Congregation Shema Yisrael

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are sojourners, for you yourselves were sojourners in Egypt. -Deuteronomy 10:17-19

When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. -Deuteronomy 26:12

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. -James 1:27

It seems clear that God is very concerned about how we treat those who are in want and that we should extend ourselves to take care of them. There are many charities established in both Christianity and Judaism to provide for the needy, the hungry, and homeless; those who we think of as the widow, the orphan, and the sojourner of our day and in our land. All this is good and gives honor to God, but what if the needy person is a member of our own family? Are we just as generous?

My question may take many of you by surprise, but anyone who belongs to a family knows that it’s sometimes easier to love the stranger, who you may never have to see, than it is to love some of your relatives, who you may see all too often. As believers in Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) and Sons and Daughters (either “natural” or “adopted”) of the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, we may not recognize within ourselves that we can have less than kind thoughts and feelings for some members of our earthly family. We may also tend to rationalize why we don’t provide for the needy within our own families. Certainly, this isn’t a new practice:

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” -Matthew 15:3-6

Of course, Yeshua was quoting Torah (Exodus 20:12, Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9, and Deuteronomy 5:16 specifically) and the Pharisees and Torah teachers he was rebuking were playing theological games with the Word of God in order to justify their lack of honor for their parents, but what about this? Do we play games with the commandments in order to do what we want as well?

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. -Genesis 2:24

If you wanted to split hairs, you could say that this verse in Genesis is your justification for not honoring your parents by caring for them in their old age. After all, God said that a man should leave his parents (and his parents’ family) and be united with his wife, right? What if his wife doesn’t like her in-laws?

I’ve experienced this in my own family, or rather, my wife’s family. One of her brothers is a Christian (while denying his mother’s Judaism) and after marrying, he began to significantly favor his wife’s family over his own. This included promising to visit his nephews and niece and then not following through, and particularly not responding to requests to help provide care for his severely disabled sister. He is a man of means, and could afford to help, but has managed to find this excuse or that for not doing what he promised. An example is his saying that it would be too inconvenient to write a cheque to help his sister, and if my wife doesn’t have a PayPal account (she doesn’t), he is unable (unwilling) to provide funds.

I’m not saying this to “brother-in-law bash”, but rather to say that even in the community of faith, playing fast and loose with God’s commandments and desires isn’t unknown. My brother-in-law and his family are devout Christians within their own community and I don’t doubt his faith. Unfortunately, like other people of faith, he has “blind spots” or areas of fault. I can hardly excuse myself from this, as I know I have faults as well, but even if I did choose to ignore them, God knows the heart of everyone, so I will be held accountable. We’ll all be held accountable for those times when we could have helped someone, and chose not to do so.

Sadly, that accountability doesn’t help the people in need who we ignore today. It doesn’t help the family members in need who we ignore today. You might say that there’s no commandment to help your needy (biological) brother or sister, and you’d be right. There’s nothing “in black and white” that says so specifically. But is it the intent of God for us to stand on the letter of the Law (Torah) and ignore the Spirit? Often Judaism and by extension, the Messianic movement are called “legalistic” because of our attention to the written as well as the living Torah. But there is no lack of legalism among the larger community of faith when it serves human interests. This sort of unfairness is commented upon even in Gemara:

A certain father passed away without leaving a will. Since he had several sons and one daughter it was assumed that the sons would split the entire inheritance between them and the daughter would get nothing. The daughter was in dire straits financially, however, and the father’s holdings had been extensive – the sole daughter felt confident that her brothers would at least offer her help. To her surprise, they refused.

Since she felt that this was a miscarriage of justice, she took them to her local beis din (a Rabbinic court who judges matters of Jewish Law). She explained that in addition to being poor, she also had medical problems and she desperately needed financial assistance. The beis din was unsure what to do in this case. Perhaps the woman had some kind of right to money, just as we find regarding a dowry for the unmarried daughter of the deceased. They sent their question to Rav Betzalel Stern, zt”l, and received an astonishing response.

