As the waning sun signals the inauguration of Shabbat, many Jewish children approach the family pushke, or charity box, in order to drop in their metallic coins with a ritual “clink.” Images of these charity boxes vary: from a haphazardly constructed child’s project, to glistening wood and iron ornaments, or the now iconic blue sides of the Jewish National Fund, yet this practice of giving charity, called by the Hebrew word tzedakah, or righteous justice, is a unique part of the Jewish religious and cultural tradition. Jewish communities throughout the world incorporate individual as well as cooperative actions of charity into their daily practice, reflecting Jacob Neusner’s idealized vision: “Whatever else people do, if they do not do tzedakah, they are not a Jewish community” (Tzedakah, 31).
The evolution of the biblical tzedakah “justice” to rabbinic institutions of “charity” emerged in the post-exilic era. The first reference to tzedakah as charity appears in the apocryphal book Tobit when Prov 11:4 is reinterpreted as “Alms deliver from death” (4:10, 12:8-9). Within the Second Temple era, lishkay chasha’im, or a “chamber of secrecy,” allowed pious individuals to bring their gifts for the poor and the poor could come and take for their needs in privacy. Later, tzedakah boxes called matan baseter, or “places for secret almsgiving,” allowed communities to consolidate their charity collection in synagogue locations.
I first encountered tzedakah as a graduate student. I was intrigued by the prophetic petitions for justice in the Hebrew Bible and fascinated by the rabbinic interpretation of those appeals. Further as a Christian, I was tired of hearing the refrain that Christians should practice social justice “like Jesus did” without understanding the formation of justice ideas in Late Antiquity. This fascination has led to a finished thesis project and now dissertation project that will hopefully launch a future career in Jewish and Christian justice rhetoric.
I could write blog post upon blog post about the institution of tzedakah, not only because I have devoted my academic life to its study, but because the concept of communal justice informs my own Christian experience. Because tzedakah practice is cited as a divine commandment, or mitzvah, one should participate in the financial assistance of the poor habitually, not only out of a sense of communal sister- and brotherhood but as an offering to God. Rabbi Jill Jacobs explains, “Within Judaism, support for the poor is understood as an obligation and as a means of restoring justice to the world, and not as an altruistic or voluntary gesture” (There Shall Be No Needy, 80).
To be honest, I am challenged as a Christian when I read Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ words. Do I view the poor in my own neighborhood as a part of my community? Do I consider myself to have an obligation to their needs? Arnold Jacob Wolf declares: “If you try to create a closed world of lovely Jewish piety and build it on foundations of injustice and degradation of others, Isaiah and Amos will not let you sleep” (“Repairing Tikkun Olam”). Tzedakah giving in modern Jewish circles is an essential part of the Jewish spiritual and religious practice, a direct part of the community’s fulfillment of God’s heart and will. I believe that Christians can learn from this Jewish institutional practice; support for the poor need not be a sympathetic or comfortable gesture for it too is described in the Christian Old Testament as a divine commandment. And as idealized as “justice” may be, can it not be our hope? our ideal? our obligation to God?
Daily I pray that I might practice Rabbi Elazar’s appeal:
Whoever does deeds of charity (tzedakah) and justice (mishpat) is considered as having filled the entire world, all of it, with loving-kindness (hesed), as it is written, “He [God] loves what is right (tzedakah) and just (mishpat); the earth is filled with the loving-kindness of the Lord” (Psalms 33:5).
(B. Sukkah 49b).
