Changing Views of Health Care Delivery 109

how such funds were to be used and that was continued in the Middle Ages. Efforts were made in later centuries to continue tithing.” The tithe along with other gifts were to be distributed so that the poor were not shamed.

COMMUNAL EFFORTS OF THE BIBLE

This appeal to the individual conscience was accompanied by broader communal efforts that consisted of the Sabbatical Year, and the Jubilee Year . In the seventh year the land was to lie fallow and rest— the crops of the field, vineyards and olive groves, whatever grew, were open to use by everyone, the owner of the field, the poor, and wild animals(Ex 23.10; Lev. 25.2-7). All debts were to be canceled(Deut 15:1-3) and all male Hebrew slaves released(Ex 21:2-6); Deuteronomy extended this to females(Deut. 15:12—18).- Jeremiah’s protest(34:8-12) showed

that when the people were reminded of these laws by King Zedekiah , they briefly observed them. Otherwise we hear nothing of them until the time of the Maccabees (1 Mac. 6:49, 53; 16:14; Josephus , Antiquities xii, 9, 5; 8,1). The Biblical social legislation was designed to provide a series of second chances for the poor.

The Sabbatical Year would cancel all debts and so provide fairly quick aid.

As the Sabbatical Year carried enormous societal and economic implications, it was human nature to negate it. One effort interpreted the Levitical legislation narrowly, and so voided them in the Diaspora; after all Leviticus spoke of“your land,” which was interpreted as restricting this legislation to the Land of Israel. Even there, competitive economic forces made the laws concerning the cancellation of debts counterproductive, as no one would lend close to the Sabbatical Year. Their effect was curtailed by the prosbul ascribed to Hillel ; it transferred debts to the court