Tzedakah and Social Justice

Rabbi Sacks: It is such an honour to be in your company and to be able to give my praise and recognition to IFLA [Israel Free Loan Association], which is an absolute Kiddush Hashem, an embodiment of Jewish values in action. I want to salute Edward Cohen for his remarkable chairmanship in the 24 years you've been associated with this great organisation, and above all to salute Professor Eliezer Jaffe, whose idea it was and whose wonderful neshama is the neshama of IFLA and one of the finest Jews that it has been my privilege to meet. 

Professor Jaffe, you are quite right, there is only one Lord, and people often ask me, ‘Which do you prefer, to sit beVeit Hashem, in the House of the Lord, or in the House of Lords?’ And I say to them, ‘If you have a choice, always go to the House of the Lord, not the House of Lords, because in the House of the Lord, only the Rav gives a drasha. In the House of Lords, everyone gives a drasha.’ 

But if I may sum up what IFLA is about, bekitzur nimratz, it is the first words of Moshe Rabbeinu to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. What was the first thing Moshe Rabbeinu said to HaKadosh Baruch Hu? The second thing he said to him was, ‘Who are you?’ But the first thing he said to HaKadosh Baruch Hu is, “Mi anochi,” who am I? 

Now, in one sense, we know what he meant. Ani katan, “Katonti mikol haChasadim…” I'm not good enough to do this great task of leading the Jewish people. But in a real sense, he was asking a question of hizdahut, of zehut, who really am I? Because think of who he was. He'd been brought up as a prince of Egypt, and he had spent the last many years as a shepherd in Midian.

Now, think of what you would do given that career choice. 

You could be prince of Egypt, and rich and powerful beyond anyone's dreams. Or you could be a shepherd in Midian and have a quiet life among the sheep, because a leader of Israel never has a quiet life, because although we say “Hashem ro’i,” the Lord is a shepherd, no Jew was ever a sheep.

So the question is, why did Moshe Rabbeinu turn down a life of affluence and power in Egypt, a life of peace and tranquillity in Midian, and get involved with the Jewish people? Very simple. 

Because we read in the Torah these simple words, “Vayigdal Moshe vayeitze el echav vayar beSivlotam.” As a young man, he went out and saw his brothers and he saw them suffering. 

And if you are a Jew and you see your people suffering, you cannot walk away.

And that is what Professor Jaffe and that is what everyone who works with IFLA saw. They saw aniyut, they saw people without the means of dignity, and they said, we cannot walk away. And that is why your work is a Kiddush Hashem.

And I wish IFLA, bracha veHatzlacha beChol ma’asei yedeichem. You are bringing the Shechina into people's lives. 

Friends, Jews have always had an interest in economics. The very first economist in history was Yosef HaTzadik, who invented the theory of trade cycles.

Seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine. If the bankers of the world had just followed Joseph's example, they would have known that since there was a dot-com crash in the year 2000, there would be another crash in 2007, 2008, and we would all be a little better off. But Joseph was the first economist in history.

And it is astonishing how many of the world's great economists have been Jews. The last time I looked, Jews had won 41% of Nobel Prizes in economics, more than in any other subject. We won a lot of them in other subjects, but none as many as in economics.

And we had all the great economists. David Ricardo was Jewish. He invented the theory of comparative advantage, which is my favourite theory in all of economics, because it says even if you are better than me at everything - and most people are - nonetheless, if you concentrate on what you're best at, and I concentrate on what I'm best at, and we trade, we'll all be better off.

So everyone has a contribution to make. That was David Ricardo. 

I don't know whether you count Karl Marx as Jewish just because his zeida was a Rabbi, but we ran the span from Karl Marx to Milton Friedman, ultra-left, extreme-right, we've done the whole lot.

Game theory was created by John von Neumann, for which Professor Auman from Israel won a Nobel Prize recently. Behavioural economics was invented by Professor Daniel Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky, carried out brilliantly by an Israeli economist in Israel today, in America today, Dan Ariely. Developmental economics, Joe Stiglitz, my namesake Jeffrey Sachs, major figures from Larry Summers to Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve Bank to Sir James Wolfensohn of the World Bank… and one way or another, we have been more involved in helping economies to grow and helping people out of poverty than almost any other culture the world has ever known.

And I ask, why is this? Why are Jews so interested in economics? 

And I think it has to do, number one, with our belief that every human being is b'tzelem u'dmut shel HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Every one of us is entitled to dignity. Not just the rich, not just the powerful, every single one of us is b'tzelem Elokim. 

Number two, we do not believe that poverty is retzon Hashem.

