There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition

By Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Elliot N. Dorff and Simon Greer

How can a Jewish approach to social justice offer positive change for America?

"Ancient texts offer significant wisdom about human nature, economic cycles, the causes of inequality, and our obligations to each other. These insights can inform our own approaches to current issues, challenge our assumptions, and force us to consider alternative approaches. The conversation between our texts and our lives can enrich our experience of both."
—from the Introduction

Confront the most pressing issues of twenty-first-century America in this fascinating book, which brings together classical Jewish sources, contemporary policy debate and real-life stories.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, a leading young voice in the social justice arena, makes a powerful argument for participation in the American public square from a deeply Jewish perspective, while deepening our understanding of the relationship between Judaism and such current social issues as:

Poverty and the Poor
Collection and Allocation of Tzedakah
Workers, Employers and Unions
Housing the Homeless
The Provision of Health Care
Environmental Sustainability
Crime, Punishment and Rehabilitation

By creating a dialogue between traditional texts and current realities, Jacobs presents a template for engagement in public life from a Jewish perspective and challenges us to renew our obligations to each other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Apr 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781580235600

Rabbi Jill Jacobs

Rabbi Jill Jacobs is executive director of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. . Widely acknowledged as one of the leading voices in Jewish social justice, Rabbi Jacobs is also the author of There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition and Where Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish Community (both Jewish Lights). She has been voted to the Forward newspaper's list of fifty influential Jews, to Newsweek's list of the fifty most influential rabbis in America and to the Jewish Week's list of "thirty-six under thirty-six." Rabbi Jill Jacobs is available to speak on the following topics: Social Justice in Judaism: Historical, Textual and Political Roots, and Their Meaning for Jews Today Synagogue Social Justice That Works In the Image: A Jewish Take on Human Rights Torah in the Workplace: Ethical Business Practices for the Synagogue, School, Home and Business A Jewish Approach to Combating Human TraffickingClick here to contact the author.

Book preview

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A Vision of Economic Justice

Our exploration of Jewish conceptions of justice should, quite naturally, begin in the beginning—that is, with the biblical vision of a just world. But which beginning? We might begin truly in the beginning of the Bible, with the Garden of Eden as our setting. There, the first human beings, Adam and Eve, dwell peacefully with animals, blissfully—if momentarily—unaware of the human potential for violence, hatred, or oppression.

But as readers of the Bible know, the idealism of the Garden of Eden cannot last. Upon disobeying the divine command by eating from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve understand, for the first time, the possibility of doing wrong (Gen. 3). Kicked out of paradise, human beings encounter a world in which brothers kill brothers (Gen. 4:1–16), a flood almost destroys humanity (Gen. 6–8), and people prioritize building a tower over developing a human community (Gen. 11:1–9).

A command simply to do no harm cannot keep us in the Garden of Eden. Rather, the development of a just society requires that human beings also assume positive obligations. Accordingly, as the Bible unfolds, God gives humanity in general, and the Jewish people in particular, a series of laws aimed at creating a functional civil society.

Many of the stories and laws of the biblical books of Genesis and Exodus offer the seeds of a vision for a just world. Among the most frequently cited of these precedents are the following:

•  Abraham pleads with God to save the condemned cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In these negotiations, Abraham embodies an obligation to protest injustice even in situations in which victory seems impossible, and in which the potential victims are mostly strangers.

•  Joseph establishes a system for storing and rationing food so that the Egyptians will not starve to death during a time of famine. His example offers a lesson in using political authority to protect the lives of all members of society.

•  The experience of slavery in Egypt teaches us the pain of oppression, and warns against inflicting such oppression on others.

While these stories and others offer a glimpse of justice or injustice in action, I would argue that the most important clues toward a Jewish vision of justice emerge from the laws given to the Jewish people as they prepare to enter the land of Israel and to establish an autonomous society there.

The Garden of Eden cannot offer us a model for justice in our own society, as the inhabitants of that place live in harmony only as long as they know no other alternative. The first human beings have no sense of positive responsibility toward one another, nor do they know that injustice is possible. Though we may long for such a naïve and peaceful existence, we cannot return to paradise once our illusions have been shattered.

Stories of individuals, such as Abraham and Joseph, who pursue justice, as well as the narrative of Jewish slavery in Egypt, provide invaluable insights into fighting for justice and the danger of not doing so. However, the most important evidence of a community’s commitment to justice is not the actions of a few star individuals; nor is it the experience of oppression. Only upon gaining collective power does a community begin to demonstrate its approach to justice. Without a communal buy-in to a system of justice, well-meaning authorities may be able to move the society toward greater fairness, but malicious leaders may also lead the society toward evil.

With this emphasis on communal power, I turn now to the biblical passage that, for me, best articulates a Jewish vision of economic and social justice. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses prepares the Jewish people for his imminent death by recounting the exodus narrative and by reminding the people of some essential divine laws. Significantly, this book—the last of the Torah—immediately precedes the Jewish people’s entrance into the promised land of Israel. Moses’ final instructions, then, may be read as an exhortation not to be corrupted by newfound power and wealth, but rather to use this new position to establish a just society. In the context of formulating this just society, Moses offers the following comments regarding the poorest residents of the land:

There shall be no needy among you—for Adonai will surely bless you in the land which Adonai your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it if you diligently listen to the voice of Adonai your God, and observe and do the commandment that I command you this day. For Adonai your God will bless you, as God promised you; and you shall lend unto many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you. If there is among you a needy person, one of your brethren, within any of your gates, in your land which Adonai your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your needy brother; but you shall surely open your hand unto him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wants. Be careful lest there be a hateful thing in your heart, and you say, The seventh year, the sabbatical year, is coming and you look cruelly on your brother, the poor person, and do not give him, for he will call out to God and this will be counted as a sin for you. Rather, you shall surely give him, and you shall not fear giving him, for on account of this, God will bless you in all that you do and in all that you desire. For the poor will never cease from the land. For this reason, God commands you saying, You shall surely open your hand to your brother, to the poor and the needy in your land. (Deut. 15:4–11)

A close look at this passage tells us much about biblical definitions of poverty, attitudes toward the poor, and suggestions for ending poverty. In the next few pages, we will look at this passage and at its interpretations in order to gain a foundation for our discussions of poverty and related issues.

