When Not Giving Charity Is The Highest Charity
Considering Maimonides Ladder of Tzedakah, and the idea that the highest form of charity is to help make someone self-sufficient. This idea is often cited with the African saying, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” Interesting to note Telushkin’s comment that unlike Christianity, Judaism does not esteem poverty.
This reminds me of the quote floating around on FB, attributed to Colbert, paraphrasing, “To say that we live in a Christian nation, while at the same time we refuse to help the poor, suggests that you either don’t really want to be a Christian nation, or have no real understanding of what it mean to be Christian.”
We must help each other. “Help the other fellow” as Gabe’s camp reminds us. If ‘the other’ is helped, then so are we, in those times, when we become ‘the other.’
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