Sublime

Hence also tzedek legislation: what I give to others in need is not charity but justice, not giving away what is rightfully mine, but rather honoring the conditions under which I hold it in trust.

Where tzedakah is a gift or loan of money, hessed is the gift of the person. It costs less and more: less because its gestures often cost little or nothing, more because it takes time and attention, existential generosity, the gift of self to self. More than anything else, hessed humanizes the world.

What distinguishes the concept of tzedakah is, firstly, an absolute refusal on the part of the sages to romanticize poverty. It is not, for them, a blessed state. It is an unmitigated evil.

That is what makes tzedakah something other than charity. It is not merely helping those in need. It is enabling the afflicted, where possible, to recover their capacity for independent action. Responsibility lies at the heart of human dignity.

From earliest rabbinic times there were such institutions as the tamchui, or mobile kitchen, which distributed food daily to whoever applied,

The beneficiary is entitled to tzedaka according to his or her need; the donor is only obligated to give what he or she can afford.”

The beneficiary is entitled to tzedaka according to his or her need; the donor is only obligated to give what he or she can afford.”

The word tzedakah is usually translated as “charity,” but in fact it means social or distributive justice.

Tzedakah lies close to the core of what it is to be a Jew. So much so that the rabbis said, ‘If someone is cruel and lacks compassion, there are sufficient grounds to suspect his lineage.’ Not to give is prima facie evidence that one is not a Jew.