In classical rabbinic and medieval
Judaism (and the modern varieties of Judaism that have evolved from them),
charity, frequently referred to as “tzedaqah,” is not simply the “right”
thing to do, as many moderns would have it; it is a divine commandment (mitzah)
with clear biblical roots, the performance of which is divinely rewarded.
Deuteronomy 15:7-8 expresses the commandment in language that has an extensive
interpretive literature: do not harden your heart and shut your hand against
your needy kinsman . . . open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he
needs. (Alyssa M. Gray, Charity in Rabbinic Judaism: Atonement, Rewards,
and Righteousness [Routledge Jewish Studies Series; London: Routledge,
2019], 1)
Tzedaqah in the Hebrew Bible
and Second Temple literature
Moshe Weinfeld points out that in
the Hebrew Bible “tzedeq” (“justice”) means “the abstract principle of
righteousness” while “tzedaqah” refers “to the concrete act.” “Tzedeq”
is thus connected at times to the heavens (e.g., Psalm 85:12; 89:15) while “tzedaqah”
is connected to actions, including giving charity to the poor (Daniel 4:24) (Moshe
Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East [Jerusalem
and Minneapolis: Magnes Press and Fortress Press, 1995], 34 and nn. 31-32).
Weinfeld also discerns a link between “tzedaqah” and succoring the poor
in Ezekiel 18 (Ibid., 18, 219-220, and passim). In verse 5 the prophet
declares that Thus, if a man is righteous (“tzadiq”) and does what is just
and right (“tzedaqah”) he will perform a number of righteous acts,
including giving bread to the hungry and clot[ing] the naked (v.
7). Wrong[ing] the poor and the needy (v. 12) is taken to be the
opposite of such righteous behavior. Isaiah 58:2 describes Israel as a nation
acting like a nation that does what is right (“tzedaqah”), later specified
as to share your head with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into
your home; when you see the naked to cover him . . . (v. 7) (Ibid.).
The Hebrew Bible’s linkage of “tzedaqah”
with providing for the poor raises the question of how far back before the
rabbis the equation of “tzedaqah” and charity goes. Contemporary
scholars’ conclusions differ, although a core of agreement is discernible. In
his seminal study of the term, Franz Rosenthal posits that “tzedaqah”
came to mean “charity” in roughly the first or second century BCE, although he
opines that one biblical appearance of the Aramaic “tzidqah” (“tzedaqah”;
Daniel 4:24) means “charity” even earlier (See Franz Rosenthal, “Sedaka,
Charity,” Hebrew Union College Annual 23 [Part I, 1950-1951]: 411-30).
Roman Garrison and, more recently, Gary A. Anderson, have also devoted
considerable attention to this issue (See Roman Garrison, Redemptive
Almsgiving in Early Christianity [Sheffield: Sheffield Academpc Press,
1993], 46-55; Gary A. Anderson, Charity, 53-82 and passim). We
will confine our attention at this point to three “tzedaqah” verses in
the Hebrew Bible that are partiulalry important in the evolution of rabbinic
ideas about charity: Proverbs 10:2 (and 11:4), and the aforementioned Daniel
4:24.
Ill-gotten wealth is of no avail,
But righteousness saves from death.
(Proverbs
10:2)
Wealth is of no avail on the day
of wrath,
But righteousness saves from death.
(Proverbs
11:4)
The Jewish Publication Society
(JPS) translation renders tzedaqah in these verses as “righteousness.” Roman
Garrison accepts Franz Rosenthal’s earlier conclusion that the original meaning
of the Hebrew “tzedaqah” in these verses is not “charity.” Indeed, there
is no clear indication in the Masoretic text that these verses’ “tzedaqah”
means “charity” (Roman Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving in Early Christianity,
51). The equation of “tzedaqah” and “charity” is the result of a
linguistic development stemming from possibly as early as the second century
BCE and adopted by the rabbis, for whom these verses become “two of the most
significant . . . prooftexts for redemptive almsgiving” (Ibid., 50). Gary
Anderson, on the other hand, forthrightly renders “tzedaqah” as “charity”
in his translation and discussion of these verses, relying in large part on the
rendering of “tzedaqah” as “charity” in Second Temple Jewish literature,
as well as the recent linguistic scholarship according to which “charity” might
even be the more accurate understanding of “tzedaqah” in the Hebrew
Bible (Gary Anderson, Charity, 54 and 197 n. 1).
While Rosenthal and Garrison
differ with Anderson as to Proverbs 10:2 and 11:4, all three scholars agree (as
does Moshe Weinfeld) that the Aramaic “tzidqah” (= tzedaqah) in
Daniel 4:24 means “charity.” In its entirety, the verse reads as follows: Therefore,
O king, may my advice be acceptable to you: Redeem your sins by beneficence
(tzidqah) and your iniquities by generosity to the poor; then your serenity may
be extended. Daniel 4:24 seems to be a clear-cut case of the root “tz-d-q”
meaning “charity” in the Hebrew Bible, in a text dating to the second century
BCE (Roman Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving in Early Christianity, 51).
Anderson devotes considerable attention to this verse, highlighting—as Garrison
had previously=-Rosenthal’s observation that the meaning of “tzidqah” in
Daniel 4:24 should be gleaned through attention to the parallelism in the
verse. Redeem your sins by “tzidqah” is balanced by generosity to the
poor, and the Aramaic for generosity (“mihan”) is formed of
the trilateral root h-n-n, which, in the Hebrew of Psalms 37;21 (honen
v’noten) means is generous and keeps giving (See also Psalm 112:4-5:
he is gracious, compassionate, and beneficient . . . he lends generosity [hanun
v’rahum . . . honen u-malveh]). Anderson collects other examples of this
use of the verb root: Proverbs 14:21 (mehonen aniyyim), 14:31 (honen),
19:17 (honen dal), and 28:8 (honen dalim), all of which also
establish that the root h-n-n refers to giving generosity to the por. In
sum, Daniel 4:24’s “tzidqah” most likely means “charity” rather than a
generic “righteousness” (See Roman Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving in Early
Christianity, 51, and Gary A. Anderson, Sin: A History [New Haven:
yale University Press, 2009], 139-141). Garrison points out the Septuagint’s
(Daniel 4:27) later rendering of the Aramaic “tzidqah” as the Greek eleemosyne,
or “mercy” in the sense of “charity.”
At bottom, then, these scholars agree
that Daniel 4:24, “tzidqah” likely means “charity” even in the original
Aramaic, and that “tzedaqah” in Proverbs 10:2 and 11;4 also came to mean
“charity” early in the Second Temple period. Anderson, unlike Garrison, understands
Proverbs 10;2 and 11;4’s “tzedaqah” to mean “charity” even earlier. Yael
Wilifand, in her own survey of the evolving meaning of “tzedaqah” in the
Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature, is also careful to point out the
numerous verses in the Hebrew Bible in which “tzedaqah” means “justice”
and/or “righteousness,” and the merit gained by the performance of righteous
acts (in general (See Yawl Wilfand, Poverty, Charity, 44-45 and passim).
Putting all this together, we may say that the Hebrew Bible does not view “charity”
as the primary meaning of “tzedaqah,” although it links the two in
Ezekiel 18 and Isaiah 58 and does use the Aramaic equivalent “tzisqah”
to mean “charity” in Daniel 4:24. “Tzedaqah” in the Hebrew Bible refers
to righteousness, justice, the earning of merits before God, and the doing of
righteous acts, despite the hints of a link to the concrete act of charity, the
Hebrew Bible does not yet see charity as the primary, let alone exclusive meaning
of “tzedaqah.” This has two related consequences for later developments
in the meaning of the term: (1) when tzedaqah comes to be associated
closely with charity in the Second Temple and rabbinic periods there will be a
well-stocked repository of verses on which to draw in buttressing that association
(A point made earlier in Yael Wilfand, ibid., 52 and passim), and (2)
rabbinic interpretations of verses in which tzedaqah refers to
righteousness, merits, and/or justice should be probed to see what, if any,
connections are made between those interpretations and the rabbis’
understanding of tzedaqah as charity. (Ibid., 9-10)