LAUGH FOR GOD'S SAKE

KTAV Publishing House, Inc.

Chapter One

For the "haves" of society, money is an intoxicating spice. Buying and selling, lending and borrowing, savoring the uses of money to accumulate pleasures of every kind, take up a major share of their time and attention. For life's "have nots," the situation is drastically different. The amassing, protection and wide uses of capital are of little consequence to those whose fundamental need is to be able to put food on the table. By the simple fact of being chronically in need, the poor of our communities constitute an ethical challenge. Their very existence compels us to consider whether and to what extent a society is obligated to help its needy members.

The Jewish answer to this challenge has always been emphatic, proclaiming that no community may close its eyes or its hands to the plight of its poor. Jewish ethical teachings do not budge on this point, insisting that even when the community assists from communal funds, no individual may avoid personal participation in helping the poor. Remarkably, in Jewish teachings, the obligation to give extends even to those who are the recipients of charity. They too are required to set aside a sum, no matter how tiny, for those who are even less fortunate.

The Torah's rules of charity contain a novel feature. Lending money to the poor, provided that the loan is free of interest charges, is considered an act of charity. This may even strike us as being in conflict with the very idea of charity. It must seem strange that the recipient of the loan has been saddled with the burden of repayment. In what way does a loan qualify as charity? How does it promote and advance the ideal of a generous, giving society if a donor has the option of lending rather than outright giving?

One possible answer is that the law speaks from the persistent reality that there are always people who are in no position to give away money. In the Torah's view, they are not exempt from the requirement to perform acts of charity. They may therefore meet their obligation through a loan. Perhaps too, the Torah is shrewdly aware of how painful it is for some people, even those who are favored with surplus means, to part with their money. Providing the alternative of an interest free loan might make available assistance which would otherwise not be forthcoming.

Rabbinic law differentiates loans for commercial needs from loans to alleviate the misery of the poor, permitting interest charges to the former alone. The Torah's term for interest is nesheh, literally a bite, the kind that a ferocious beast inflicts upon its prey. Jewish religious law understood interest charges on loans to the poor as yet another affliction. By forgoing interest on this kind of loan, the lender relieves the recipient of an additional financial burden, and thus it may be considered an act of charity.

Regardless of the chosen instrument of charity, whether by outright giving, by loan, or by any creative means we may devise, the underlying ideology of Judaism's social concerns is that a society does not rise to the level of a good society until it becomes an obligated society.

This ideal was often tested under the grim circumstances of people in dire need. Jewish humor does not spare the tension between society's haves and have-nots. It takes us into a realm where money is needed for bread, simply to sustain life. It is a witness to the eternal contest that unfolds when the poor must appeal to the conscience of the rich, not knowing whether the answer will be "yes" or "no." It is here where we meet the contrast between empathy and indifference. We set the stage with two jokes.

A beggar Jew wandered from village to village searching for a person who would take pity on him. He stumbled into a village where he was overcome by the delicious aroma of freshly cooked food coming from an open window. He knocked at the door hoping for a bite to eat. A woman opened the door and demanded to know what he wished. "Please," he said, "I'm a poor man. I haven't had a decent meal for days. I beg you to please help me." She replied, "Would you eat some cold soup?" Eagerly, he answered, "Yes!" "In that case," she said, "come back tomorrow; the soup is still hot!"

* * *

Two strangers meet in the market. One says to the other, "Lend me a hundred rubles." The other responds, "One hundred rubles? I don't even know you." The first one sighs and says, "People never fail to amaze me. Here no one will lend me money because no one knows me. In my home town, no one will lend me money because they do know me."

* * *

What is the common denominator linking these two jokes? It is the lop-sided relationship between the person in need of help and the one who can as easily help or not. We can imagine the unsympathetic housewife chuckling at her verbal cleverness. We can picture her pleasure as she repeats the story to a friend. Meanwhile, the hungry beggar remains as he was; for him nothing has changed. He must continue his search for someone else who may or may not help him.

The second story presents the plight of the poor less starkly but with the important insight that there is at bottom no advantage to being either known or unknown. Nor does the nature of the need matter at all. This joke leads us to the somber conclusion that an appeal for help can as easily fall on deaf ears as on receptive ears.

Both jokes have in common the unevenness of the playing field in the encounter between the haves and the have-nots. This is a given that never changes. The goal of tzedakah as a central pillar of Jewish ethics is to make irrelevant whether or not we know anything about the person in need. Hunger is hunger, misery is never less than misery, and it is of no account that the hungry, suffering person may be too lazy to seek or hold a job. Neither defects of personality nor harmful life habits should be allowed to obscure the fact that he is hungry or in pain. Seen in this light, the task is always to look to the person and not to the outer appearance.

MORE STORIES ABOUT JEWS IN NEED

Following the funeral service, the rich man's coffin was slowly escorted to the cemetery. During his lifetime, the deceased was known for his indifference to the poor. A line of relatives followed behind the coffin, their faces lined with sorrow. Suddenly a bedraggled beggar, dressed in rags, joined their ranks and wept bitterly as he walked. One of them asked him, "Why are you weeping? He was no relative of yours." The beggar replied, "That's why I'm weeping."

* * *

A wealthy skinflint died. His son did not shed a tear. During the procession to the cemetery, beggars lined the route, rattling their charity boxes. The son suddenly burst into sobs. He was asked, "What made you cry now and not earlier?" He answered, "Now I know for certain that my father is dead. Charity boxes are rattling and he isn't running away."

* * *

A poor man stood before a rich man and told him that they had been children together in the same town. The rich man...