Rav Avi: Welcome to Responsa Radio, where you ask and we answer questions of Jewish law in modern times. I'm Rabbi Avi Killip, speaking with Rabbi Ethan Tucker, Rosh Yeshiva at Mechon Hadar, a center for higher Jewish learning based in New York City. Alright, how are you today?
Rav Eitan: I'm doing great, how are you, Avi?
Rav Avi: I'm also doing well. I'm excited about this question -- I think it's very timely, especially for us American Jews this year. So here we go: "Are there circumstances under which political campaign contributions can count as tzedakah?" So this, I think, opens up a larger question of what counts as tzedakah in general, so I'm really curious to hear what you have to say about this.
Rav Eitan: So the obvious answer for most American Jews is yes, if it goes to the Democratic party. But I don't think that's the answer that we're looking for here. So let's think about it. Yeah, it is very timely. I think the right place to start with this is what is tzedakah, right? Just even thinking about why we have this obligation in the first place. And the halakhic category that's used to discuss this in the way the questioner is asking about it is what's referred to often as ma'aser k'safim, literally "the tithe of money."
And it's this idea that has roots in the Talmud and kind of gets developed over time: just as there were tithes in the Bible for your agricultural produce, there certainly are also tithes or there's a tithe, some kind of basic obligation, to take a portion of the money that you earn, certainly in the non-agricultural society, and to earmark that for the poor, public goods, that's what we'll talk about a bit, what counts for that category.
One of the interesting things that comes up is discussing whether this is a Biblical or rabbinic obligation, and while that doesn't really make that much difference in terms of whether you have to do it and how serious it is, it does kind of reflect how much we see this category as being something the Torah kind of expected all along, or it's a kind of rabbinic response to shifting patterns of economic growth and making a livelihood. And you have, up until, you know, very late authorities, debates over this: the Taz insists that this institution is from the Torah; his father-in-law the Bach insists that it is only miderabbanan, only on a rabbinic level.
Where some of the places this would come from the Torah, just before we even specify -- well, the Torah does talk in a couple of places about not just being kind of kind to the stranger and welcoming of the poor, but very specifically saying that when there's someone who is in your community who is poor, you have to strengthen them and give them support -- hechezacta bo.
Another place in the Torah says when you have poor people you have to give that person as much as they need, as much as they're lacking, to kind of bring them back up to a normal level. And in the narrative portions of the Torah, one of the sources that's appealed to is Yaakov, when he's running away from his brother Eisav, and is asking G-d to be with him, he promises G-d saying if you'll be with me, G-d, I will give you a tithe. And that's interpreted by many later authorities to mean that you have to give 10 percent or perhaps even the double-usage of aser, a'asrenu, in that Biblical form, is meant to imply two tithes, and that sets another cap on tzedakah that's often invoked, which is giving 20 percent of one's income. So those different verses, whether we think they directly produce the obligation or hint at it, lay out a kind of basic framework which almost everyone accepts, which is that you have an obligation to give somewhere in the 10 to 20 percent range as tzedakah every year.
Rav Avi: So, I'm curious right off the bat how we get from giving to individuals to giving to what we would call today charities or organizations that give. Does that feel intuitively part of the text that you just described, or is that a secondary move that happens somewhere along the way?
Rav Eitan: Yeah. I think that's actually a lot of the heart of this question, and I think it's not so obvious at all. One of the things that's interesting when you go back and you look at, let's say, the Talmudic discourse around tzedakah, just even thinking about poor people for a minute, you know, there are these institutions -- they're sort of the daily collection plate called the tomchui, there's the weekly collection box called the kuppah, and there's other communal institutions and communal tzedakah gatherers for sure.
And yet, there is no question that they had nothing like the kind of institutionalization of philanthropy that we have today. And perhaps much more to the point, they had in ways we don't a notion of poor people kind of presenting themselves to you in a very direct way, and asking you to help them out. And now we associate with either it's homeless people who are on the street or they slip through the cracks of the institutional framework, but we think of the main place where charity work is done is through these institutions. So some of that transferring is definitely complicated and part of what we have to investigate in this question. So let's start with something that really comes from the world of taxes, but which is important for this discussion about tzedakah as well. The world of taxes has an important distinction of tax deduction as opposed to tax credits.