You know, there is a wonderful gemara in Brachot, which talks about yissurim shel ahava. You know, sometimes Hashem makes us suffer so that we will receive reward in the World to Come. And then it tells a whole number of stories about Rabbanim who were ill, and they were visited by other Rabbanim who are telling them, this is yissurim shel ahava, you should be pleased that you're suffering, because you're going to get the reward in Olam Haba.

And they say, “Chavivim alecha yissurim?” and they reply, “Lo lahem v'lo secharam.” Not they, not their reward. So the Rabbi says, in that case, I'll make you better. And they give them trufot, and they get better. 

We see that what can be healed, what can be cured, is not precious. It's not retzon Hashem.

And therefore, if we can heal somebody's poverty, Hashem wants us to heal it, and not say that's retzon Hashem. We have to get involved. And then again, we believe that Hashem gave us brachot here in this world, not necessarily in the next world.

I don't know what the next world is like. I don't know, you know, if it means that I'm going to have to listen to a lot of Rabbanim like me, I'd rather be down here in this world. So, one way or another, we say, veSamachta beChol haTov, enjoy what HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives you, and rejoice in this world. And that is equally fundamental. 

But then - I don't think we realise this. The Greeks, the ancient Greeks, believed that if you're a really successful person, you don't need to work for a living. You have other people to do that for you. 

But we believe afilu HaKadosh Baruch Hu, even God works for a living. What's the first thing it says about HaKadosh Baruch Hu in Bereishit Chapter 2? “Vayita Hashem Elokim gan b'Eden,” God became a gardener.

He gets involved. He said to Adam HaRishon long before he exiled him from Gan Eden. He placed Adam HaRishon in the garden with Chava, “leOvda uleShomra,” work gives us dignity. If we are a member of the legit class, we don't have that dignity.

Then again, the economic historian at Harvard, David Landis, who wrote a wonderful book called “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,” says that it is remarkable that in the Torah, what does Moshe Rabbeinu say when Korach challenges him? What does Shmuel say when the people say, we want a king? He says, did I take one of your oxen? Did I take one of your asses? 

The idea that if you're powerful and a leader, you can't take what belongs to somebody else because private property is part of their dignity. 

That is unique to Judaism. 

In every other ancient culture - and in some football associations today - you take what belongs to somebody else and you use it…and velo zu derech haTorah. And that is very important. 

It was John Locke… Eliyahu HaNavi, who challenged King Achav for taking the field of Nevot. And today we believe that private property is a defence of individual liberty against the state.

And then there is the situation of Judaism not having an economic class system. We have a class system in Judaism. You're a ben Torah, you sit by the Eastern wall, by the Mizrach wall. But when it comes to Torah, “Kitra shel Torah munachat bifnei kol echad veEchad.” Every one of us who wants that crown of Torah learning “Yavo veYitol.” We don't have an economic class system. 

And finally comes the wonderful insight of the Rambam in “Moreh Nevuchim.”

The Rambam says the Torah is interested in two things, Tikkun HaNefesh veTikkun haGuf, spiritual perfection and physical perfection. He says Tikkun HaNefesh, being a big tzaddik, a big ben Torah, that's the higher of the two. But which comes first in time? Tikkun haGuf. By which he means the perfection of society. 

Because he says, says the Rambam, don't think that I can think holy thoughts about HaKodesh Baruch Hu if I am poor, if I am hungry, if I am homeless, if I don't know where my next meal is coming from. You cannot think about spiritual things if you're dominated by economic worries.

And therefore the first thing we have to put right is poverty and homelessness and disease. And after that we can think about Tikkun HaNefesh. But first we have to address people's economic needs.

Now what the Torah understood already in Parashat Behar and Parashat Re'eh is what made a French economist write a bestseller last year. Did it come to Israel? There's a French economist called Thomas Piketty who wrote a book called “Capitalism for the 21st Century.”

Do you know what it is to write an 800-page treatise of economics with hundreds of pages of footnotes and make that a bestseller? If you haven't got time to read 800 pages plus footnotes, I'll tell you what it says. It says the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That's what it says. 

And he explains why.

Because if you look at all the historical records - and it's a book full of statistics - on average in the long term the return on capital is higher than the return on labour. So if the only source of income you have is wages that you earn by working, you will never keep up with the people who get rich by having capital and investing that capital. So over time society will get less and less equal.

And that is what the Torah understands. 

The Torah is not saying don't have a market economy, but the Torah is also saying don't think it works perfectly, it just doesn't. Because economics is good, the market economy is good at creating wealth, but it's not perfect at distributing wealth.

