Friday, May 9, 2008

Brutal Calculus

Tur, Yoreh Deah 455

A person should always distance himself from [taking] tzedakah. And he should put himself in pain in order not to rely on others - so commanded the hakhamim: [one should] profane Shabbat in order not to rely on others.

And even if he is an honored sage who became poor, he should take up a trade, even low class trades, in order that he should no rely upon others. Better that he should stretch the skins of dead animals in the market, and not say “I am wise, I am great, [I am above this labor].”


Anyone who does not need to take tzedakah, and deceives the people and takes, will not die until he [is forced to] rely upon others.

Anyone who needs to take, and cannot live without taking, for example, the elderly or the incapacitated, or a person of great misfortune, and inflates his ego not to take, this is murder, the person is held accountable for his own life and there is nothing in his suffering but transgression and sins.

And anyone who needs to take, and pains himself, and pressures himself, and lives a life of suffering in order that he should not burden the community will not die until he [is wealthy enough] to give sustenance to others from his own [property]. And upon him, and all like him, it is said, “happy is the man who trusts in God [and God will be his refuge.]”

טור יורה דעה סימן רנה

לעולם ירחיק ארם עצמו מהצדקה ויגלגל עצמו בצער שלא יצטרך לבריות וכן צוו חכמים עשה שבתך חול ואל תצטרך לבריות ואפילו היה חכם מכובד והעני יעסוק באומנות ואפילו באומנות מנוולת ואל יצטרך לבריות מוטב לפשוט עורות נבילות בשוק ולא יאמר חכם אני גדול אני כל מי שא"צ ליטול מהצדקה ומרמה העם ונוטל אינו מת עד שיצטרך לבריות וכל מי שצריך ליטול ואינו יכול לחיות אא"כ יטול כגון זקן או חולה או בעל יסורים ומגיס דעתו ואינו נוטל ה"ז שופך דמים ומחייב בנפשו ואין לו בצערו אלא עונות וחטאים וכל מי שצריך ליטול ומצער עצמו ודוחק השעה וחי חיי צער כדי שלא יטריח על הצבור אינו מת עד שיפרנס אחרים משלו ועליו ועל כל כיוצא בו נאמר ברוך הגבר אשר יבטח בה':

I think that I need to take a few minutes to explain what the Tur is - how he comes up with what he writes. First, know that he, like any code of halakha, is not generating his own content. Codes are summations, logically and artfully arranged codifications (hence the whole code thing) of the massive canon that preceding him. I refer to the Tur as a “him” because it’s accurate: this is the magnum opus of Rabbeinu Yaakov ba’al ha Turim, son of Rabbeinu Asher.

In any case, the artistry in the writing of a code is found in selection and arrangement. It’s a complex kind of a genius, and not one whose worth our culture is immediately given to seeing. Rabbeinu Yaakov used his encyclopedic knowledge and precise analytical skills to sift through a millennium and a half’s worth of literature, very little of which actually tells you what to do, as an aside, and compiled a guide for how one should act, down to the minutia, in almost every conceivable category of life.

The result is this book, the Tur, which occupies a good half shelf, folio height, in my library. It comes across pretty bluntly, in a “just do it this way” manner. The Tur does include some debate, which makes it more nuanced than its even starker younger brother, the Shulkhan Arukh. But its frankness conceals the incredible pastiche that the Tur actually is. The ink spilled at the sides of the page is an attempt to tease the complexity out into the open, either to argue with the conclusions or praise the genius, but generally to explain how Rabbeinu Yaakov arrived at his answers.

Anyways, this siman (section) is a collection four sources (פסחים קיב, קיג. משנה פאה ח''ט. סוף פאה ירושלמי), cobbled together by the Tur. I think the cutting and pasting is what accounts for the uneven feel. The points seem to contradict each other: one should never take tzedakah, but if one doesn't take, one is a murderer, etc. I can feel the rough surfaces in this text.

Nonetheless, there is a point. The Tur brings together a picture of a kind of person with perfect intention. This person knows, quite definitively, when she should be on the dole, and when she should eschew any portion whatsoever. Knows it so well, that I can't imagine having that kind of clarity. The beauty of the composition, though, is found in how he merges a few essential ideas, and creates a text about honesty.

This is how I sum up the siman (you might want to check out the translation again):

Be self-sufficient
Don’t be arrogant
Don’t deceive
Don’t reject what you actually need
Be self-sufficient

This, for me, shows the Tur’s brilliance. Self-sufficiency, after all, requires a precise knowledge of what a person needs to live. In other words, poverty forces upon a person a penetrating honesty about the materials and means of her life. We learn that Torah requires those at the brink of need to have such honesty.

Moreover, the paths of dishonesty, whether overt or unconscious, are here laid out, sandwiched between the demand for honesty. To reject this honesty is to be a thief, overly proud, or a fool. To accept it means making a decision between accepting need or remaining self-reliant, but also to have known exactly who one is.

We learn, both here and all over the laws of the tzedakah, that poverty brings with it a brutal calculus. Anyone who has ever worked with the poor, the hungry, or the otherwise needy knows this; who to feed, who to care for first, who is included, who is left outside - all these are questions that brook no delay in being answered, and sometimes haunt those doing the caring long after the moment is gone. Perhaps these calculations are the true degradation of poverty, both for poor and for society in which they live.

