Part Two: The Sacred Economy:
Living on God's Land and from God’s Hand
Maintenance and Redemption
Chapter #4 - God, Giver of a BountifulLand and the Poor’s Entitlement:
Maintenance of the Poor via Tithes, Peah and Shared Festival Meals
Chapter #5 – Redemption of Debtors/Slaves and the Jubilee:
God and/or Brother as Redeemer(Geulah)
“Proclaim Liberty in the Land to All the Inhabitants” (Lev. 25:10)
Chapter #6 - Paradoxes of Generosity:
Ancient Israel’s Free Loan Society and the Sabbatical Amnesty on Debts
Chapter #7 - The Triple Shabbat and its Implications
for Poverty, Accumulation of Wealth, and Human Freedom
Chapter #4 presents the agricultural support for the poor related to the third metaphor, God as a landlord. Biblical texts warn us to refrain from taking complete credit and possession over our accumulated wealth or land. Here we shift our discourse from the motivations behind giving such as empathy and a variety of emotions to one focusing on the rights of the poor. The category of Biblical welfare law significant to this chapter is geared to maintenance, not rehabilitation. Its mode of giving is land-based, and it provides entitlements to the poor by designating marginal portions of the produce of otherwise privately-owned land. The old delivery of aid was seasonal in the land of Israel, occurring at harvest time through the institutions of peah, leket, and shikhikha, whereas the modern approach has acquired a broader application to include individuals outside of Israel and monetary relevance. The monetary tithe under the ‘poor tithe’, is of particular interest because of its widely bearing interpretation over the ages having run the gamut from a voluntary pious act to an institutional obligation, and from personal, communal or ritual use to the benefit of the less fortunate. The idea of tithing within the Jewish tradition will also be compared with a variety of Christian interpretations, which are based on the idea of grace and tend to value greater generosity with one’s possessions.
The great American oil baron and Baptist philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller, explained his legendary generosity simply by acknowledging: “The good Lord gave me the money.”[i] The story one tells oneself about the origins of one's wealth is essential to the narrative of why one gives it away and to whom. In the next two chapters we will explore the rationale behind four modes of agricultural giving to the needy that are all commanded in the Torah by God. Those gifts are land-based and apply only to Jews living as farmers on their own land in Eretz Yisrael because their narrative of wealth teaches them that God gave them this promised land and allotted them their particular ancestral property, so they can say almost like the Baptist, Rockefeller: “The good Lord gave me the land.”
What are these agricultural gifts to the needy from God’s gift to the farmer and how does each add a twist to its rationale for being generous? In chronological order of their distribution, the farmer first designates,during his harvest, the “corners of his field” – peah–still filled with produce and still attached to the ground and to the vine. At that point “No Trespass” signs can be removed, so-to-speak, and the peah is now accessible to the poor and that only the poor may harvest themselves. In the meantime the farmer harvests the rest of the field a first time, but all that was left behind – still on the plants – now belongs to the impoverished gleaners who collect what is called leket. After the harvest thefarmer has his produce bundled in the field and then removed for storage. Whatever bundles forgotten – shikhikha– are reserved for the poor and prohibited to the farmer who accidentally forgot them. In the meantime the bundled produce is counted, and a tenth is set aside –the tithe, ma’aser– which is designated for the Levi or the poor depending on the year of the seven year cycle. The tithe is presented to any chosen poor person at the farmer’s discretion, while all the other gifts – peah, leket and shikhikha – are collected at the initiative of any indigent and by their labor. When the farmer finally gathers his family for a feast after the harvest on his agricultural holidays – Sukkot (Hag HaAsif) and Shavuot (Hag Hakatzir) – then too the farmer shares his ready-made food with the needy at his table. Every seventh year, the Sabbatical, the farmer is commanded to abandon his own field leaving it fallow, and thus returning it to a state of ownerless nature. All the produce that grows naturally on what was once a cultivated field is accessible at any time to the limited subsistence foraging of the farmer and the poor equally. Finally on the Jubilee, once every 50 years, the land itself – not its produce – is given away by whoever owns it to the original owner in the same ancestral plots once distributed by God in the days of Joshua when the land was first conquered and given out by a divinely regulated lottery. Thus the poor male citizens regain their agricultural capital. Sabbatical and Jubilee will be discussed in future chapters.
The rationale for these gifts is, first and foremost, that:
Adonai our God brought us to this good land of river beds, springs and deeps in the valleys and mountains. A land of wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, a land of olives, oil and [date] honey. A land in which one may eat bread without scarcity, and nothing is lacking in it. ...You shall eat, be satisfied and bless Adonai your God for the good land God gave you. (Dt. 8: 7-10)
Hence one is commanded to share one’s gift from God both with God directly through sacrifices and offerings, and first fruits and hallah for bread with the priesthood and tribe of Levi who serve God with these gift-offerings in the cult ’s gift-giving and one shares one’s agricultural gift from God with God-designated needy from the land of Israel. Note that the verse describes this land as one without “lack” (lo-tekhsar), so logically when there are indigent in this land that God gave you, one is obligated to “open one’s hand” and provide from God’s bounty “enough for their lack which they lack” - dei mahsoro asher yekhsar lo – Dt. 15:8).