And it is fascinating that if we listen to the Torah, to the very first statement in the Torah of Jewish values. There's only one place in the whole of Tanach which explains why HaKadosh Baruch Hu chose Avraham Avinu to be leader of the Jewish people. And this is what it says: “Ki yedativ,” I have chosen him, “Lema’an asher yetzaveh et banav ve’et baito acharav, veShamru derech Hashem, la’asot tzedaka uMishpat” - So that he will teach his children in his household after him. That they will keep the way of the Lord. To do Tzedakah and Mishpat.

What is the difference between Tzedakah and Mishpat? They are both words that mean justice. What is the difference? Mishpat is what I call legal justice. It's, how would you say this, Memshelet HaChok, the rule of law.

You go, if there are courts that apply the law, you have Mishpat. But there's another kind of justice which you can't get just by the rule of law, which is justice as fairness. What's the first thing kids say when they can, the first moral statement any child says? “Zeh lo fair!”

And that is the very first Jewish value the Torah mentions, Tzedakah. Now Tzedakah, I always ask people, what is Tzedakah in English? And half the people say justice, and half the people say charity. And I say, think about this.

In English, something can be justice, or it can be charity, but it can't be both. 

Supposing I give you a thousand shekels. 

Why? Either because I owe you a thousand shekels, or because I don't owe you, but I think you need it.

If I owe you the thousand shekels, that's justice. If I don't owe it to you, but I think you need it, and I want to give it to you, that's charity. It's either justice or it's charity.

It can't be both.

They're like the same, two magnets that repel each other. But in Judaism, ee efshar leHafrid beinehem, you cannot separate them. They are stuck together with superglue. 

So how is it that in English you can't translate Tzedakah, but in Hebrew we have this one word that means both? 

The answer is this. Because in Judaism, uniquely, what we possess, we don't own.

Everything that we have is lent to us, free of interest, by HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but with a condition. With the condition that if we have more than we need, we share it with people who have less than they need. 

And that is both justice and charity, because that is a condition of possession, because in Judaism there is no absolute ownership.

The Torah says this many times in different ways. “VeHa’aretz lo timacher liTzmitut,” there's no freehold in Israel, because ultimately Hashem owns the Land. And the same is true all throughout the Torah.

The result is, for instance, that there is a unique law in Judaism - “Kofin al HaTzedakah.” Can you imagine another country in which if you don't give charity, they force you to? The Mafia, you know, say either you give or you sleep with the fishes. It doesn't exist in any other culture.

They don't even understand it when I say to them, if you don't give Tzedakah, you can be forced to by a Beit Din. You ever go to a Jewish fundraising event and try and get out without giving? That's Kofin al HaTzedakah. 

And that is beautiful.

Why? Because in Judaism we believe, “Ein lanu Melech ella ata,” that we are citizens in the nation of faith under the sovereignty of God, and in His eyes we are all entitled equally to dignity. And therefore, “VeGer lo tonu,” don't oppress a stranger. Don't take advantage of a yatom or an almana, an orphan or a widow.

And above all, if you lend money to a member of my people, says HaKadosh Baruch Hu, don't take interest. That's not because Judaism is against interest. That's a rent on capital.

But you are part of my people. The whole of Judaism is one nation. Or as I said, you know, I used to quote the big poster campaign in America in the 1990s, which read, “You have a friend in the Chase Manhattan Bank.” And underneath, an Israeli wrote, “But in Bank Leumi You Have Mishpacha.” 

So you can take interest from a friend, but you can't take interest from mishpacha. And kol Yisrael mishpacha achat.

I guarantee you if you allow us an hour, we'll find out that every one of us here is, I'm related to all of you. We're all one big family, and you don't take interest from family. And that is what a HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants of us.

And that is why every morning when we daven, we say about a HaKadosh Baruch Hu, “Oseh mishpat laAshukim.” God does justice for the oppressed. “Noten lechem laRe’eivim.” He gives food to the hungry. “Matir assurim,” those who are bound, those He helps up. That is what Hashem is like, and that is what He wants us to be like.

He wanted us to create a society which is not like Mitzrayim. You remember “VeZacharta ki eved hayita beMitzrayim.” Mitzrayim is the country that enslaves the working class. That reduces them to poverty and persecution.

And we were commanded to create the opposite, a society which would not be like Mitzrayim, in which every one of us accepted the responsibility that everyone has dignity and a share in the common wealth. And that is fundamental.

It is fascinating that Judaism has two words for freedom.

What are they? Chofesh and cheirut. If you look in Tanach, the word cheirut never appears. It's very interesting. It only appears once, in a different form with a different meaning, about the luchot. “VeHaLuchot ma’ase Elokim heima veHamichtav michtav Elokim hu, charut al haLuchot.” “Al tikra ‘charut’ ela ‘cheirut’.”