So tax deductions are things that we say that was kind of a legitimate, necessary expense that we don't really want to consider part of the money we're gonna tax you on, and therefore it just doesn't count towards the money that we tax you for. So, if a person, let's say, makes $50,000 a year and they have to spend $10,000 on rent or something like that, you can imagine giving a tax deduction for that, saying we're gonna treat it like you made $90,000, and that's gonna be the thing that will apply whatever the tax rate is too. That's a tax deduction. Just remove the income, the money, from what we tax. That's very different from a tax credit, where we say oh, the money that you spent on your kid's college education -- not only won't we tax you on that money, but we will count that money as if you paid taxes. Meaning, let's say your total tax bill came to something like $20,000 a year. And you spent $5,000 towards tuition at your kid's school, let's say towards college expenses, something like that. If you gave that as a tax credit, you'd be down to only owing $15,000 on taxes. That is to say, a tax credit is a much more powerful and significant incentive and benefit than is a tax deduction, even though a tax deduction is also helpful because it reduces the amount of tax that you pay. Does that kind of make sense?
Rav Avi: So, just to be clear, we're talking about American tax system here?
Rav Eitan: That's exactly right. It's almost like the government says you don't have to pay us; you can pay this other institution instead, and we'll count it.
Rav Avi: Okay. So the idea with the credit is that we are taking this money and not actually giving it as taxes, and yet it still counts towards the taxes that we owe.
Rav Eitan: Yeah. So, this is the language that's used to figure out some of the tzedakah questions as well. So, when you want to talk about a tzedakah deduction, if you will, the various sources will talk about likui, lopping off that amount of money. You're sort of wiping off that amount from the amount that you're going to then be taxed at, let's say, a 10 percent rate for what you have to give for tzedakah. That's different from having a discussion as to whether something is considered to be part of your tzedakah obligation, or eligible to fulfill it. Nechshav ma'aser. Now, more of the discussion is actually focused on tzedakah credits than it is on tzedakah deductions, even though in the end I want to come back to tzedakah deductions, because I think it may be a helpful way for thinking about some things that are kind of in a gray area. So the main thing that really gets raised is what counts as tzedakah, what counts as ma'aser k'safim towards this 10 percent that you're supposed to give?
And a few lines get drawn right off the bat, that I think are really interesting. So for instance, you're definitely not allowed to deduct your own expenses, what it takes you to feed yourself, what it costs for you to live, or the children who are living in your house. And the Arukh Hashulkhan, who has a fantastic summary of this in his laws of tzedakah, he says G-d forbid that we would count as tzedakah people's personal expenses, even the cost of feeding and taking care of their children, because if you did that, lo yagiia l'anayim af perutah echat, the poor would never get a single penny, because everyone would count towards their 10 percent requirement certainly the 10 percent that they spend on their own welfare and that of their children.
Rav Avi: So maybe we're gonna use the same framework to see what counts for tzedakah here?
Rav Eitan: That's right. That's just not a deduction, it doesn't count. It's something you are expected to do, everyone's expected to do it, and that's too bad. You basically have an obligation to structure things such that you reach that point. Now, of course if you're poor enough such that there will be absolutely nothing left, you can reach a point where the obligation, you know, may essentially be unfulfillable, but as a principle, halakhah is generally very demanding that even the poorest must essentially tithe what they receive from charitable organizations as welfare and support in order to give back to other poor people. However, here's a contrast: the Arukh Hashulkhan says, but if you adopt an orphan and take care of them and bring them into your home, of course the cost of raising them gets to count towards tzedakah.