Torah, in the end, demands that the harsh calculus of need be performed not only on other people, but also within the self. For paradoxically, when a sovereign self assesses his own needs, makes a decision, he reaffirms his own humanity and his own worth. No one is truly destitute who is still deciding his own destiny.

The Tur gleans this knowledge from all over the Tradition, and assembled it here to bring into sharp focus the demand for honesty in poverty. That it is stated as law, rather than principle, gives the gift of knowing both what to do, and knowing the principle that stands behind the doing.

So read the Tur. It’s really very good.


N.B.
In light of these thoughts, consider the famous last mishna in masekhet Makkot:




Monday, April 28, 2008

That He Should Have a Name

Tur, Yoreh Deah 348

יתומים אין פוסקין עליהן צדקה אפי' לפדיון שבויים אפי' יש להם ממון הרבה אם פוסקין עליהם לכבוד כדי שיצא להם שם שפיר דמי

[In the case of] orphans, [the court] does not decree that they give [a specific amount of] tzedakah, even [for the sake of] redeeming captives, even if they have much money. [However] if they decree [that a specific amount of tzedakah should be required] of them for honor, in order that they should have a name, it is considered good.


I do not know whether, were we to exist only as individuals, we would need names. Names are bestowed by others; names are the natural extension of our souls fitting those around us into a world we understand, and are a way for communities to assign the roles they feel they need to survive intact. The "I" of the ego needs no name to know itself - the interior of the self is felt.

But the "I" in midst of community cries out for a name. Despite the fact that names are bestowed by others to the Other, we immediately cling to them. Names are all that we have that describes the exterior self - the self created in interaction with others. Wise people know that the names given to them never encapsulate their identity, but that is not to diminish the absolute necessity of a name. To have no name is to be left bereft, and the lure of the Isaiah's promise of "a hand and a name" springs from the promise of rescue from the emotional devastation of namelessness.

וְאַל יֹאמַר בֶּן הַנֵּכָר הַנִּלְוָה אֶל יְקֹוָק לֵאמֹר הַבְדֵּל יַבְדִּילַנִי יְקֹוָק מֵעַל עַמּוֹ וְאַל יֹאמַר הַסָּרִיס הֵן אֲנִי עֵץ יָבֵשׁ:
כִּי כֹה אָמַר יְקֹוָק לַסָּרִיסִים אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁמְרוּ אֶת שַׁבְּתוֹתַי וּבָחֲרוּ בַּאֲשֶׁר חָפָצְתִּי וּמַחֲזִיקִים בִּבְרִיתִי:
וְנָתַתִּי לָהֶם בְּבֵיתִי וּבְחוֹמֹתַי יָד וָשֵׁם טוֹב מִבָּנִים וּמִבָּנוֹת שֵׁם עוֹלָם אֶתֶּן לוֹ אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִכָּרֵת:
Isaiah 56:3-5
Let not the child of a foreigner who has joined God say, "God has separated me from God's people," and let not the infertile say, "I am a withered tree." For so says God, "to the infertile who keep my Shabbatot, and choose that which I have desired, and hold fast to my covenant, I will give them, in my house and in my walls, a hand and name, better than sons or daughters - an eternal name will I give him, that will not be cut away."



Orphans have no name. Their saying, "I am the son of X, the daughter of Y," is empty speech, for that which those names signifies has been cut away. Remember that names are really nothing more than glorified mnemonics - a way of summarizing the infinite complexities of a relationship with another person: I am the son of my father, the grandchild of my grandmother; when the content of the relationship is removed, all that remains is the empty husk of a name.


Perhaps it's more accurate to say that orphans have an amputated name, and the extent of the amputation is related to the amount of experiences they had with they parents they have lost.


Since community is the source of names, the reason for the generation of the exterior self, the question becomes: how do we restore names to the bereft?


The section quoted above is the Tur's answer: we create a name for them, and we do it through bestowing responsibility, and through the creation of new relationships. The very idea of Tzedakah is based in an understanding of the fundamental nature of human relationships, that humans, no matter how distant in relation, are bound by obligation to each other.


Thus we place the responsibility upon the orphan to give, knowing that giving will per force re-inject her into the fabric of human relationship, knowing that it will give her a name.






(ז) כִּי יִהְיֶה בְךָ אֶבְיוֹן מֵאַחַד אַחֶיךָ בְּאַחַד שְׁעָרֶיךָ בְּאַרְצְךָ אֲשֶׁר יְקֹוָק אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ לֹא תְאַמֵּץ אֶת לְבָבְךָ וְלֹא תִקְפֹּץ אֶת יָדְךָ מֵאָחִיךָ הָאֶבְיוֹן:
(ח) כִּי פָתֹחַ תִּפְתַּח אֶת יָדְךָ לוֹ וְהַעֲבֵט תַּעֲבִיטֶנּוּ דֵּי מַחְסֹרוֹ אֲשֶׁר יֶחְסַר לוֹ:

7 If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kinsmen in any of your settlements in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman.
8 Rather, you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs.
Deuteronomy 15

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Hello all - it seems that I need to post to be able to allow you all access. Please give it a shot.

Thanks,
Scott