Tzedakah: Aspiring to a Higher Ethic 167

interests dictates." While this may have a few positive outcomes, like ending the lifespan of Jewish organizations that have lost relevance while encouraging new and creative ventures to come into being, there are also real costs associated with this individualization of 1zedakah. Perhaps the most worrying issue is that as individual givers become more attracted to new,“cutting-edge” projects, the“nuts-and-bolts institutions of Jewish communal life— the synagogues, family service agencies, and nursing homes”— see their critical needs erode." Unable to compete in terms of appeal, the vital core communal institutions are no longer guaranteed support, while novel“niche” projects attract interest that exceeds their communal utility. Thus, the diminution of a sense of communal duty on the part of the wealthy has the potential to lead to a similar reduction at all levels and a consequent failure to maintain a coherent and well-balanced communal funding structure. Again, the analogy with taxation provides insight: if individuals were permitted to determine the type of projects to which their taxation would flow, there would probably be plenty of parks and grand bridges and monuments, but would there be enough roads and sewer systems?

Yet another regrettable way in which donor influence can become manifest is when positions of organizational leadership are, at times, offered to members of affluent families with the aim of keeping them“committed to the cause” and giving at their customary amount. The result, of course, is to overlook those who may have the same or even more managerial or leadership skills, but who cannot compete at the same giving level. Not only, then, does paying attention to wealth have the potential to distort communal priorities, it can distort the very structures that drive communal decision-making, as well.

By supplanting the democratic communal process and bypassing those who have accumulated wisdom to guide communal Priorities, a sense of communal participation and communal ownership of institutions and projects is replaced by a sense that true power resides in the hands of an oligarchy. Not surprisingly, this can have a