And here I think is a really interesting distinction between kind of expectations, where essentially we say look, we kind of expect people if they're able to have children and certainly if they do have children, we expect them as part of having children to be responsible for raising them. We don't expect people to adopt orphans -- that is a kind of above-and-beyond act of kindness which might in fact for some people be the way they direct their charitable resources. And that's a great example where the same exact activity -- having a child in your house who you're taking care of -- is viewed dramatically differently based on whether we sort of feel we get that for free, or this is something where you are really doing something extraordinary that's above and beyond the call.
Rav Avi: That's interesting. So this might be a side note, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. I've heard a lot of people ask whether my own shul dues or maybe even more extreme, my own day school tuition that I pay for my kids, does that count towards my tzedakah? It sounds like what I'm hearing is that would not count, because that feeds my own children?
Rav Eitan: So here I think is where it gets interesting. The Ramah then weighs in in the Shulkhan Arukh and says you are not allowed to use ma'aser money to pay for mitzvot.
Rav Avi: Okay.
Rav Eitan: So, you're not allowed to give candles, lamps, fuel for lights in the synagogue, or any other kind of mitzvah of that sort, and certainly not, let's say, buying a lulav and etrog or buying tefillin or things of those sort. It must go to the poor. And this, I think, is an extension of what we just said, which is mitzvot are not thought of as kind of elective spiritual pursuits that are also part of some larger economy of supporting Jewish life and living out Jewish values; they're basically a baseline commitment that you are expected to do. And the mitzvah of tzedakah is supposed to be about helping the needy, not about fulfilling your or other people's obligations in Jewish life, which is also a financial burden, but not supposed to be, according to the Ramah, reckoned as part of the 10 percent.
Rav Avi: Wait, let me just make sure I understand something. Don't use it for mitzvot means for my own fulfillment of mitzvot, or it also means don't buy lulav and etrog for the poor; buy them food instead.
Rav Eitan: Okay. So, here is, I think, where it starts to get slippery. I think you've hit on the distinction here, which is the Ramah, strictly speaking, might be limited to don't go out and use your ma'aser money to take care of your own mitzvah responsibilities. It seems like he's broader than that, because it seems like he's saying buying things for the synagogues and other things that have some kind of communal need attached to them, but there are many voices that are highly pressured or looking for a way to limit what he says to things that are highly personal. And one of the most surprising exceptions is an argument that emerges that it's okay to buy books of Jewish learning with your ma'aser funds, provided, of course, that you're willing to lend them to anyone who wants to use them, and you don't think of them as your own personal private property. But in practice they may actually be sitting on your shelf, and you may be using them.
And this loophole kind of opens up all sorts of ways of thinking about how certain public goods, even though they are not for the poor per se, may be considered to be perfectly acceptable expenditures of the ma'aser money. And the Arukh Hashulkhan, who I referred to before, tries to kind of thread the needle on this. On the one hand, he's supremely uncomfortable with this. He says if you go down the path of allowing people to buy books because they'll share them with other people from their ma'aser allotment, you know, the 10 percent that they are required to be spending on these kinds of public causes, well then what's gonna stop someone from buying a shofar for themselves, and an etrog and a sukkah and saying, you know, I'll invite people over and I'll let people borrow it, and before you know it, people are essentially funding their ritual needs out of the tzedakah budget.
And he says a person really, it would be appropriate for them to try not to rely on this leniency in any way, and yet what he also says is that there are certain things that clearly are unmitigated public goods that are not about a book that's on your shelf at home, which have to be payable out of your ma'aser obligation, and he includes in that donations to the beit midrash, the study institution itself, and then in an interesting category, which might be the most relevant for our questioner, those who are in some way public servants. Meshartei hakehilah. And since these people are not really poor, it seems pretty clear that this is going to pay their salaries, paying for their time, and it says that there's no question that that counts as part of tzedakah for the purpose of reckoning ma'aser.
Rav Avi: So thus enters the jewish non-profit professional?
