Introduction – The Jewish Story

Good afternoon everybody.  I am delighted to be here and welcome the opportunity to share in the discussion of the important question:  Material Wealth: Blessing of God or Root of all Evil?

 

My Jewish response to this question begins with a story – the foundational narrative of the Jewish people, which is also the foundation of Jewish teaching about material wealth – as of everything else. The Torah – broadly the whole of Jewish teaching; more specifically, the text known as the ‘Five Books of Moses’: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – actually tells two great stories. The Torah relates the story – or rather stories – of the origins and early escapades of humanity, and also the story – or rather stories – of a particular people, most frequently designated as b’ney Yisrael, ‘the children of Israel’ – the descendants of Jacob – who was the grandson of the first patriarch and matriarch of the Israelites, Abraham and Sarah.

 

From the outset, the story of Abraham and Sarah and their descendants centres on a great journey, that becomes many journeys; a journey that twists and turns, and turns again; a journey that has a destination: the land beyond the Jordan: a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’; a journey that becomes defined by the transformational experience at its heart: the liberation of the ‘children of Israel’ from slavery in Egypt and their wanderings in the wilderness.

 

So, what did the children of Israel learn from their extraordinary experiences?

 

 

Thanksgiving

 

An important answer to this question can be found in the Book of Deuteronomy; the fifth book of the Torah (1).  At the beginning of Deuteronomy chapter 26, we find a passage describing a sacred ritual of thanksgiving during Temple times that encapsulates the story of the people – and explains what the Israelites made of their experience (2).  Significantly, during the 2nd century CE, the rabbis, that is, the scholars who reconstituted Jewish life after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE,  included a key part of the passage in the Haggadah, the text, ‘telling’ the tale of the Exodus that is narrated each year at the Passover seder (3).  Because it is so potent and revealing, let me quote the eleven verses from Deuteronomy chapter 26 in full (:1-11):

When you come into the land that the Eternal One your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Eternal One your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Eternal One your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. 3And you shall go to the priest who is [in office] in those days, and say to him, ‘I declare today to the Eternal One your God that I have come into the land that the Eternal One swore to our ancestors to give us.’ 4Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Eternal One your God.  5 And you shall respond and say before the Eternal One your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and numerous. 6And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us and laid hard labour upon us. 7Then we cried to the Eternal One, the God of our ancestors, and the Eternal One heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8And the Eternal One brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and with wonders. 9And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, Eternal One, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Eternal One your God and worship before the Eternal One your God. 11And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Eternal One your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

 

The ‘wandering Aramean’ was Jacob and as we can see the great story of his descendants’ experiences generated a whole-hearted appreciation of the blessings of liberation and prosperity.  But more than this: thanksgiving for God’s blessings became translated into the obligations that prosperity entails; the obligation to give thanks and the obligation to give to others.   This passage describes a ritual associated with the harvesting of the very first fruits of the land.  During Temple times, a  ‘Day of First Fruits’, Yom ha-Bikkurim (Numbers 28:26), known best by the name, Shavuot, ‘Weeks’, took place each year in the early summer, and was the second of three Pilgrim festivals – the first being, Pesach, ‘Passover’, in the spring, and the third, Sukkot, ‘Tabernacles’ in the autumn.  At these key moments of the agricultural cycle, the people would go on pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem with their offerings and give thanks for the bounty of the land (Exodus 23: 14-17).

 

Although the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, and the people, over time, ceased to farm the land, and became increasingly dispersed, re-constituted by the rabbis, the three Pilgrim festivals, have remained a core feature of the Jewish calendar to this day.  And so, for Jews, wherever we live, the theme of thanksgiving remains paramount:  At Pesach , we thank the Eternal One for liberating us from slavery; at Shavuot we thank the Eternal One for  making a covenant with us at Mount Sinai; and at Sukkot, we thank the Eternal One for enabling us to survive forty years in the wilderness (4).

Tz’dakah –the obligation to give

We give thanks – and we give.  Let me remind you of the concluding verse of that passage from Deuteronomy chapter 26(:11):

And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Eternal One your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

 

Material wealth is an opportunity to share the gift of prosperity with others. The text here mentions two particular groups of ‘others’: ‘the Levite’ and ‘the sojourner’.  ‘The Levite’ is a reference to the members of the tribe of Levi.  Unlike the other Israelite tribes, the Levites were responsible for the Temple service and did not own land.  Consequently, they relied on receiving tithes and a portion of the offerings brought to the Temple.  Similarly, the sojourner, by definition, was also landless.  The Hebrew word for ‘sojourner’ – geir – denotes either a ‘temporary dweller’ or a ‘newcomer’.  Today, we might also translate geir as ‘outsider’, or ‘stranger’, or ‘immigrant’.  With no inherited property rights, the sojourner was, like the Levite, also dependent on receiving material support.  So the message of the passage from Deuteronomy chapter 26 is clear:  Everyone shall rejoice in the fruits of the land – including those who are landless.