He answered, “On the contrary, from the halachah regarding a dowry we see that this woman has no right to an inheritance. It was only after the takanah that the unmarried daughter gained the right to money for her dowry. However, there has never been a takanah regarding a daughter inheriting. But that does not mean that the brothers have a right to shirk their responsibility to their sister in need! You should convince the brothers to do the right thing by their sister. And even if they refuse, you are surely aware that beis din can force the unwilling to give charity to the needy (emphasis mine). If this situation warrants it, perhaps you should do just that!”

From Daf Digest
Bava Basra 115
Stories off the Daf
The Daughter’s Share

The laws involving a daughter’s inheritance go all the way back to the Torah and the daughters of Zelophehad. Zelophehad, father to three daughters and no sons, died during the 40 years of wandering in the Sinai. When the time came to allot portions of the Land of Israel, the daughters were initially excluded. They appealed to Moses and Moses appealed to God. God yielded what was most likely a surprising, but assuredly a just response (for the full narrative, see Numbers 27:1-11):

“Say to the Israelites, ‘If a man dies and leaves no son, turn his inheritance over to his daughter. If he has no daughter, give his inheritance to his brothers. If he has no brothers, give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. If his father had no brothers, give his inheritance to the nearest relative in his clan, that he may possess it. This is to be a legal requirement for the Israelites, as Hashem (the LORD) commanded Moses.’ ” -Numbers 27:8-11

Even here we see that daughters do not inherit if there are sons present, but that doesn’t mean daughters are ignored if they have needs that can be fulfilled no other way. In those days, if a woman was unmarried, it was up to the father to provide for her needs and to protect her. If she was married, her husband had that responsibility and thus, the woman would gain from her husband’s inheritance rather than from her own. However, as the wise Rav Betzalel Stern, zt”l ruled, this is not to be used as a loophole or as an excuse to fail to do kindness and justice.

We see both in Numbers 36:1-12 and Joshua 17:3-6 the ultimate resolution for the three daughters based on God’s kindness and justice. But Judaism doesn’t have the corner market on this perspective. Many Christian groups also recognize how the Torah is our guide to behaving righteously towards widows, orphans, and others in need. If you click the link I just provided, the article calls this righteous behavior, “Christian love”, but we must acknowledge the source as God’s love enacted through us. The love, righteousness, and charity of God is only enacted through us however, when we respond and obey. When we don’t, we give the rest of the world the right to call us hypocrites.

Modern Judaism’s definition of tzedakah (Charity) includes the following:

The obligation to perform tzedakah can be fulfilled by giving money to the poor, to health care institutions, to synagogues or to educational institutions. It can also be fulfilled by supporting your children beyond the age when you are legally required to, or supporting your parents in their old age. The obligation includes giving to both Jews and gentiles; contrary to popular belief, Jews do not just “take care of our own.” Quite the contrary, a study reported in the Jewish Journal indicated that Jewish “mega-donors” (who give more than $10 million a year to charity) found that only 6% of their mega-dollars went to specifically Jewish causes.

Charity then, does not include limitations to who we are to provide for, as seen in the example where we support our children in need, even when they are of an age to provide for themselves. Jews don’t limit their giving only to Jews, and neither should we who are grafted in try to find excuses to limit our generosity.

It’s sometimes easier to give to strangers than to friends and relatives. It’s far too easy to drop an envelope into a box or a plate and call it “good”, but to then ignore the pleas of a brother or sister (biological) who is doing without. If, for example, your sister is poor and disabled, with many medical bills, and it is within your means to help her…help her, even if she isn’t a Christian, and even if you don’t see her often (or at all). Tzedakah is defined by God, not by our limited human perspective. If we expect God to provide our “daily bread”, we should give as good as we get.

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that God is One. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.

You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our Father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. -James 2:14-24