Rav Eitan: That seems to be the Jewish non-profit professional. People who you would look at and say these people are serving the community and I think they're doing important work, when I'm reckoning the 10 percent that I'm giving every year, that goes to them. And that is acceptable to count as tzedakah. Here I think the Arukh Hashulkhan is trying to draw a line between kind of ritual Jewish investment that at the end of the day is about you, even if you're gonna share the object or the resources with other people, as opposed to something which really is a communal organization that has some kind of public function.
Rav Avi: Interesting. So, the one shift that I saw here in what you just described is that we stayed in the realm of it has to serve the community, but we now are able to define ourselves as part of this community rather than it having to serve the poor or, you know, underprivileged in some way.
Rav Eitan: That's right. And it seems, if you were to ask me, this seems to me like a compromise that emerges. A very hardline reading of the Ramah might be, the only thing ma'aser should go to is actual poor people. On the other side sits this view that says no no no, you can buy books as long as you're willing to share them with other people, and that could go to a place of saying as long as you're sort of spreading out the kind of benefits of what you invest in, that can be thought of as some sort of public good. This, I think, this middle road is trying to say no no no, things that are for you, you should not be using ma'aser k'safim on, even if it's the case that other people will benefit from them, but things that really are a public good, well then we will entertain the notion that things like books that don't help poor people at all, if they're not sitting on your shelf but they're sitting in an institution of Jewish learning which enriches the community, that can be taken out of the ma'aser k'safim budget.
Rav Avi: So this seems like it's good news for synagogues and day schools, potentially centers of Jewish learning. I'm curious your thoughts on this potentially side topic, which is, it sounds like what you've been describing is donation to those organizations, and I think there's a secondary question, which is what about my own family's dues or my own children's day school tuition -- do those numbers count towards my ma'aser, my tithing donations.
Rav Eitan: Yeah. Okay. So here I think there's a really important distinction. The Arukh Hashulkhan again goes out of his way after he's explaining that there's, you know, no question that you can support public institutions with ma'aser money, but there's no question that you're not allowed to kind of deduct your own expenses, says very specifically, however, paying for your children's education is definitely not payable from ma'aser funds. It is a mitzvah bifnei atzmah. This is an independent obligation which has nothing to do with tzedakah and unlike, let's say, giving a donation to the beit midrash, which is basically a goodwill offering to a public institution, you have an obligation to provide your child with an education, and with a Jewish education, and it therefore becomes no different really than buying yourself a pair of tefillin or any number of other things which really are about your own specific personal obligation.
And that's a line, I think, is actually a correct line to draw, though I want to complicate it in a second, because I think we also go back to what the Arukh Hashulkhan said about your personal expenses, which is if you counted day school tuition towards your ma'aser requirement, then poor people would never get a cent, as the Arukh Hashulkhan said about your own personal expenses. Because you're talking a scale, already, of expenditure which approaches if it doesn't exceed for many people 10 percent of their budget, and at that point you've eviscerated the category. And so almost just as a common-sense response, it can't be that the education of your children counts as a tzedakah credit.
Rav Avi: So, the fact that that number of tuition is so high is what makes us want to count it, and at the same time is exactly the reason why we can't?
Rav Eitan: I think that's right. However, what I would suggest may add some nuance to this is going back to our original terminology, what strikes me as much more reasonable, and I will also say this is how I calculate it when I sit down at the end of the year and think things through, would be to treat things like a child's Jewish education not as a tzedakah credit, but as a tzedakah deduction. Which is to say there are a whole set of things which we don't think of as actually fulfilling the mitzvah of tzedakah but we think of as such a basic level obligation, whether it's as a parent, as a human being, that it doesn't really make a lot of sense to imagine them as if they're completely optional, dispensable income like the rest of the money that you are taxing.
And to me, it seems a very reasonable middle ground on these questions to say look, you could come up with all kinds of forced explanations, of how you're really investing in the school and you're doing all sorts of things for the public good that should be able to count, but it strikes me as much more reasonable to say that unless you're giving it as a capital campaign, where you're actually building a public building, you shouldn't be counting, you know, the tuition dollars in any way towards tzedakah, but it's not as if that is equivalent to money you have spent on a second house or some other set of expenditures that add meaning and pleasure to your life.
