This week’s combined parasha of Behar/Behukotai teaches some of the most revolutionary social and economic regulations known to humanity. The portion begins with the teaching of Sabbatical and Jubilee years, which require that debts be remitted and land redistributed. Consequently, the gap between rich and poor would never be too extreme, and everyone among the people of Israel would have a connection to the land (other than the Levites, who were provided for in different ways). As well, Behar teaches our obligations to those who fall into difficult financial circumstances. Judaism fully recognises the importance of the material world in which we live – it is not to be transcended, denied or avoided, but lived in fully to the best of our abilities.
The Torah’s teaching about poverty and the poor reveals a profound concern for humanity. In other law codes developed around the time of the giving of Torah, the poor had no rights. In fact, in Rabbi Joseph Hertz’s commentary on the Torah, he notes that in ancient Rome, “the creditor could imprison the debtor in his own private dungeon, chain him to a block, sell him into slavery, or even put him to death.” Debtor’s prisons existed in most of the world into the 19th century, and some Australians, among them Jews, can attribute their arrival in this country to laws against debtors. In contrast to this, the Torah declared the poor must be protected and provided for through the requirements of tzedakah.
When we mistranslate tzedakah as charity, we misunderstand Judaism’s ethical and religious demands upon us toward the poor. Charity derives from the Latin word “caritas” or love. Judaism’s core value (as made clear in the Shema) is love, but in Judaism, love is more than a feeling. Judaism places an enormous ethical demand upon us through the concept of “gemilut chasaadim” or deeds of lovingkindness. The emotion of love is admirable, for certain acts and tzedakah given with love are of a higher level than those given begrudgingly, but tzedakah ultimately is an act, not a feeling. It is derived from the concept tzedek, justice or righteousness. Tzedakah does not depend on how we feel. Tzedakah places both a legal and a moral obligation upon us. Moreover, it decrees that the poor have rights – legitimate claims upon our funds.
The clear message of Torah is that the poor must be provided food, clothing and shelter. This is their right and our duty, our mitzvah. Everyone must give something – even the recipient of tzedakah. The great teacher of ethics, Rabbi Israel Salanter, said: “Generally we think of our material needs and our neighbour’s spiritual needs; but we should provide for our neighbour’s material needs and our spiritual needs.” In reality, our spiritual needs are nurtured when we provide for another’s material needs.
Our gift of tzedakah responds to a human need, and Judaism does not imagine that a war on poverty can be won. Later in the Torah, in another passage delineating our obligations for tzedakah, we are told that even with all our giving “the poor shall never cease out of the land.” (Dt. 15:11). The teaching of Behar (especially combined as it is with the curses and blessings recounted in Parasha Behukotai) recognises that in this real material world there will always be those who are blessed, those who have misfortune, those who rise, those who fall. Torah commands we provide for those whose means fail.
At the heart of our obligation to give and to the disadvantaged’s right to receive is our faith teaching of the God-given dignity of each human soul. Thus we learn elsewhere in our Scripture: “The one who gives to the poor makes a loan to the Lord.” (Proverbs 19:17).
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins