One often finds talks and articles by Church leaders and members about the financial blessings associated with faithfully paying tithing. While reading a monograph on the topic of charity in Rabbinic Judaism, we find similar beliefs in the Babylonian Talmud (“Bavli”) about the financial blessings attendant to one’s charitable expenditure:
The rewarding of retaining or
augmenting one’s wealth
The Bavli follows Palestinian
amoraic literature in teaching that tzedaqah is rewarded by the retention
or augmentation of wealth. R. Yitzhaq says “the one who gives a small coin to a
poor person is blessed with six blessings, and the one who commiserates [with
him] is blessed with eleven (citing Isaiah 58:7-11)” (B. Nana Batra 9b).
Moreover:
And R. Yitzhaq said: “What is the
meaning of the
verse he that pursues tzedaqah and kindness
will find life, tzedaqah, and honor (Proverbs 21:21)?
He will find tzedaqah because he pursued tzedaqah?!
Rather, this tells you: whoever pursues tzedaqah, the
Holy Blessed One will provide him monies by
which to do tzedaqah.”
R. Yitzhaq’s unambiguous point is
that doing tzedaqah will be rewarded with more money with which to do tzedaqah
(See Leviticus Rabbah 34:13; Leviticus Rabbah 5:4). Other
pertinent evidence of this reward abounds: R. Yehoshua ben Levi likewise relies
on Proverbs 21:21 to teach that the reward for “regularly” doing tzedaqah
is the birth of sons who will be masters of wealth (along with masters of
wisdom and masters of Aggadah) (B. Baba Batra 9b). In Bavli Makkot
Rabi har Hama re-presents an interpretation of Malachi 3:10 we find in Leviticus
Rabbah: giving the mandated tithes to the Temple will result in God’s
bountiful granting of agricultural plenty (Malachi 3:10: Bring the full
tithe into the storehouse . . . I will surely open the floodgates of the sky
for you and pour down blessings on you. See B. Makkot 23b [= Leviticus
Rabbah 35:12]). R. Yohannan links tithing to tzedaqah in a
delightful wordplay that echoes an idea found earlier in Pesiqta deRav Kahana:
one should “tithe” (t’aser) in order that one become wealth (titasher)
(B. Ta’anit 9b [= Pesiqta deRav Kahana 10:10]).
Rav. Yosef teaches the similar
idea that a poor person who does tzedaqah will no longer display signs
of poverty; in other words, his doing of tzedaqah will improve his
material circumstances (B. Gittin 7a-7b). In Bavli Ketubot the
daughter of Naqdi-mon ben Gurion asks R. Yohannan ben Zakkai about a proverb
oft-repeated in Jerusalem that “the one who wishes to salt his money should dimmish
it” (or, in another version) “the one who wishes to salt his money should do hesed
(kindness) with it” (B. Ketubot 66b). The literary context of the
proverb is the recollection that Naqdi-mon ben Guroin’s family lost all their
wealth because they did not “diminish” the wealth (through charity) or “do hesed
with it.” “Salting” (i.e., “preserving”) one’s money is thus best
accomplished by lessening it through charitable expenditures. The apparent
paradox that preservation of wealth is assured by charitable giving is
precisely the point: charitable giving indeed results in the replenishing and
maintenance of one’s wealth. (Alyssa M. Gray, Charity in Rabbinic Judaism:
Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness [Routledge Jewish Studies Series;
London: Routledge, 2019], 111-12)
