Tzedakah: Aspiring to a Higher Ethic

wealthy individual who has an annual income of five million dollars. Consider further that in one given year this individual gives all of his tzedakah money to one place: a one hundred thousand dollar gift to his synagogue rebuilding campaign. Compare him to a woman who belongs to the same congregation who, because she cannot work full-time. has an annual income of eight thousand dollars. She, too, gives all of her tzedakah money in that year to the synagogue rebuilding campaign, a gift of nine hundred dollars. If this is the totality of each of their commitments to tzedakah in one year, then, from a Jewish perspective, who has done better? Clearly, the woman has fulfilled the mitzvah of tzedakah by exceeding the ten percent level. whereas the man’s contribution is dramatically short of this obligation. What, though, will be the actual outcome? The man, if he so desires, will be able to name the social hall, or some other part of the institution. in honor of his family, and he will be publicly celebrated. The woman will get a letter of thanks, and may get her name posted in a long list of soon-forgotten“also-ran” donors, even as the man’s name is enshrined in stone and spoken about for decades.

This. of course, is Judaism inverted. One should not assume for a moment that those who give large gifts regularly fall short of their 1zedakah obligations. One should certainly, however, appreciate that fulfilling the ten percent mandate, rather than providing some extraordinary dollar figure, is what we say really matters in Jewish life. Hence, even if the man’s gift had been six hundred thousand dollars, it would be no more Jewishly worthy than the woman's nine hundred dollars. As a matter of fact, in terms of virtue, one might make the argument that her gift, which may have been far more difficult for her to do without, could actually have been the more meritorious and hence the more worthy of recognition. The Jewish system suggests that all who fulfill their /zedakah mandate should be respected alike. To honor“big givers” in unique ways, whether or not their zzedakah mandate has been fulfilled. is to treat those of lesser means, who have Nevertheless given greater percentages, unjustly.