to a Jew (Israel) for even taxes that are paid to a non-Jew,
the Ta’z considers tzedakah. Yet, one cannot pay this from ma’aser money. For this is considered paying a debt
from tzedakah. Accordingly, for that same reason, one may not use ma’aser money to pay taxes, even to a Jew.
2) However, from the other side this that the Ta’z considers paying taxes like giving tzedakah, provides an
opening that might allow us to pay taxes with ma’aser money.
The first permission (heter) would go according to the B’ach and those who follow him [who are many] who
hold that one may pay a debt from ma’aser money. One may then pay taxes with ma’aser money since this debt
is also a mitzvah. And therefore one could subtract the amount withheld for taxes from his / her ma’aser
obligation…
The second heter would work according to the Chatam Sofer who holds one may stipulate when s/he begins
to give ma’aser that s/he will use the money to pay for mitzvot. Then one can certainly stipulate that s/he will
pay taxes with maaser money [even if one doesn’t follow the B’ach] since this is also like paying for a mitzvah.
Or s/he can subtract from the total ma’aser obligation the amount that was withheld for taxes and this will be
considered like fulfilling the obligation to pay ma’aser. And this is all the more so when s/he is paying taxes to
Yisrael (the Israeli Government) for almost all the money goes to Jewish communal needs.”
xciii
“The Maharshal and the Drisha write in the name of the Responsa of the Maharam of Rothenberg, that any
mitzvah that comes upon a person, such as making a bris milah or a wedding, or to buy books to learn from or to
lend to others to learn from - if you are unable or would not have done the mitzvah - then one may do it with
their maaser money.” (Shach, Yoreh Deah, 259:1)
“The Maharshal and the Drisha write in the name of the Responsa of the Maharam of Rothenberg, that any
mitzvah that comes upon a person, such as making a bris milah or a wedding, or to buy books to learn from or to
lend to others to learn from - if you are unable or would not have done the mitzvah - then one may do it with
their maaser money.” (Shach, Yoreh Deah, 259:1)
xciv
See David Golinkin, ibid, who cites other lenient views (Rav Israel Iserlein, Rav David Halevi,
xcv
Responsa of Moshe Feinstein, Igrot Moshe Y.D. #232
xcvi
Thus tithes can be used to pay all communal taxes. (Y. Domb, Maaser Kesafim, 86 Responsa of Pnai Moshe
O.H. Question #2)
xcvii
Reb Menahem Mendel Schneerson understands that if the monetary tithe is derived from the Torah as some
rabbis have argued, then its use is restricted to the poor. However the Lubavitch rebbe, Baal Hatanya, holds that
it is only a rabbinic enactment and it can be used to pay for one’s children’s Torah education as long as they are
over age six when the father is obligated to support their learning (Shulkhan Arukh of the Rav Laws of Talmud
Torah 1:7). Thus maaser kesafim is for supporting any mitzvah expenses beyond what one is otherwise obligated
to do (Sefer Shaarei Tzedakah, 179).
xcviii
"The restrictive approach may be seen in Mordecai Jaffe's (ca. 1535-1612) ruling (Levush Malkhut, as
quoted in responsa Minhat Yitshak 8:82): "A person may not use his ma `aser for devar mitsvah, such as
candles for the synagogue and similar things for, once he set aside the tithe, it is no longer his to use; he must
give to the poor."' (Rovner, Ledger, 36)
47
xcix
"Samuel ben David ha-Levi (1624-81), Nahalat Shiva cited in Domb, p. 109), distinguishes two categories of
mitzvah, viz., dowering brides and purchasing books, in that tithe funds for the first type always benefit the poor,
whereas those for the second may not. Therefore, he says that one may always use tithe for the first, but he may
use it for the second only where he could not otherwise afford it. The original rule makes no such distinction."
(Rovner, Ledger, 35)
c
"Or Zarua, Isaac ben Moses of Vienna (1190-1260) allows one to give half of one's tithe to public tzedakah and
to keep half to distribute to one's poor relations.. According to Or Zarua `, ma`sar `ani could be used to
compensate people engaged in communal social welfare. (Part one of Hilchot tzedakah). The pledge of R. Judah
ben ha-Rosh (1314) stipulates that three-fourths of the tithe was to be deposited in the communal pot, with onefourth put at the disposal of the individual (Jay Rovner, Ledger, 27)
Maharam and Maharil states that the maser kesafim belongs to the poor by minhag and may not be used for any
other purpose (Responsa of Maharil 56:7) but Leket Yosher allows its use for hidur mitzvah (p. 32-33
Moshe Sofer, Hatam Sofer YD #232 allows pre-stipulating the tithe so could be used for other purposes (Jay
Rovner, Ledger, p. 34, 38)
ci
See M. Feinstein, Y.D. Responsa 231, Domb, 80 and London Beit Din, 81.
