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lifnim mishurat hadin, placing a renewed focus on critical issues of justice and communal integrity. Lifnim mishurat hadin, after all, should not be left as just a historic concept that once in the past lifted Jewish eyes higher. It could serve the Jewish people in a renewed fashion if it were rabbinically applied to contemporary circumstances wherein a greater measure of virtue might be attainable. For the model it might provide to surrounding societies, as well as for the way it might dignify the Jewish landscape, maybe it is indeed time to aspire to a finer tzedakah ethic.
Notes
1 There is no question that tzedakah is more than just a financial requirement. The commandment to be engaged in tzedakah implies setting aside time to serve the community in a myriad of ways. However, this time requirement in no way relieves one of one's financial tzedakah obligations. Hence, while many Jews - at all levels of wealth- are involved in worthy acts of tzedakah, this paper focuses on the justice associated with tzedakah's monetary aspects.
2. Lev. 19:18.
3. Assuming that most individuals have a high regard for themselves, the requirement to love one's neighbor in a similar fashion is, after all, an exceptionally demanding one. It suggests that we should attempt the extraordinarily righteous undertaking of being as assiduous about the well- being of other members of our society as we are those in our own household.
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4. There is a common misconception that the expected rate is ten percent. In fact, the rabbinic tradition regards ten percent as merely satisfactory, while twenty percent is seen to be the true fulfillment of the commandment. A giving rate of less than ten percent is unsatisfactory. See Maimonides , Hilkhot Matanot Aniyim 7: 5.
5. Ket. 50a.
6. Ibid.