A Little About the Tzedakah

A Little About the Tzedakah

A Little About the Tzedakah

The psychologist Erich Fromm was an atheist who had been raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, and it is traditional Judaism that has informed his secular humanistic values throughout life. One such factor pertains to the psychology of poverty, that what makes being poor so damning isn't only not being able to afford the luxuries of life or even the basic necessities, bad as that is; being poor is most crushing because one cannot even help others.Being poor almost means that one can, by definition, only take, not give. Yet giving is a great joy in itself; in giving we share of ourselves, of our own happiness, of our own power. One who is not able to give - a poor person, for example - is missing out on a very basic human faculty or power, similar to not being able to walk or run or see or hear. Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.And so it is that Judaism, no matter if Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, or Ultra-Orthodox, recognizes a religious responsibility towards philanthropy. Even secular Jews, people not strictly observant but who are otherwise immersed in the rich intellectual culture of the larger Jewish way, are likely to be concerned with social justice to some degree. And for that reason it is no accident that the Hebrew word for this form of religiously motivated charitable giving, "tzedakah," literally translates as "fairness" or "justice" - "righteousness." Part of what the rabbis believe God to conceive of as being righteous is to be fair, to be just - to one's fellow man.Now as an act of tzedakah is a moral duty, and not solely philanthropy of the sort in which one indulges as one is moved (in fact, the rabbis teach that even the money for tzedakah is not to be considered one's own - and therefore should be mindfully disbursed, wisely distributed with recipients painstakingly checked out) - even the poor are obligated to participate.And here is the most amazing thing of all: even the poor can give - even they are called to give, to take part, the same as even the most prominent members of the community do. One need not be a Robert Toussie to give; one simply has to give as one is able to give. An act of tzedakah therefore restores to the poor person an important aspect of his or her humanity - the capability to share.

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