cii
“One may use ma’aser money to defray the wedding expenses of a poor bridegroom or the circumcision
expenses for a poor person, since the money is really used for the needs o f the poor. Therefore, even a wealthy
man who has alternative means from which he could pay for the mitzvah may use ma’aser for this purpose. A
wealthy man should not, however, use his ma’aser for the purchase of books, but only a person for whom the
means to fulfil the mitzvot are otherwise lacking.” (Shmuel HaLevi, d. 1681, Poland, Nahalat Shiva 8).
ciii
Cited in C. Domb, Maaser Kesafim, 110
civ
“Today [after the 1960s?]as regards financial needs the Holy One has blessed most of Israel (and very soon –
all of them) so they do not need tzedakah. So most tzedakah in our generation is not so much about helping
individuals but supporting institutions for the study of Torah and hospitals.” (Sefer Shaarei Tzedakah, p.209).
The editor notes with amazement that the Rebbe shows no awareness in these statements about world wide
hunger or local poverty in NYC among nonJews.
cv
Rav Ovadiah Yosef, Yeheve Daat 76, mentions many great scholars who dismiss any halakhic authority for
maser kesafim, like the Bayit Hadash, but he commends the custom and allows support for one’s children over 6
to be counted as tzedakah including their wedding expenses and support of married sons who continue to study
Torah.
cvi
Havat Yair 19 folio 118d, see also Jacob Emden, Teshuvot HaYavetz no. 6 folio 15a, cited in Rovner, The
Ledger, 12
cvii
Jerusalem Talmud (hereafter TY) Peah 1:1 (fol. 15b) = TY Ketubot 4:8 (fol. 28d), based upon Prov. 3:9 seeks
to provide a Biblical analogy from tithes on the appropriate proportion of one's income to budget for charitable
and religious purposes. But not the origin of the mitzvat to give tzedakah. (Rovner, Ledger, 18)
cviii
Rovner, Ma'sar Kesafim Ledger, 22-23
cix
Vave HaAmudim Chapter 15, folio 17b cited in Rovner, Ledger, p. 12
cx
Maharam Meir ben Baruch of Rothenberg (1215-1293) and Maharil, Jacob of Molin (1355-1427) are the first
to call it maser kesafim and Maharil rules it is a rabbinic enactment binding on individuals, though most view it
as a custom depending on one's locale or as a pious vow worthy of imitation by those so moved. At least when a
vow is taken, then halakhic guidelines follow for this practice.
cxi
Rovner, The Ledger, 57-58
cxii
King Siebert II declared that tithe should go to the profit of the churches, support of the clergy, or sustaining
the poor (Constable, Origin, p. 22). Charlemagne's division is known as the Roman fourfold division of tithe
(counting bishops and clergy separately); the Spanish division leaves out the poor (p. 14) . Charlemagne devoted
the tithe to three categories of recipients, viz., the bishops and the clergy, the poor, and church buildings." The
corresponding medieval Jewish practice was to support scholars and Torah study, the poor, and religious obligations (devar mitsvah), among which latter were numbered candles for the synagogue. (cited by Jay Rovner,
Ledger, 14)
cxiii
Rav Abba bar Kahana in Pesikta de Rav Kahana (6th C., 172 in B. Mandelbaum edition)
"Some sources allow one to subsidize students from wealthy families. Thus, M. Mintz (ca. 1450) (Teshuvot,
no. 33, pp. 121 f) considers eligible for charity a student who has left home to study, just as any wanderer who
lacks funds for his immediate needs would be. Menahem Meerseberg (Meili), quoted in I. Horowitz permits one
to subsidize with tithe money the study of wealthy students whose father will not provide for Talmud Torah."
(Jay Rovner, Ledger, 23)
cxv
Shene Luhot Haberit, from Rovner, Ledger, 42
cxvi
Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, The Pentatuech, commentary on Dt. 15:8
cxiv
48
cxvii
Bronfman, 23-24
Lewis Hyde, The Gift, 38
cxix
Lewis Hyde, The Gift, 17
cxx
Hyde, The Gift, 79
cxxi
Cited in Hyde, The Gift, 21-23
cxxii
Hyde, The Gift, 3-4
cxviii
cxxiii
Hyde, The Gift, 108
Hyde, The Gift, xiii-xiv
cxxv
Hyde, The Gift, 14-16
cxxiv
cxxvi
Hyde, The Gift, 19
Gary Stansell, 69-70
cxxviii
The anthropologists Marcel Mauss and Bronislaw Malinowski recognized the significance of the exchange
of gifts and the principle of reciprocity in traditional societies.
cxxix
St. John Chrysosrum: On Wealth and Poverty, 49-55, cited by N. Wolterstorff, Justice, 60-61
cxxvii
49