There is a mitzvah to help someone load his animal with merchandise that has fallen off. The Torah qualifies this mitzvah by applying it only to situations in which the owner of the animal participates in loading the animal (assuming he is physically able to do so). However, if the owner crosses his legs, sips some lemonade, and tells you to do a mitzvah and work on his behalf, there is no obligation to
help him. One who performs work for this person, who expects others to do more for him than he is prepared to do for himself, is known in the vernacular as a sucker.
It is true that there is a tradition of wealthy businessmen making private arrangements to support outstanding Torah scholars in exchange for a share in the mitzvah. There is no precedent, however, for the welfare communities and the widespread intentional impoverishment that we are witnessing today. This brings neither glory to the Torah nor Torah scholarship to the Jewish people.
While Chazal emphasize maximizing one’s time to learn and encourage certain individuals to make a career of learning and teaching, this never was – nor was it ever meant to be – popularized for the masses. And Chazal themselvesemulated their model of working to support oneself and one’s family.
T
he great luminary Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch summed it up best:
But as help and support for necessitous poverty is ensured under the regime of Jewish Torah law, Zedaka does not shame the recipient who requires it. Yea in the spirit of this law, one who is unable to work, or is out of employment, or, out of misplaced pride, goes short himself, or makes his family go short in the necessities of life rather than to resort to Zedaka to which he is entitled is taking a grave responsibility on himself – it is as though he is spilling blood (Yerushalmi at the end of Pe’ah).
But just this law lays very great value on retaining self-independence, on restricting oneself to the bare necessities of life, on taking on what in the eyes of the thoughtless world is looked down on as the very lowest work to avoid having to recourse to charity. Nowhere in the world is honest work to gain an independent living held in such high esteem and honor as was the case in ancient Jewish circles.
Our greatest spiritual heroes, whose light still illuminates us, and to whom their age and all ages looked up to, and still look up to full of respect and honor, a Hillel, a Rebbi Yehoshua, a R. Chanina and R. Auchio, a R. Huna all lived in the most straightened circumstances and earned their living as a woodchopper, cobbler, porter, drawer of water, and by their example taught the maxim, “live no better on Sabbath than on the rest of the week and be independent”; “skin carcasses in the open market and get paid, and do not say ‘I am a priest, am a learned man, such work is beneath me.’ “
At the end of Pea, the Mishna says: “He who does not really require Zedaka and still takes it, will not be allowed to leave this world without having to resort to charity out of dire necessity. But he who really could be entitled to take charity but manages to live without doing so will not leave this world in his old age without having supported others out of his own fortune.” (Hirsch Commentary on the Torah, Judaica Press edition, Devarim page 275).
These powerful words are a stinging rebuke to our generation. If the comprehensive words of our Sages are not enough to cause us to rethink the proper balancing of our priorities, an increasingly grim reality eventually will.
If the many thousands of able-bodied Jewish men who decline to contribute to the economy decided to support themselves while still devoting themselves to Torah study, countless millions of tzedakah dollars would become available – perhaps even to the extent that providing a solid Jewish education to all of our children could become readily affordable. Is this not a more appropriate use of our resources? Would this not build a better foundation for the future?
We can dismiss the exhortations of Chazal and rationalize the status quo, or we can make important changes before change is thrust upon us against our will. The choice is ours.
