● A person makes a donation to a poor person secretly. The donor knows who was benefited, but the poor person does not know the donor.
● A person contributes anonymously to a tzedakah fund, which is then distributed to the poor.
● The highest level of charity is to give money for education so that a person can learn a trade and find a job.
The stark reality is that most of us Jews do not fulfill our tzedakah obligations. Most of us just pay lip service to the concept and don’t make meaningful and sacrificial philanthropic contributions. Most of us fall far short of tithing our income. Most of us give donations that are just large enough to be socially acceptable.
It is a true shame that we don’t fully realize that the donors of tzedakah gain much more from their acts of philanthropy than do the beneficiaries. How much luckier is the person who is able to give charity than the person who must receive charity so that he or she can continue to live?
We must change the way we view being wealthy. Being rich cannot only be measured by the inventory of physical possessions that we accumulate, but must include an accounting of what we have done with the wealth we acquired. Every one of us must try to give back more to the community than we take out.
The Jewish community is currently facing multiple critical existential crises, most of which could easily be solved if we all gave more money to tzedakah.
If we all adopted the Jewish charitable benchmark of tithing, our perception of who is rich and famous would change. We would not only seek to fulfill our “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” Our tzedakah would celebrate our philanthropic obligations to our community.