The word the Torah uses is, “Hu yeitzei leChofshi chinam,” or as it says on the Liberty Bell - you've got a replica here, Gan HaPa’a’mon - the original is in Philadelphia. I love this Liberty Bell. You know why? It was made in England, so the first time they rang it, it cracked, you know. And it says, you know, what it says from Parashat Behar in the 50th year, “Ukratem dror leChol yoshveha,” proclaim liberty to the Land and all its inhabitants. 

Why did the Rabbis have to invent a new word, cheirut, for freedom? It's very simple.

What is chofesh? When a slave goes free, nobody can tell him or her what to do. I can do whatever I like. That is individual freedom.

But tell me, what do you get in a society where anyone can do whatever they like? The result is anarchy and chaos. “BaYamim haHeim, ein melech beYisrael. Ish haYashar beEinav ya’aseh.” You get anarchy. So the Rabbis invented this term cheirut to say not individual liberty, but collective liberty.

Collective liberty means that my freedom is not bought at the cost of yours. 

Hashem wants us to create a society in which we are all free, meaning we all have access to education. We all have access to health care. We all have access to a dignified life. That is fundamental to the society the Torah wants us to create. 

Now we know, in the time of the Hebrew Bible, the basic economy of Israel was agriculture. It was agriculture. 80% of people were employed in agriculture in England and in America until the 19th century, until the Industrial Revolution. So much of the Tzedakah legislation in the Torah is about agriculture - leket, shickcha, peah, the forgotten sheaf, the thing you drop, the corner of the field. It is about ma’aser ani, the tithe, the second tithe you take in the third and sixth year. It is about shmitta - we're in the middle of shmitta - about all the produce of the seventh year.

It belongs to everyone equally. Shmittat kesafim, debt release. And you know, and of course in Yovel, the 50th year, almost all property returned to its original owners.

That is what Piketty wants, a more level playing field for the ownership of capital. 

And you know, I'm sure you know this, but it's interesting that when the United Nations came together to devise a programme of international debt relief for Third World countries 15 years ago - we are now, you know, they said there's a 15-year set of millennium development goals - you know what they called this programme? They called it Jubilee 2000.

They took this 21st century idea straight from Parashat Behar. Yovel is a Hebrew word that we added to the English language. 

And of course, what Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Prize for, microloans, this of course is very much the free - although he charges for his… he's not, okay, take the Nobel Prize back. No, he's entitled. We won too many already.

Let him have it. But I mean, the fact is that this idea of free loans is equally part of this economic vision that was not only great then, it is great now. 

And of course, the result was that when Jews stopped being predominantly agricultural, Chazal had to create all these wonderful ideas of Tzedakah because you can no longer do it in terms of crops and produce of the field. So you have to do it through money. And that is why the Torah doesn't have a huge space to Tzedakah, but Halacha does. And that is what they did.

And the Rambam in his Hilchot Tzedakah, in the last chapters of Hilchot Matnot Aniyim, he says this, he says, ‘We have never ever heard of a Jewish community that doesn't have Tzedakah funds and free loans, gemach societies.’ We never heard of it. And this in an age when nobody was doing this except Jews, very few people were doing it.

The Franciscan monks were getting rid of their wealth, but they weren't helping others who were poor. It was something Jews did throughout the centuries. And the Rambam says that you cannot have a Jewish community without these things.

They had something called the tamchui, which was free meals. They had something called the Kupa, which was the weekly funds. And the highest honour was to be one of the Gabbai Tzedakah, somebody who engaged in giving this financial assistance. That was the absolutely necessary thing. 

The other things they ruled were equally exciting. You know, they ruled that, you know, if God forbid you are niftar, if God forbid you die, you should know such things, but you have to be buried in a plain coffin. Why? So that not even in death could you say a rich person gets one kind of burial and a poor person gets another burial. 

You know, in the old days, they used to have, before they had J-Date. You know what J-Date is? On Tu B’Av and Yom Kippur, says the Gemara, the Bnot Yerushalayim used to go out and dance. And that was the big shidduch occasion. And they wore borrowed clothes. “Kdai lo levayesh et mi she’ein la,”  so as not to put anyone to shame.

They kept doing these institutions so that nobody would feel, they're rich, I'm poor, I'm somehow not as good as they are. This was a driving, driving principle of Chazal. 

And that is why the Rambam has this extraordinary rule, that having listed seven madregot of Tzedakah, he then comes to the final, the best form of Tzedakah of all, which is to provide somebody with a loan or a gift to enable them to start a business so that they are able to support themselves.

