Mishna Avos 3:5:
רבי נחוניא בן הקנה אומר, כל המקבל עליו על תורה, מעבירין ממנו על מלכות ועל דרך ארץ. וכל הפורק ממנו על תורה, נותנין עליו על מלכות ועל דרך ארץ.
Some Jews, it would appear, would prefer it to be the other way around:
רבי נחוניא בן הקנה אומר, כל המקבל עליו על תורה, נותנין עליו על מלכות ועל דרך ארץ. וכל הפורק ממנו על תורה, מעבירין ממנו על מלכות ועל דרך ארץ.
What do you say?
Recently a Bedouin traffic cop died in a horrible traffic accident. Ironic. Anyway, there was a huge campaign on WhatsApp to inform everyone who may have been ticketed the man was dead, so if they denied the claim, no one could show up in court to testify. Apparently, he loved giving tickets, too.
My thought is, why does it have to work in such a haphazard way? Someone ought to gain access to some cop database and keep us all posted every time a cop dies, whether publicly or privately.
It can even be done for pay (let lawyers pay for a subscription or something).
OK, technically, since money is “the most marketable commodity”, people prefer dollars to cucumbers. Therefore, it’s “altruistic”, or ascetic to suffer eating your own cucumbers instead of earning more money, and, perhaps, buying back some of your cucumbers from the grocer (along with tomatoes, since you have money left over).
But the rhetoric is devastating!
The word “charity” means love. “Alms” comes from compassion or mercy. Tzedaka is only tangentially related to these things.
Not to go too deeply here, but Tzedakah has nothing to do with helping the needy. It’s supply-side, not demand-side.
How do you know?
Because without prices the giver is blind. You can’t allocate resources rationally. To put it drastically: The market is unwittingly charitable; charity is unwittingly cruel.
Rather, Tzedakah is a Mitzvah, a central desired effect of which is personal religious growth (this is not Mussar!).
Rambam on Avos 3:15:
והכל לפי רוב המעשה, אמר שהמעלות לא יגיעו לאדם לפי רוב גודל המעשה, אבל לפי רוב מספר המעשים, והוא שהמעלות אמנם יגיעו בכפול המעשים הטובים פעמים רבות ועם זה יגיע קנין חזק לא כשיעשה אדם פעל אחד גדול מפעולות הטובות כי בזה לבדו לא יגיע לו קנין חזק, והמשל בו כשיתן האדם למי שראוי אלף זהובים בבת אחת לאיש אחד ולאיש אחד לא יתן כלום לא יעלה בידו מדת הנדיבות בזה המעשה האחד הגדול כמו שמגיע למי שהתנדב אלף זהובים באלף פעמים ונתן כל זהוב מהם על צד הנדיבות, מפני שזה כפל מעשה הנדיבות אלף פעמים והגיע לו קנין חזק, וזה פעם אחת לבד התעוררה נפשו התעוררות גדולה לפעל טוב ואח”כ פסקה ממנו. וכן בתורה אין שכר מי שפדה אסור במאה דינרים או עשה צדקה לעני במאה דינרים שהוא די מחסורו כמו שפדה עשרה איסורים או השלים חסרון עשרה עניים כל אחד בעשרה דינרים ואל זה ההקש, וזה ענין אמרו לפי רוב המעשה אבל לא לפי גודל המעשה.
Sure, it’s better for whichever near-randomly selected recipient of 100 Dinars to be “put on his feet” financially. As the Rambam himself says (Matnos Aniyim 10:7):
שמנה מעלות יש בצדקה זו למעלה מזו מעלה גדולה שאין למעלה ממנה זה המחזיק ביד ישראל שמך ונותן לו מתנה או הלואה או עושה עמו שותפות או ממציא לו מלאכה כדי לחזק את ידו עד שלא יצטרך לבריות לשאול ועל זה נאמר והחזקת בו גר ותושב וחי עמך כלומר החזק בו עד שלא יפול ויצטרך
But so what? Who cares about the poor?! Do you care about other “Cheftza Shel Mitzvah”s? Helping the poor man is details; the Mitzvah itself is for the benefit of the actor.
Conversely, the problem with giving more than Chomesh (a fifth) of one’s income to Tzedakah is the cruelty. Cruelty toward oneself and one’s dependents, and also towards the future buyers of whatever good the money would likely otherwise be used to sell. Put another way, demonstrated preferences over never demonstrated preferences. (Examine the sugya, and you will see this is so.)
After much agonizing and many imaginary debates among the Hyehudi editorial team, we decided to omit all the answers given by Mrs. Clinton, תליט”א. There were several reasons, among them the unimportant one of Mrs. Clinton not having been available or given the opportunity to give us any answers in the first place.
Still, the questions are pretty good in our (my!) opinion, and we reproduce them here, exactly as we asked them (to the wall).
Without further ado, here goes:
In a different interview, circa 1992, upon being asked why you remained with and enabled serial rapist/adulterer, JFK lookalike, Bill Clinton, you said this:
I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.
You wrote in your premature autobiography one of “the most difficult decisions I have made in my life was to stay married to Bill.” In other words, you didn’t want to hurt your political chances, no matter the price.
In retrospect, seeing as how you lost the presidential election anyhow, it was a very poor decision, the crowning example of a career of poor decisions (Libya comes to mind). We are profoundly unsurprised at your inability to get over the waste of a lifetime. You devoted your whole life to making top predator and failed. You remind me of various Caesar\King\Emperor wannabes…
Back to cookies, then! So our first serious, vital question is: Do you have any good chocolate chip cookie recipes?
Answer #1: ________________________________________
In 1917, German military officers sent a certain revolutionary Marxist, name of Vladimir Ilych Lenin, from Zurich to Russia by train with 35 associates. The goal was to overthrow the Russian government and keep it out of WWI. It was a lot like the ancients catapulting rotting, dead cows into a besieged city. It worked, too.
I cannot think of a worse pathogen than you (I mean this in the best possible way!), so my second practical question is: Assuming your career ever got so derailed in the US, “your services were no longer required” by the C.F.R., or if the wages were high enough, would you consider being sent somewhere on a risky, Leninesqe mission?
Answer #2: ________________________________________
We are very proud of the article titled: Politicians Are Never Punished. You probably read it already (!), but if not, please read it now… Ignore the Hebrew bits.
As, surely, the most purely psychopathic, English-reading politician alive, did you find the article insightful, and would you like to add anything else?
Answer #3: ________________________________________
In that same vein, I cannot think of anyone as soulless, heartless, and cold-blooded as you. I mean this in a good way, of course! But, well… Is there anyone dead or alive you, o Madam Establishment, ex-Queen-of-the-Swamp-Hopeful look up to?
Answer #4: ________________________________________
Your “husband” Bill Clinton clearly admired his professor, Carroll Quigley, probably the only professor to ever be mentioned in a presidential acceptance speech. Quigley is also the man who exposed the evil Anglo-American Establishment and C.F.R. you work for.
I always meant to ask: Has old Billy boy ever shared anything interesting from/about Dr. Quigley with you?
Answer #5: ________________________________________
In 2008, on both national TV, and in a Time interview, you brazenly called for opponent Barack H. Obama’s assassination. Question: Why do you think your implied offer of a handsome reward went unheeded?
Answer #6: ________________________________________