Rav Avi: Well, what about a first house, feeding your family? Where do those fall?
Rav Eitan: Right, and as we saw, like the Arukh Hashulkhan was very firm saying no, the first house and dinner don't count towards that deduction. And here, yeah, I think you could attack me as not being completely consistent across the board here, in that I'm trying to sort of name a category that feels like it is sort of not in the category of basic expenses that everyone has to deal with just sort of to live, but dealing with something that we want kind of the tzedakah and Jewish system to recognize as something that we kind of expect people to do on some level, but that is not the same as everything else.
And here I'm sort of venturing -- this goes back to my distinction -- what the sources are adamant about is that you may not count expenditures towards mitzvot as a tzedakah credit. It's much less clear to me what all those sources think about counting those as tzedakah deductions. Many of them may be small, much smaller than a kind of day school expenditure; it strikes me that the more the number attached to a given mitzvah goes up, the more it's reasonable to say, well, as much as we might say this shouldn't count as a credit, it might count as a deduction. That at least to me is some of the kind of value-based thinking you might engage that is not, I think, you know, directly in any way answered by some of the core sources here, and to me seems like a kind of fair middle ground way to think it through.
Rav Avi: Great. Okay, so let me bring us back to our original question, which was about political campaign contributions, which at this point I still feel like I have no idea how that's gonna fit in.
Rav Eitan: Yeah, so look, I go back to this term, the meshartei kehilah, the people who are serving your community. Now, there's no question there that that refers, in the Arukh Hashulkhan, to leaders in the Jewish community. I think the question with campaign contributions is can you make some kind of a case that, you know, some of the people who are running for office, at least the ones hopefully that you are supporting, you think are going to play some kind of key role in communal leadership that is going to make a big difference in people's lives. Now, here's where I'll tell you -- honestly, if you ask me, I'm not inclined to say that campaign contributions should count even as a deduction. I certainly don't think they should count as a ma'aser credit -- it feels way too far from a clear donation, either to the poor or a public institution. I could see the argument of treating such donations as a tzedakah deduction as it were, that the amount that you give towards that, you don't then tax again.
It's not my inclination, because my inclination is that at the end of the day, political campaigns have too much inefficiency to them in terms of their direct delivery of any kind of public good. You're essentially paying for TV commercials, you're not paying people's salary to actually go out and do any kind of direct service. In that sense it seems misguided to me to even count it as a deduction. But, you know, it could be that also not all elections are the same, not all positions are the same, and I think there is some room in this term meshartei hakehilah for imagining public officials or potential public officials as playing enough of a public good, certainly in a society where Jews feel very interwoven with the political needs and campaigns of the day, to imagine that as at least not being double-taxed, as it were. But it's not the call I would make on my own balance sheet.
Rav Avi: One more curveball before we sign off: do you think there's any difference if the political campaign is one in the United States, another country, or in Israel?
Rav Eitan: Yeah… they feel all the same to me. I feel like politics is politics is politics. Much more compelling to me would be a distinction between different kinds of offices, ones where really the campaign funds are not in any way going to, you know, hiked-up rates on private Rav Eitan:television networks, but somehow going more directly to public good. But again, I'm skeptical of the whole thing, and if someone were to kind of just ask me personally for a religious recommendation, I would say don't count that money, just treat that like any number of other expenses of things you choose to do with your money, and that means that in part what you're deciding is should I spend this money on giving to the poor, or should I spend this money on this campaign, and I might have to choose. And it seems to me that it's appropriate that that might sometimes have to be a choice, and we shouldn't necessarily make it easier for people to avoid that choice.
Rav Avi: There are so many different things that we can do with our money that we view as making the world a better place, so I think this is a helpful way to break down some of these options and think about whether or not they count towards our technical halakhic obligation of tzedakah. So thank you.
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