Because the highest form of Tzedakah is to allow somebody not to be dependent on Tzedakah. 

And that is what we say every time we bench. “Vena al tatzricheinu Hashem Elokeinu lo lidei matnat basar vaDam velo lidei halva’atam… shelo neivosh velo nikaleim…” not to put somebody to shame by feeling I have less than they have.

That is absolutely fundamental. 

And that then explains the most unique Jewish law I ever came across, which says this. “Afilu ani haMitparnes min haTzedakah chayav liten Tzedakah,” even a poor person entirely dependent on Tzedakah has to give Tzedakah.

I mean, do me a favour. How do you give to B to give to C? Cut out the middleman, give C directly. Why do we say such a thing? 

Answer? Because the ability to give is part of human dignity. And if I give you enough to live on, but I don't give you enough to give, I'm not giving you your full human dignity. 

I don't know of any economic system that is so sensitive to the psychology of dignity, and on the opposite hand, the busha, the shame and the humiliation of not being able.

This is a beautiful, beautiful system. 

And that is why we have to do this because that is what Hashem wants of us. 

You know, Yirmiyahu HaNavi said about King Yoshiyahu (Josiah), he judged the cause of the poor and the needy and it was good.

Is this not to know me, says the Lord. To know HaKadosh Baruch Hu is to care for the poor and the needy. That's what Yirmiyahu said. That is what all the prophets said. And that is what Judaism is about. 

Friends, IFLA is living that set of economic Jewish values in practice, and it is a thing of great beauty and great… and a real Kiddush Hashem.

It is helping establish Kavod HaBriyot. It is living out the principle of “Kol Yisrael areivin zeh baZeh.” And it is telling us that any economy has to be based on moral values, not just economic values.

Friends, I want to encourage you to support the work of IFLA. And I want to tell you that there is no greater gift you can give yourself. 

You know what the Torah says? “Daber el Bnei Yisrael veYikchu li teruma m’eit kol ish (meit kol ish) asher yidvenu libo.” How do you build a home for Hashem? Take contributions from everyone whose heart moves them. 

Now that word teruma, I don't find in any other language with exactly that sense. What does it mean? It means to contribute, but it also means leHarim, to lift up.

You want to be lifted, lift somebody else up. And you will discover that you yourself have been lifted. 

And that is the Jewish truth. 

Helping others is the greatest way we help ourselves, because as that great Jewish psychotherapist, survivor of Auschwitz, Viktor Frankl, used to say, “The door to happiness opens outward.”

And the alternative is not good. 

Do you know who was the dot-com billionaire of his day? Kohelet. Kohelet had everything. He had the house in Palm Beach, and the mansion in the south of France, and his au pair drove a Lamborghini. He had everything. Suits by Armani, you name it.

He has everything. And yet what does he say? “Havel havalim… haKol havel.” It's all meaningless. Why? Because if you read Kohelet, especially the second chapter, listen to this, beIvrit: “Asiti li… baniti li…” It's all me, me, me. And if it's all about me, you come at the end of the day to say, happiness is caring about you, not caring about me. When I give to somebody, I lift somebody else, I find I myself am lifted.

We had - and with this I end - a very great Anglo-Jew, President of the Board of Deputies, friend of Queen Victoria. He built the windmill here in Yerushalayim. His name was Moses Montefiore. So Moses Montefiore. Yemin Moshe is called Yemin Moshe not after Moshe Rabbeinu, but after Moshe Montefiore. He built Mishkenot Sha'ananim.

And somebody once asked him… you see, Sir Moses Montefiore made a very smart career move. He married a Rothschild. So he was able to retire at the age of 40.

He lived, kneinahora, to be 100 years old. And the remaining 60 years of his life, he dedicated to Am Yisrael. And somebody once said, ‘Sir Moses, tell me, what are you worth?’ So Moses Montefiore thinks for a while, and he says, this is in 1850, a long time ago. He mentioned a few hundred thousand pounds. 

And the man who asked him the question said, ‘Sir Moses, you must be a millionaire. Why did you say 200,000 pounds?’

And Sir Moses Montefiore said, ‘You didn't ask me, what do I own? You asked me, what am I worth?’ And he said, ‘Sir, I worked out how much money I've given to Tzedakah so far this year,’ because we are worth what we are willing to share with others.

Friends, it's good enough for Sir Moses Montefiore. It should be good enough for all of us. Lift somebody else up, we ourselves will be lifted.

And the end result would be, “VeAsu li Mikdash veShachanti beTocham.” We will have made this society a home for the Shechina. 

Thank you very much indeed.