Justice for the Poor: The Principles of Welfare Regulations from Biblical Law to Rabbinic Literature
צדק דלים: עקרונות דיני הרווחה מן התורה לספרות חז״ל
Nevo Publishing; Sacher Institute; Israeli Democracy Institute, 2019. [hebrew]
Social justice has occupied Jewish law from its earliest days beginning with the Pentateuch. In particular, concern for the welfare of the poor and of other weak societal strata, known today as welfare and social security law, was one of the central areas to be regulated by the law.
Indeed, the Bible laid down many socio-economic precepts: the Sabbath and the Jubilee, emancipation of slaves and wiping out of debts, the commandment to extend a loan to the needy person and the prohibition against taking interest, gleanings in the field etc. These are different forms of transferring resources, such as produce, lands, credit, freedom and respite – from the owners of the resources to the poor, the slaves, the borrowers and others of little means. To a great extent the Bible bequeathed the obligation of poverty relief to the world, as neither the ancient Near-Eastern cultures nor the early Greco-Roman world recognized the existence of a legal obligation to ensure the welfare of the poor and the needy.[1]
Later, in the period of the Mishnah and subsequently in talmudic times, the laws of charity became the primary legal obligation of the Jewish community to support the poor who lived in their vicinity. The institution of charity became an identifying mark of Jewish life.[2]
This book is devoted to an examination of the theoretical conceptions that emerge from the welfare laws in the Bible and from the laws of charity that developed later in the rabbinic literature, i.e., by the mishnaic and talmudic Sages. The book reveals the underlying theoretical currents giving rise to these conceptions and those that arose in their wake.
This title is not intended to suggest that only a single voice, as it were, emerges from the sources. On the contrary, a careful examination shows that alongside the similarities between socio-economic laws in the Bible and the laws of charity in the rabbinic literature, there are also deep and substantive differences dividing them. In certain aspects, as will be demonstrated below, the laws of charity of the Sages perpetuate the vision outlined by the Bible in its socio-economic legislation, but from other aspects, they present a totally different social vision. In the context of welfare laws, the transition from Scripture to the world of the Sages expresses both a continuum and change.
The reason for this change should not be attributed solely to the attempt of the Sages to apply the scriptural principles to the new circumstances – both social and economic –after the Destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.. It is undeniable that there is certainly something in that; indeed, the scriptural welfare mechanisms focused largely on an agrarian society, dealing with matters of crops, slaves and agricultural lands, whereas the welfare mechanisms of the Sages focus on an urban life-style, and they seek to provide a response to the plight of the poor in the towns and villages who lack money, food and clothing. However, this cannot explain the full complexity of the issue. As emerges from the different chapters of the book, not only the daily circumstances of life changed, but the very principles of welfare and the concepts of social justice changed and assumed a new form. The image of a just society that is conjured up by the biblical precepts is different from that of a just society that arises from the laws of charity. The social vision that is reflected in the biblical precepts is far grander and more ambitious than the modest vision that the Sages propose in the framework of the laws of charity. Whereas the Bible aspires to grant the poor person resources that will enable not only his subsistence but also his long-term rehabilitation, the Sages focus mainly on ensuring his daily survival. Whereas the Bible is careful to formulate the relief mechanisms for the poor in a way that will encourage his self-reliance, the Sages fashion relief mechanisms for the poor that are liable to entail passivity and dependence. Whereas the Bible aspires to furnish the poor with the tools required to achieve future economic independence, the Sages prefer to grant a special security cushion to the rich who have fallen on hard times. Whereas the Bible sees a value in creating a direct link between the property owner and the poor person, the Sages develop simultaneously the mediating mechanism of the communal charity fund.
All this notwithstanding, it should be recalled that there are also many similarities between the conception of welfare in the Bible and that which developed in the study houses of the Sages. For example, following biblical law, the rabbis advocated the idea that responsibility for the well-being of the poor is imposed on property-owners as a legal matter and it is not dependent on their compassion. According to the rabbis, this legal responsibility is imposed not only on the communal institutions, but also as a personal duty of each single individual, similar to the personal duty imposed by the Pentateuch on the land-owner towards his needy neighbor. Moreover, following a philosophical study of both welfare systems – that of biblical law and that of the rabbis – it seems clear that their fundamental concern, their basic value, is not equality but rather brotherhood; their main struggle is not to reduce social inequalities but rather to provide the needy with the necessary means for their well-being.
An understanding of this continuum and the change is the focus of this book. In what senses did the Sages preserve the fundamental social principles laid out in the Bible and in what senses did they operate on the basis of other fundamental principles? What can explain the existence of this duality of social conceptions – the conception of the Bible and that of the Sages – and their similarities and differences? Towards the end of the book it becomes clear that the change is really not only a matter for backward-looking historians: it is the primary focus of anyone wishing to fashion his socio-economic outlook on the basis of a dialogue with the Jewish sources. The central argument of this work is that the Bible and the rabbinic literature suggest more than a single image of a just society and a deep understanding of the relationships between these two visions is called for.
