Daniel Schiff

The second reason why offering inducements to those of extensive means leads to unjust application of tzedakah norms stems from what we might call pooling. Consider the following circumstances: If I have thirty thousand dollars to give to tzedakah, and I donate the entire sum to the local Jewish day school, that schoo will doubtless offer me a range of different honors or naming opportunities. If, however, I take the same thirty thousand dollars and divide it into fifty equal gifts of six hundred dollars, and I send those gifts to fifty worthy communal institutions, each of those places wil acknowledge my kind donation, but not one of them is likely to offer me a special honor of any type. Yet the question must be asked: I which instance have I behaved better or served the interests of the community in a more desirable fashion? The answer is that this is an impossible call to make. The broader interests of the community may be better served by one institution getting all the money. It is possible, though, that the future of a number of places may be more assured if people were encouraged to spread their wealth more evenly among various institutions. Since, then, it is not plausible to state that onc who concentrates his or her giving on one institution has dont something better than one who spreads small amounts further, why should one be honored and the other not? The fact that it is quite possible that honors are being distributed to individuals who pool substantial amounts in one place, while those who give even large! sums to multiple addresses go entirely unrecognized, is clearly unjust. Moreover, it is yet another reason why a smaller donation might well deserve equal recognition with a larger one, since it is certainly plausible that it represents but a fraction of that individual's tzedakah commitment.

The third problem behind treating the rich differently is the unpleasant reality that it can, and at times does, lead to unseemly inequalities in other areas. Assume for a moment that you are the executive director of a large synagogue. Mr. Cohen, who last week was feted as a million-dollar giver to the synagogue capital campaig