 

But it is not just the facts of the circumstances of Levites and sojourners that demand that they share in the bounty of the land.  In the Book of Leviticus, that largely describes the worship rites of the second Temple period, we read in chapter 19, known as ‘the Holiness Code’ (:33-34):

When a sojourner sojourns with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. / The sojourner that sojourns with you, shall be to you like the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

 

Elsewhere, in the first legal code of the Torah, Mishpatim, the text at Exodus chapter 23 underlines the connection between the people’s experience as sojourners in Egypt and their obligation towards the sojourner, once they are living in the land (:9):

A sojourner you shall not oppress, for you know the heart of the sojourner, seeing you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

 

The Hebrew word translated here as ‘heart’ is nefesh – which came to mean ‘soul’ in rabbinic thinking.  However, in the Torah, nefesh means something much more material:  after the flood, Noah is told that the people may eat flesh, but not blood, because blood is the nefesh of the animal (Genesis 9:4).  In other words, nefesh is the palpable life-force.  So, the Israelites must not oppress the sojourner – the newcomer, the outsider, the stranger – because, having been sojourners, Israelites know the nefesh of the sojourner; they know what it feels like to be vulnerable and marginal.

 

The obligation towards the sojourner is so important it is re-iterated, in different ways, thirty-six times in the Torah.  No other injunction is repeated in this way, again and again – and the reason for this is clear:  Those who were once sojourners themselves must be concerned with those who are sojourners now.  But the just and compassionate treatment of the newcomer, the outsider, the stranger, is not only at the heart of the Torah, it also provides the model for the treatment of all other vulnerable and marginal groups.  These other vulnerable and marginal groups are identified in the Torah, in particular, as the orphan and the widow – that is those whose circumstances make them utterly dependent on material aid – but also include all those in need.

 

Rules governing the treatment of those who are vulnerable and marginal are set out in several places in the Torah – in particular in Leviticus chapter 19 and Deuteronomy chapter 24.  In Deuteronomy chapter 24, the continual emphasis on the story of the Jewish experience of injustice as the rationale for the just treatment of others is very striking.  After setting out obligations towards those who are in receipt of a loan or dependent on a daily wage, the text states a few verses further on (:17-22):

7 You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner, or the orphan; nor take the garment of the widow as a pledge. 18 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Eternal One, your God redeemed you from there; that is why I command you to do this.  19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the sojourner, the orphan and the widow, so that the Eternal One, your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow. 22 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; that is why I command you to do this.

 

Interestingly, in this text the rationale for the just treatment of  those who are vulnerable and marginal, and, specifically, for giving them a share of the fruits of the land, is not simply that the Israelites had been geirm – ‘sojourners’ – in Egypt, but, more pointedly because they had been slaves.  Again: You shall remember that you were a slave. A slave – eved in Hebrew – is not simply a sojourner – that is, marginal and vulnerable – a slave has no freedom to roam; a slave is totally economically dependent.

 

The concern for justice is at the heart of Jewish teaching.  Another section of the Book of Deuteronomy, called Shof’tim, ‘Judges’, dealing with the legal system itself, proclaims:  ‘Justice, justice, you shall pursue’ – tzedek, tzedek tirdof (16:18).   On a day by day basis, what those who are vulnerable and marginal need more than anything else is a just share in the material prosperity of the society in which they live.  Economic measures to alleviate the plight of all those in need are essential – and it is also essential that the obligation towards the needy is assumed by the ordinary members of the society.  And so, the biblical imperative of economic justice became translated in Rabbinic Judaism into the obligation of tz’dakah.  Related to the word for justice, tzedek, tz’dakah, is often translated as ‘charity’.  But this is rather misleading.  Based on the Latin, caritas, charity expresses the feeling of love that motivates giving.  By contrast, tz’dakah, stresses that giving is an act of justice; a way of putting right what is wrong; a vehicle for re-distributing wealth to the needy.

 

In Rabbinic law, tz’dakah is a mitzvah, a ‘commandment’ – that is, the individual Jew is required to give tz’dakah.  Nevertheless there are different ways of fulfilling the obligation.  The great 12th century Jewish philosopher and codifier, Maimonides, that is, Moses ben Maimon, also known as Rambam (1135-1204), a refugee from persecution in Spain, who settled in Egypt, identified eight degrees of tz’dakah (5) – in descending order, from the highest to the lowest.  According to Maimonides, the highest level  of tz’dakah is to ‘strengthen’ the person in need ‘by giving him a present or loan, or making a partnership with him, or finding him a job in order to strengthen his hand until he needs no longer [beg from] people. For it is said, “You shall strengthen the sojourner and the settler in your midst and live with him,” (Leviticus 25:35), that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall [upon the mercy of the community] or be in need’ (paragraph 7).  In other words, the best form of tz’dakah, involves eliminating the thorny problem of dependence – a lesson which the richer nations of the world, forever pouring money at the scourge of poverty, but doing much less to enable poorer nations to help themselves, could do with learning today.  But from a Jewish point of view, in whatever manner the obligation of tz’dakah is carried out – even if, ‘unwillingly’; the lowest of Maimonides’ eight levels – the essential point is that the individual fulfills their obligation.