Needless to say, even within the world of the Sages it is possible to discern many nuances that give rise to alternating views of charity laws and of ideas in the area of social justice. Indeed, talmudic scholars and historians of the period of the Sages have made attempts to create various sub-distinctions, such as between the positions of the Tannaim [rabbis of the Mishnah] regarding the laws of charity and those of the Amoraim [rabbis of the Talmud], between the approach of the Sages of the Land of Israel and that of the Babylonian Sages, between the formulation of the laws of charity in the Mishnah and their formulation in the Tosefta. At the same time, and after having taken these nuances into account, it may be said that the Sages of the Mishnah and the Talmud agreed on the centrality (and after a certain stage, also of the exclusivity) of the institution of charity as a halakhic mechanism for ensuring the welfare of the poor. The changes and distinctions, insofar as they existed, did so within the conceptual framework of the laws of charity and not outside of them. Therefore, this book concentrates on a comparison of the general characteristics of the world of the laws of charity with the socio-economic precepts in the Bible. In doing so it does not ignore the different nuances that surely existed between the different streams and the different periods in the world of the Sages.
This essay is not the first devoted to an examination of the socio-economic precepts of the Bible and of the laws of charity in the rabbinic literature. A great many books and articles have been written on the subject. Biblical scholars have discussed at length the social precepts in the Bible, and rabbinic scholars have dealt extensively with the laws of charity.[3] This book is unique in two ways. First, from a methodological point of view, it is an examination of jurisprudential theory, as distinct from the philological-historical analysis that typifies virtually all of the work that has been written on the subject. I approach the examination of the halakhic sources not as a researcher of the Bible or the Talmud, whose concern is with the developments of the text and its formulation, nor as a historian who searches for the historical influences on the formation of these laws; rather, I approach it as a theoretician of the law, who seeks to understand the rationales that may explain the internal halakhic-jurisprudential logic of the various laws. My aim is to formulate the socio-economic theories that could explain as clearly as possible the relevant precepts in the Pentateuch and the laws that were laid down thereafter in the rabbinic literature. This, therefore, is a rational reconstruction of the welfare laws in the Bible and in the rabbinic literature at higher levels of abstraction than those discussed by the Sages themselves, which is made possible following a meticulous analysis of these laws with theoretical tools (e.g. comparative law with special emphasis on comparison to modern legal systems; philosophical analysis of the law; economic analysis of the law).
Secondly, whereas most of the existing works on this topic have generally tended to examine the scriptural socio-economic legislation separately from the laws of charity in the rabbinic literature, in this book I will emphasize in particular the comparison of these two legal systems, looking carefully at the implications of the changes between them. This examination is possible by virtue of raising the discussion of the various precepts and halakhot to elevated levels of abstraction, in a way that enables the juxtaposition of the picture of social justice that emerges from the scriptural precepts to the parallel picture that emerges from the laws in the Mishnah and the Talmud.
One of the methodological dangers of such research is that of anachronism. It was R. Haim David Halevy, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, who cautioned against attempts to read contemporary capitalistic or socialistic ideologies into the scriptural precepts. This caution led R. Halevy to argue that clear lines of socio-economic policy cannot be derived from the Bible, and that in fact, the most that can be derived is a web of red lines, in the sense of “turn away from evil,” below which no socio-economic regime should descend.
Although I accept the need to be wary of anachronistic readings of contemporary socio-economic theories into the biblical verses, I do not concur in the conclusion that all that can be found in the verses is a series of red lines. From an examination of the biblical verses and the rabbinic halakhot we learn that our concern is not with threshold requirements below which one must not descend, but with standards to which we must aspire. The Bible, and in its wake the Sages, see in the socio-economic halakhot the proper way in which to achieve a just society. Indeed, as emerges from the analysis presented in the book, some of these precepts are at times so ideal that it is doubtful whether they can be implemented or whether they are simply utopian. Therefore, alongside the great importance of being careful not to impose modern approaches on the sources, it is also important to be careful of an overly-minimalistic reading of them, which may miss the full richness and vision that they wish to impart. This book, so I hope, may help hone attention to the unique voices expressed by the biblical and rabbinic sources in this area of welfare laws and social justice and serve as an invitation to the possibilities of an exemplary society offered by the Jewish heritage.
Dr. Benny Porat is Director of The Institute for Research in Jewish Law and Faculty of Law at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
[1] See Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton University Press, 2013).
[2] Mark R. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2009).
[3] Cf. Gary A. Anderson, Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition (2013); Rivka Ulmer & Moshe Ulmer, Righteous Giving to the Poor: Tzedakah (“Charity”) in Classical Rabbininc Judaism (2014); Gregg E. Gardner, The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism (2015); Yael Wilfand, Poverty, Charity and the Image of the Poor in Rabbinic Texts from the Land of Israel (2014); Gray Alyssa, Charity in Rabbinic Judaism: Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness (2019).