These methods of distribution of agricultural produce and the reasons for giving make no sense outside of Eretz Yisrael unless we universalize the meaning of Divine giving as does John Rockefeller, for example. In Jewish law most of these gifts to God, to the clergy and to the poor have no legal standing from the Torah outside of Eretz Israel, though the rabbis extended some of them such as peah to Jewish farmers outside Israel.
“All these gifts to the poor [peah. leket, shikhikha] are practiced according to the Torah solely in Eretz Yisrael, as it says regarding terumah and tithes: when your harvest in your land,and in your field (Lev. 19:9; Dt. 24:19). But the Talmud already commented that peah is practiced outside of Eretz Yisrael according to rabbinic authority. It appears to me that this is also the case for the other gifts to the poor that are practiced as rabbinic injunctions.” (Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 1:14)
An extension of the poor tithe from land to money, and from Eretz Yisrael to anywhere, is promoted as ma’aser kesafim, a tithe on monetary income earned anywhere. The monetary tithe is often given today to the needy according to a pietistic practice developed in the medieval era.
Yet the Torah does have a broader concept of a provident God who feeds and cares for all of God’s creatures inside or outside the land of Israel, while the gifts in the Torah are a particularization and localization of this universal narrative. The first description of God providing for human need is the creation story in Genesis 2 where the human being is created first before the world of plants, unlike Gen. 1, so the human has no place to live or any resources for food. Then immediately God plants fruit trees for Adam and Eve. Yochanan Muffs characterizes the Biblical God as a proud provider of each human need – especially food. “God provides and saves, and almost needs to be needed. He craves situations that demand His sustaining care. God seems to plead,” as the prophet Malachi reports in God’s name:
Please, just test me, said YHWH of Hosts.
I will surely open the floodgates of the sky for you and pour down boundless blessings. (Malachi 3:10)
God's concern for man begins before birth. Even more than the gynecologist, God is intimately concerned with all aspects of childbirth. He knows what goes on in the womb of both man and beast.
Do you know which month every pregnant animal is in? Do you then feed every animal according to its own diet and in its proper time? (cf. Job 38:39-39:4)
The noble lion[ii] that utters a triumphant roar when he has caught his own breakfast is converted by the Bible into a dependent client of God who supplicates the Deity with a roar-like prayer to provide him with his food: The young lions roar for prey, seeking their food from God (Ps. 104:21).
Truly amazing beyond all of the Divine concern to provide for all God’s creatures, however, is how concerned God is about the ability to provide food for Adonai’s own people, Israel. Thus, God is especially disturbed by Moses' sarcastic remark:
"If all the sheep and cattle of the world were slaughtered and all the fish of the sea gathered up, would this be sufficient for them?" (Num. 11:22)
God is equally incensed over the people's question:
Is God really able to set a table in the desert? We have seen that He can hit rocks so that water will gush forth and streams quickly flow, but is He also able to provide bread and can He supply His people with flesh? (Ps. 78:19-20)[iii]
Perhaps most indicative of God’s role as provider – independent of the gift of the land – is the fact that even before entering the land God cared for the whole Jewish people’s food supplies in the desert – by giving them manna. Thus the Rabbis can easily extend the obligation for gratitude for God’s beneficence from its specific context in the Torah regarding the gift of the land of Israel to all gifts from God. The law for thanking God for one’s meals – Birkat HaMazon – is derived directly from the verse we cited above about the giving of the promised land to Israel - You shall eat, be satisfied and bless Adonai your God for the good land God gave you(Dt. 8:10).
One might have hoped that a more financially “satisfied” and a more religious nation would gladly tithe their income. Yet there is still much to be done to close the gap between the duty of the tithe and actual giving. Ten percent might still constitute an aspirational goal for Western society which is far from the social norm even in the richest nation in the world with the strongest Christian religious consciousness in the West. In 1996 Waldemar Nielsen summarizes the moral challenge to American philanthropy as follows:
“The United States has just been through the most massive period of private wealth gathering in its history. A good indication of the magnitudes involved over the past decade can be gained from U.S. Treasury figures on individual income. According to these data, the number of taxpayers who have an annual adjusted gross income of $1 million or more increased from 4,377 in 1980 to 63,642 in 1990, a fourteen-fold increase.