Conclusion

 

And so, to conclude:  The Jewish toast is L’Chayyim! – To Life!   Jews have learnt from the story of our people – a great saga of abundance and loss; and abundance and loss – to celebrate life and appreciate all the gifts of life, each and every day.   And so, from a Jewish perspective material wealth is a source of blessing.  I say ‘source of blessing’ rather than, as the title puts it, ‘Blessing of God’ because while Jewish teaching recognises that God is the source of all blessing, the rules governing the treatment of the vulnerable and marginal in society, encompassing all those who need material aid, make it clear that we – rather than God – are responsible for practising tz’dakah, and so, for ensuring that the blessings of life are shared by all.  Far from being the ‘root of all evil’, material wealth is an opportunity for thanksgiving and for giving to others who are less fortunate, so they, too, may reap the benefits of prosperity.

 

 

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

One World Week Interfaith Encounter

Worth Abbey, 18th October 2009 – 30th Tishri 5770

 

 

Notes

  1. The Book of Deuteronomy is set in the narrative context of the fortieth year of the wilderness journey, and takes the form of a series of orations delivered by Moses to the people encamped on the eastern side of the Jordan.  However, Deuteronomy – Greek for ‘Second Law’ – was actually written seven hundred years later during the reign of King Josiah of Judah, which began c. 638 BCE, and represents King Josiah’s attempt to reform the kingdom and its people (see II Kings 22:1ff.) – hence the repetition of key teachings at the heart of the Torah – and the reinforcement of core messages.
  2. Interestingly, this passage from Deuteronomy chapter 26 constitutes a very early example of Jewish liturgy at a time when the system of worship focussed on the Temple in Jerusalem and its sacrificial offerings.
  3. Seder means ‘order’ – and is the name given to the Passover meal, which centres on the Haggadah, the ‘telling’ of the story of the Exodus.
  4. Although Shavuot, ‘the Day of First Fruits’ was, originally, purely agricultural, after the Temple was destroyed, the rabbis transformed the second of the Pilgrim Festivals into ‘the Season of the Giving of our Torah’ – Z’man Matan Torateinu, linking the period of the seven weeks from the second day of Passover to Shavuot (‘Weeks’) to the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Mount Sinai (see Exodus 19:1ff.)

5.    Maimonides’ ‘Eight Degrees of Tz’dakah’ (Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Mat’not Ani’im (Laws of Gifts  of [that belong to] the Poor) 10:1;7-14).  See: Appendix

Appendix

7: There are eight levels of tz’dakah, each greater than the next. The greatest level, above which there is no other, is to strengthen the name of another Jew by giving him a present or loan, or making a partnership with him, or finding him a job in order to strengthen his hand until he needs no longer [beg from] people. For it is said, “You shall strengthen the stranger and the dweller in your midst and live with him,” {Leviticus XXV:35} that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall [upon the mercy of the community] or be in need.

8: Below this is the one who gives tz’dakah to the poor, but does not know to whom he gives, nor does the recipient know his benefactor. For this is performing a mitzvah for the sake of Heaven. This is like the Secret [Anonymous] Office in the Temple. There the righteous gave secretly, and the good poor drew sustenance anonymously. This is much like giving tz’dakah through a tz’dakah box. One should not put into the box unless he knows that the one responsible for the box is faithful and wise and a proper leader like Rabbi Hananya ben Teradyon.

9: Below this is one who knows to whom he gives, but the recipient does not know his benefactor. The greatest sages used to walk about in secret and put coins into the doors of the poor. It is worthy and truly good to do this if those who are responsible for collecting tz’dakah are not trustworthy.

10: Below this is one who does not know to whom he gives, but the poor person does know his benefactor. The greatest sages used to pack coins into their scarves and roll them up over their backs, and the poor would come and pick [the coins out of the scarves] so that they would not be ashamed.

11: Below this is one who gives to the poor person before being asked.

12: Below this is one who gives to the poor person after being asked.

13: Below this is one who gives to the poor person gladly and with a smile.

14: Below this is one who gives to the poor person unwillingly.

Maimonides: ‘Eight Degrees of Tz’dakah’ (Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Mat’not Ani’im (Laws of Gifts  of [that belong to] the Poor) 10:1;7-14).