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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:YERUSHALMI PEAH 8:8:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL;JEWISH RENEWAL
"Rabbi Yaakov bar Idi and Rabbi Yitschak bar Nachman were in charge of giving out the charity money for the community. They would give Rabbi Oshaya's father, Rabbi Chama, a dinar and he would give it to others.
Everyone would gossip about Rabbi Zecharyah, Rabbi Levi's son-in-law. They said that he didn't need charity but was taking communal charity funds. When he died, they checked and found out that he would give away this money
to others who were in need.
Rabbi Chinena bar Pappa was one of the charity distributors, and he would give the money away at night. One time the chief of the spirits met him (ghosts whose realm is at night) and said to him: Did the rabbi not teach us, ''Do not move the boundary marker of your neighbor (Deuteronomy 19:14)?" [The ghost was saying that night time was his time to work, and that the human rabbi should be giving charity during the day.] Said Rabbi Chinena to the spirit: '' But it is also
written, "A gift in secret overturns anger. (Proverbs 21:14)" The spirit gave up and ran away from the sage. (Talmud Yerushalmi Tractate Peah 8:8)''
Shalom:
In this time of economic hardship it is always interesting to look into what our sages thought of charitable giving. While much has been written about chesed and tsaddakah, little has been said about the last section of Talmud Yerushalmi Tractate Peah [8:8].
"Rabbi Yaakov bar Idi and Rabbi Yitschak bar Nachman were in charge of giving out the charity money for the community. They would give Rabbi Oshaya's father, Rabbi Chama, a dinar and he would give it to others.
Everyone would gossip about Rabbi Zecharyah, Rabbi Levi's son-in-law. They said that he didn't need charity but was taking communal charity funds. When he died, they checked and found out that he would give away this money
to others who were in need.
Rabbi Chinena bar Pappa was one of the charity distributors, and he would give the money away at night. One time the chief of the spirits met him (ghosts whose realm is at night) and said to him: Did the rabbi not teach us, ''Do not move the boundary marker of your neighbor (Deuteronomy 19:14)?" [The ghost was saying that night time was his time to work, and that the human rabbi should be giving charity during the day.] Said Rabbi Chinena to the spirit: '' But it is also
written, "A gift in secret overturns anger. (Proverbs 21:14)" The spirit gave up and ran away from the sage. (Talmud Yerushalmi Tractate Peah 8:8)''
We can see how two millennia ago Jews would say cruel things about those receiving charity and those giving it. We can see why the Rambam wrote 1000 years later that it is best to give in secret and best to receive in secret. The yetzer ha ra can lead many to be stingy and what a wonderful way to avoid tsaddakah by listening to lashon ha ra, telling us that someone in need, really doesn't need it.
The Saadi Gaon wrote:
''All human beings are different parts of the same body, who have inherited the same essence in creation. No part will rest in peace if one is suffering pain. You will not deserve the name of human if you are indifferent about others' pains." I write about this interconnectivity of all human beings, and why it is hurtful to ourselves, to not treat another person with the same love and care we would want ourselves to be treated. I go into details of this in:
In the same section of Peah on Daf 21b, we see that Rabbi Yona saw a Jewish fellow who had lost his property and inheritance. So that he would not embarrass the fellow or let him know that Yona was the philanthropist, he said to the man, "My son, because I have heard that you have gained an inheritance from another place, take the money, and you can repay it later.' When the fellow had taken the money, Rabbi Yona did not collect the debt.
In another instance Rabbi Yehoshua redeems a Jewish boy who works as a prostitute in Rome and pays for not only his freedom but his passage back to Judea.
But we are also told of how two great sages, brothers- in- law, met a poor man asking for charity while they were on the way to the bath house in Tiberias. They said they would give him money for food and water after their bath. On there way out, they found him and he had died. Supposedly it was discovered that the beggar was a fraud, so these two rabbis ( Yochanan and Shimon ben Laqish) were saved from punishment. But the concept of doing mitzvoth when we have the chance to do so, even running to do so on Shabbat, is an important value in Judaism. (ibid).