Attitudes toward the Poor

The overarching Jewish attitude toward the poor is best summed up by a single word of the biblical text: achikha (your brother). With this word, the Torah insists on the dignity of the poor, and it commands us to resist any temptation to view the poor as somehow different from ourselves.

The concept of human dignity is well-ingrained in Judaism. The book of Genesis describes human beings as created "b’tzelem elohim," in the image of God (1:26). At least one early Rabbi considers one of the verses expressing this idea to be the most important verse in the Torah (Sifra K’doshim 2:4). The insistence that human beings are creations in the divine image implies that any insult to an individual, by extension, is an affront to God. In reminding us that the poor person is our sibling, the Torah emphasizes that, like us, this person is a manifestation of the divine image and should be treated as such.

In addition to challenging us to see the poor person as a member of our family, the word achikha also disabuses us of any pretense that we are somehow inherently different from the poor. Those of us who do not live in dire poverty often protect ourselves from any sense of vulnerability by finding ways to differentiate ourselves from the poor: they must be poor because they don’t work hard, because they drink or take drugs, because they come from dysfunctional families, and so forth. Seeing each poor person as our sibling cuts through any attempts to separate ourselves from him or her.

In a riff on the Deuteronomy 15 passage, Don Isaac Abravanel, a fifteenth-century Spanish commentator, identifies three primary reasons for giving tzedakah: to express mercy on the poor; to recognize the poor person as your relative; and to commit to sustaining your community.¹ With this list, Abravanel proposes a three-pronged approach to interacting with the poor. First, you may care for the poor out of pity. The word mercy suggests a stance toward the poor in which you give out of a sense of generosity, and not out of a belief that the poor person deserves the gift. Similarly, when Jews pray for divine mercy, the liturgy reflects the hope that God will have mercy even though we have done nothing to deserve God’s beneficence. In the words of the High Holiday liturgy, "Avinu Malkenu (our father, our king), have mercy on us and answer us, even though we have done no good deeds."

Second, Abravanel asks us to recognize the poor as members of our own family, insofar as all people are descendants of a common ancestor. Like the concept of achikha, this demand forces us to see each poor person as an individual human being worthy of dignity and respect. Rather than view a poor person as an anonymous and undeserving beggar, we are asked to regard this person as a child of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As such, this person, though imperfect, is deserving of what the talmudic Rabbis call z’chut avot (the merit of the ancestors), the ancestral connection that guarantees God’s mercy. With the reference to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Abravanel seems to be speaking primarily of responsibility to the Jewish community; we can, however, expand his words to include all descendents of these three forefathers—this would certainly include all Christians and Muslims, but we might more generally say that we cannot be sure anymore who is descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and thus should extend the definition of achikha to all of humanity.

Third, in Abravanel’s formulation, we should consider the care of the poor as a means of building the community as a whole. In the most utilitarian formulation of this idea, we might say that contributing to the education of the poor helps to guarantee a better-educated and therefore more productive society; that helping the poor to buy property increases the number of homeowners in a given place and therefore raises the value of all housing stock; or that job training and small business loans for the poor increase the economic viability of an entire community.

A rabbinic story tells about a group of people traveling in a boat. One passenger takes out a drill and begins drilling a hole under his seat. The other passengers, quite understandably, complain that this action may cause the boat to sink. Why should this bother you? this man responds, I am only drilling under my own seat. The others retort, But the water will rise up and flood the ship for all of us! (Vayikra Rabbah 4:6). The moral of this story is clear: one person’s destructive action may literally drown the entire community. But we might add that the inverse is also true: a single positive change may transform an entire community. Thus, the alleviation of poverty, even in the smallest detail, may help the community as a whole to flourish.

Rather than consider the poor person a drain on our resources, we may regard a gift to this person as an investment in the future of the community. With monetary assistance, today’s beggar may be tomorrow’s community leader and himself or herself a giver of tzedakah.

The Paradox of Poverty

A striking feature of the Deuteronomy passage is the apparent contradiction between verse four, There shall be no needy among you, and verse eleven, For the poor will never cease from the land. We expect the omnipotent God of the Torah to keep promises; we are therefore surprised to hear the Torah promise to eradicate poverty and then, almost in the same breath, admit that this promise will never be fulfilled.

Noting the conditional nature of the promise to eradicate poverty if you diligently listen to the voice of Adonai your God, most traditional commentators understand the passage as a prediction that the Jewish people will never fully obey the commandments. While holding out a utopian promise of the reward for full allegiance to the mitzvot (commandments), God, according to these commentators, simultaneously prepares for the inevitability of the people’s disobedience.

If we accept that God’s promise in this passage relies on a condition that humans can never meet, we encounter at least two problems. First, such an interpretation contradicts a basic principle of rabbinic exegesis—the idea that every word of the Torah has a purpose. Second, this suggestion raises an even more fundamental theological problem. If human beings are to hold ourselves responsible for observing the commandments of the Torah, we need to believe that God, at least, believes that we are capable of following these commandments. It would seem a betrayal of trust for the Torah to set out expectations that God already knows we will not