There Shall Be No Needy, part 4: What Are Needs? How Do We Meet Them?

Two things become clear as I go through Rabbi Jill Jacobs' book There Shall Be No Needy: how much society has changed since the classic Jewish texts were written...and how much we can still learn from them.

How much about poverty has changed

On the first point, it's clear that in Torah and rabbinic commentaries, there's a presumption that poverty is temporary. Everyone will normally have the means to make a living (most often, land that they can farm). Everyone will normally be able to survive, thrive, and participate in the community as a dignified member of a household.  Yes, at any given time someone is likely to need help, because their land's fertility is exhausted, or their own bodies are. But for a Jewish society to allow families to live in need from one generation to another would be unthinkable. 

Today, most Jews live as a tiny minority within a non-Jewish, non-agricultural society and the State of Israel runs on civil law, not Jewish law. So, we do not have systems that make poverty temporary. Realizing this, we can ask: what would it take to set up systems like those? And we can advocate for them as policy.

There is also a presumption that tzedakah is a communal activity: neither just private, not just governmental. Primarily, one is responsible to give to the Jewish community tzedakah fund (and there are lots of rules to prevent favoritism in distributing money from that fund), and only then does one consider private charity. This made sense when Jews primarily lived in ghettos, or under the authority of a Jewish communal leader, and when the national government was foreign to us. As Jacobs writes:

If considered at all, the larger government is seen as an impediment or as an active threat. At best, the government leaves the Jewish community alone. At worst, the government demands excessive taxes or even sponsors persecution.  (94)
 

Today, thank God, in most countries we do not have to regard the government with such trepidation. In the U.S., there are liberal Jews active in high elected and appointed positions. There is also a limited, wavering, but still clear commitment to social welfare through government action. Realizing this, we can ask: what can we learn from Jewish tradition that can inform our advocacy on issues of poverty and inequality? 

What we can still learn from Jewish sources

Once again, Jacobs' discussion is erudite and subtle, and I recommend reading it in full. A major point that I take away, however, is that there is no simple rule for whose needs to meet, which needs, and how. We are called on to exercise judgment and balance our concerns.

Whose needs?

• Jews vs. non-Jews
• The poorest vs. all the poor
• Where I live vs. other places

There are sources that stake out a clear preference for the first choice in each of these binaries. Other, perhaps wiser heads point out that that there are both moral and practical reasons not to give exclusively to Jews, the poorest, or the people nearby. 

• Giving only to Jews makes us odious to our neighbors, and we no longer live in a place where the broader society will ignore Jews' needs. 
• Giving to the poorest might mean funding food pantries to the exclusion of everything else, since a person who has nothing to eat cannot benefit from other help for long! 
• And given the level of housing segregation by race and class, the poorest people where I live might not be very poor on a global scale, and they might be mainly white people. 

 

All of these would be problematic, so we must exercise good judgment and not automatically follow an algorithm.

Which needs? 

Again, there's more here than I can summarize, but Jacobs makes it clear that bringing people up to their customary level (if they are in straits temporarily) or at least up to the community level is mandatory. Taking care of subsistence needs is laudable but not nearly enough. This has strong policy implications!

Also, not all needs are material. It is appropriate to spend some communal tzedakah money, and some personal, on books that can be lent to the poor. This is spiritual sustenance, and it is just as important as physical nourishment. The Friends of the Somerville Public Library will be happy to hear about this!

Not every contribution is tzedakah, however. It may be a great idea to send your local high school kids on a field trip, and you might donate toward that, but unless you live in an impoverished area you should consider it a different kind of communal activity (and not take it out of your tzedakah budget).

How should we meet those needs?

Jacobs makes it clear that the Jewish tradition endorses helping people currently in need, collecting funds for people who may need help in the future--think the next pandemic!--AND changing society so that "There shall be no needy." All three. One does not absolve me, my community, or the United States from energetically pursuing the other.

I note that the same Torah portion that says "there shall be no needy," only a few verses later commands tzedakah because "the poor will always be with you." Deuteronomy 15:11 This is not a contradiction: it is a moral imperative.

As Jacobs puts it:

In designing social systems, we should strive to prevent extreme poverty, to allow each member of society the opportunity to support himself or herself in a dignified and productive way, and to care for those who still fall through the cracks. Some of our tzedakah money should go toward creating this society. But even in this ideal society, some people will still need emergency assistance, especially in the face of health challenges, job loss, or other crises. A combination of governmental assistance and individual tzedakah would address these issues. And even if, against all expectations, we create a world in which there is no poverty at all, we should still maintain our practice of giving tzedakah both to reap the spiritual benefits of cultivating generosity and to ensure that a system of tzedakah will be available to respond to needs that might arise in the future.