Now what constitutes a poor person? One who has less hat 200 zuzim. (ibid). And what is this figure? It is the amount that one needs to live comfortably for a year. It is also the amount a divorced women leaves a marriage with in a standard ketubah (Talmud Bavli Tractate Ketuboth 10a). Now the Talmud talks about the 'rasha' (evil person) Jew, who will give a man who has 199 zuzim, one zuz, to then make him ineligible from collecting more charity. [Talmud Bavli Tractate Sotah 21b.]
The Talmud Balvi in Tractate Nedarim 41a reads: "There is no poor person except he who is poor in knowledge." The reish is far away from God. He entertains flagrant, evil thoughts and speaks negatively. He is beyond the level of having or not having money. He is spiritually bereft; the poorest of the poor. He eats and doesn't say a motzi or a beracoth ha mazon, which the rabbis label him a thief. (Talmud Tractate Beracoth). In the presence of a rabbi, a Talmudic scholar, he doesn't take the opportunity to learn. He will not only be a chronic breaker of man-to God laws like Shabbat and kosher, but is only kind to those, who are his friends. He is so disconnected from God, he misses the point of what Saadi Gaon teaches above.
However: The Talmud tells us that the rasha, [ evil person], when he repents, he becomes a baal teshuvah, or in English Jewish Spiritually Renewed, and is therefore higher than a tzaddik !!! In such a case, a rasha, becomes a rosh, or "head." It can awake from his spiritual slumber and repent and become spiritually awakened. The reish can truly be transformed into the rosh: the head of the Jewish people.(Talmud Bavli Tractate Shabbat 104a.) All he or she needs is to follow the simple path that Jews over millennia have taken:Rabbi Arthur Segal : (001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal .
Now back to the 200 zuzim limit. The Talmud teaches: "We do not obligate him to sell his house or his household articles." A person's accustomed home and furnishings are considered necessities for him. This refers to reasonable articles, but a person may not collect charity from the public fund if he has luxury items that he could sell without hardship. (Peah 8:8).
The Talmud tells us: "Someone who has 50 zuz and trades with them, may not take charity." The Rabbis reminds us that the main source of livelihood is not wealth, but income. Someone with very little money who has a steady source of income is far from poor. So a person who is able to generate income with a small amount of capital is not poor. The main principle is that poverty is mostly a function of insufficient income rather than insufficient wealth.
Now this leads to some interesting discussions because in Roman law, even a poor free man needed a slave, in fact two if he were traveling. And the rabbis, also in Peah 8:8 say that a poor person indeed does need two slaves when he travels on the road, or he will be captured by highwaymen and end up as a slave.
The rabbis while concerned about those who didn't need charity, taking it, were also concerned about someone needing it, and not taking it: One who is needy and refuses to accept help, it is as though he shed innocent blood." [Talmud Yerushalmi Tractate Peah 8:8 ]. And the following quote, [ibid], reminds me of something I was asked when I was in practice. "Fifty productive men working are better than two hundred men who are not.'' I was once asked how many people do I have working for me, and I answered ''about half of them.''
So Talmud Yerushalmi Tractate Peah 8:8 sums up charitable giving thusly: ''Happy is the man who is 'maskil' in relation to the person in need''[Ps. 41.2]. Rabbi Yona said the Psalm does not say happy is the man who gives to the person in need, but happy is he who is maskil in relation to the person in need. Meaning, one must examine the situation carefully, before giving charity, in order to find the best possible way to do it.'' [ Maskil is from the Hebrew root meaning to be prudent, look at, give attention to, have insight or understanding.]
Shavuah Tov,
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC
Bluffton, SC
Savannah, GA
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(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal
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In The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew, Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality.
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(002) A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud
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A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us.
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(003) Tzadakkah Bundle
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The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal and A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud. Purchase both books as a set, and I will donate a portion of the sales price in your name to the tzadakkah of your choice. -- Rabbi Segal
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