However, the charitable contributions of the present class of wealthy Americans are not only not in proportion to their income: they are in inverse proportion. Thus in 1990 taxpayers in the lowest category, with income up to $20,000, gave 6.6 percent of it to charity. Those with income from $50,000 to $1 million gave on average about 3 percent. Those with income of $1 million or more gave slightly more, 3.8 percent.[1]
The rather uninspiring picture that emerges from these data is that wealthy Americans are not only much less inclined than poorer people to give to charity from their current income, but when they do, the level of their giving is carefully calculated in response to the tax incentives they are offered.”[2]
Chapter #4
God, Giver of a BountifulLand,
andthe Poor’s Entitlement:
Maintenance of the Poor
via Tithes, Peah and Shared Festival Meals
Biblical Agricultural Gifts
Peah (Leviticus 19:9 -10)
Poor Tithe (Dt. 14: 28-29; 26:12-15)
Sharing Harvest Festival Feasts (Dt.16:11-17; Dt. 12:12, 18)
Theories of Biblical Tithes: Taxes or Tribute or Gifts?
The Rabbinic Codification of Peah:
From Charity to Socio-Economic Welfare Rights
Christian Tithes: By Law or by Grace? For the Church or for the Destitute?
Rabbinic Tithes Transformed: The Problematic Status of Ma'aser Kesafim, The Monetary Tithe
Postscript: The Gift Community of Lewis Hyde and the Spiritual Ecology of Gift-Giving
Appendices:
The Gift in Ancient Israel: Gary Stansell
"This also is theft, not to share one's possessions": John Chrysostom
In the Torah God is the giver not only of the holy land (ha-aretz), but of the whole landmass of the world (also called ha-aretz). God gave all the earth to humanity when God the Creator appointed human beings – male and female – to be stewards and rulers over the whole earth (Genesis 1: 28-29). Then, by analogy on the national level, God gave the land of Canaan, the land of goat milk and date honey with its ready-made fruit trees, houses, springs, and ores to the people of Israel as promised to their ancestors.[iv] Similarly, God gave to all the peoples their lands and established their borders, as well as assigned them astral gods to care for them (Dt. 4:19; 32:8-9). In particular God gave to Abraham's cousins – Edom, Moav, and Amon – their lands too.[v] The land of Canaan given to Israel was further subdivided by lot for the clan “allotments,”[vi] so that each family would owe its portion to God directly. Further God continues to give the rain necessary for the land’s fertility but conditional on Israel’s observance of the covenant (Dt. 11: 14-17). Therefore one owes God gratitude for our food in every sense. The rabbinic blessing for food, Birkat HaMazon, is derived from Deuteronomy 8: 10 – You shall eat, be satisfied and bless Adonai your God for the good land God gave you. One owes God fealty for the ongoing Divine blessings as well as for the use of the land that God gave you and yet of which God is still the master (adon):
“Three times a year every male shall be seen before Adonai your God’s face in the place Adonai has chosen on the pilgrimage holiday of Matzot, Shavuot and Sukkot. However you shall not be seen/appear before Adonai empty-handed. Each person will bring his gift according to the blessing received from God who gave it to you.” (Dt. 16:16-17)[3]
A legal analogue underlying the gift of land and the obligation to set aside gifts for God is the ancient Near Eastern royal land grant[4] which was bestowed on a loyal servant out of appreciation. However, periodic marks of loyalty and gratitude are expected, lest one think all these blessings were the result of one's own military and economic power – saying in your heart: It is my strength and the power of my hand that made all this success for me (Dt. 8:17). Deuteronomy is saturated with the ideology of the conditional Divine gift of land and the Leitwortverb root, natan, give.[vii] The most representative text is the credo regarding the first fruits in which each farmer recalls – while standing with a basket of his own first fruits on his shoulder before God at the altar – that he was once a landless, wandering, persecuted, resident alien in Egypt. Now he acknowledges before God that God has given this land as a gift (Dt. 26: 1-11).
The basic covenant of reciprocal gift giving is between God and the people, who are the farmers. Since their land is a gift and their produce is a gift and even their strength to cultivate the land is a gift, they owe to the Giver a portion as the recipient’s acknowledgement of the Divine gift. Further God insists that the landowners give portions of their produce to the Levis and the priests, for these sacred families represent all of Israel in the daily cult of God even though they received no land as their own private inheritance as the farmers did. While not serving in the army risking their lives for national salvation, the work of the priest and Levi is also a dangerous task that may incur sin and even death in the process of bringing sacrifices and moving sacred objects in order to propitiate God's blessing for the whole community.[viii] The Levis help bring prosperity to Israel by functioning as intermediaries for the sacrificial service of gratitude for Divine blessing. In exchange, the priest receives as gifts or, if you will, as remuneration in kind, portions of the sacrifices: first fruits, first bread, hallah, and a tithe from the Levis of God's tithes to them – to be consumed by priests (or otherwise redeemable by the donor only upon payment of a 20% fine).[ix] The Levi gets a tithe from the tribes' annual produce (Numbers 18: 21-32). The priests and the Levis are landless for they are not included in the allocations of the Promised Land by God’s lottery nor do they have direct access to the spoils of war since they do not serve in the army. Therefore, besides the 48 Levite cities with gardens,[x] whatever they have in housing and in regular income are “gifts” from the people of Israel, tithes from the other tribes including their spoils of war,[xi] gifts of produce and sacrifices.[xii]