OUR MISHNAH THUS FAR

Maharal has pointed out that there are ten areas of life explored in this Mishnah, five related to the body and five to the soul (we will see what he does with the eleventh clause in our Mishnah by the end of this week). The first five, related to the body in at least some way, all punished excess with negative consequences. The latter five, those dealing with the soul, rewarded excess in various ways.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TSEDAQQAH AND SHALOM

The Mishnah says "Marbeh tsedaqqah marbeh shalom, one who is greatly involved in charity increases peace." Taken simply, we would assume that the Mishnah means that by giving a lot of money to charity, one increases peace in the world, either because poverty will not be as pressing an issue as otherwise, or perhaps because God rewards charity with peace.

Maharal sees a more direct connection. The quality that leads a person to give charity is the willingness to go "lifnim mishurat hadin, beyond the letter of the Law."

AN ASIDE ON RAMBAM’S VIEW OF TSEDAQQAH

Even before we continue, it is worth noting how revolutionary a concept this is. Rambam, in the penultimate chapter of the Moreh Nevukhim (that’s the second to last chapter—but how often do you get to slip the word into conversation or writing?) defines three words, hessed, mishpat, and tsedaqqah, for purposes of his own.

What’s important for our purposes is that he defines tsedaqqah as stemming from the root for tsedeq, justice, and sees tsedaqqah as giving people exactly what they deserve. In terms of poor people, he apparently believes that the Jewish view of charity is that we are all personally responsible to form a social welfare net, to support those who, through the vicissitudes of life, find themselves unable to support themselves.

[As an aside within an aside: I recently heard Mark Cohen, a professor at Princeton, deliver a paper on letters in the Cairo Genizah that were written by poor people seeking some support from a wealthy person. These people were "working poor," meaning that in the best of circumstances they had jobs which helped them barely get by. At some juncture in their lives, they lost their jobs and became destitute. Their goal was to find some money to get them by this rough patch, to go back to working and supporting themselves. It was a fascinating picture of how people managed poverty in those times.]

Rambam’s view of tsedaqqah, then—and I assume we all heard this from teachers in high school—was that it is money we owe the poor, as part of our recognition that we enjoy God’s bounty partially because we are willing to share it with those less fortunate than us.

BACK TO MAHARAL—TSEDAQQAH AS LIFNIM MISHURAT HADIN

Maharal’s claim that tsedaqqah is the characteristic of lifnim mi-shurat hadin puts the whole concept in a new light, one that comes much closer to American values and perceptions. The money, apparently, is ours to do with as we wish, and we give it as charity only out of the goodness of our hearts. Of course, Maharal recognizes that there is a commandment to give tsedaqqah, but from this view I think he would claim that that requirement is so minimal that it does not change the character of most of the charity people give.

If tsedaqqah is really a question of lifnim, transcending right and wrong for a higher value, it leads clearly and directly to peace, which also requires that willingness. To achieve peace means being willing to forego some personal desires—even situations where we are absolutely right—for the sake of the higher value, peace. This is true [personal claim] for peace within families, whether among spouses [spice?], between parents and children, siblings, among friends, in communities, in any situation where more than one person is attempting to live together. In the first picture, then, peace is attained by people willingly foregoing justice; acts of charity (and here money isn’t the only form of charity that’s relevant—any example of lifnim mi-shurat ha din determines our readiness for shalom, so that marbeh tsedaqqah, the more charitable we are in our lifnim, increases the peace.

ENFORCED PEACE AS THE PATH TO SHALOM

In closing that discussion, Maharal cites a verse from In closing that discussion, Maharal cites a verse from Yeshayahu, "ve-hayah ma`aseh hatsedaqqah shalom, and the act of charity shall be peace," which most easily means that charity brings peace, as the Mishnah had said and Maharal explained.

However, mention of that verse reminds Maharal of the Talmud’s claim (Baba Bathra 9a) that forcing others to give charity is even more important than giving charity itself. [As my rabbinic career edges me closer to actually having to solicit people, I take ever greater comfort from this statement]. Maharal now explains the Mishnah’s statement in light of this Talmudic statement.

At first glance the two do not mix. Why should forcing someone to give tsedaqqah increase peace in the world—shouldn’t it be the exact opposite, that one’s personal generosity increases peace? Maharal explains that in cases of mahloqet what is needed is not personal generosity—since when involved in a dispute, one’s generosity has already not worked—but the willingness to bow to someone else’s will. That trait, the willingness to bow to another’s will when it is important to do so, is inculcated by being pressured/coerced by someone else to give money to a cause.

In forcing other s to give charity, then, it is not that the person doing the coercing learns better how to create peace. It is, rather, that the coercer [my computer does not recognize that word, but I hope the meaning is clear] trains others in the character traits that will lead them to lives of peace.

Maharal adds that he has discussed more elements of the relationship between charity and peace in his book Netivot Olam, which I have not read. Before leaving this clause, though, I wanted to point out how diametrically opposed his views of peace and how to get there were. In the first version, peace was the result of people’s personal willingness to go beyond the letter of the Law. The second version, based on a Talmudic statement that coercing others was even greater, believed that it was submission to others’ wills [when worthwhile and necessary] that trained us in peace.

TWO USEFUL VIEWS OF PEACE AND HOW TO GET TO IT

I don’t know whether Maharal meant it, but it strikes me as two alternative views of how peace is achieved, and, indeed, the second is greater than the first. In the first category are those times where we are willing to simply let a matter go, and those indeed help create more peaceful lives. In situations where we feel wronged or slighted in such a way that we would not be willing to act lifnim mishurat hadin, to go beyond our responsibilities, training in just submitting to another’s will when necessary can help us find peace in even more difficult situations. And, may I add, peace [properly constructed] almost always allows for greater benefits to all those involved than continued mahloqet.

 A GOOD NAME—THE ONLY TRUE PERSONAL REWARD

The Mishnah then says that acquiring a good name is "acquired for oneself." Maharal points out that names are indications of who we are [there is actually a whole discussion in philosophy over the connection between names and the essence of an object; this has relevance for Jews, in that the Torah identifies people by their ability to give names to the animals—what that ability is depends greatly on the question of names and essence], so that if we achieve a good name, we have actually affected ourselves in some essential way—although he does not explain further. He concludes, however, by discussing the structure of the Mishnah as mentioning nine aspects of human experience not essential to the person, closing with a tenth essential one, which he sees elsewhere as well. For example, he believes the Ten Dibberot on Sinai had the essential one at the beginning, followed by nine details of that original principle.

Missing from Maharal’s list of ten is the last clause of the Mishnah, "Qanah lo divrei Torah, qanah lo hayye ha-olam haba, a person who acquires words of Torah, acquires life in the World to Come." Maharal does not want to break the structure of ten—five for the physical and five for the spiritual—so he says this is just a clarification of the earlier clause that acquiring Torah acquires life. Maharal explains that this clause points out that "life" does not mean only life in this world, but life in the next world as well. The problem with that reading is that it assumes the Mishnah leaves the clarification for the end, rather than putting it where it belongs.

Regardless of how we read that clause, the essential thrust of Maharal’s reading remains the same: excess in areas of the physical is a problem, but in the spiritual, it’s fine.