Tzedakah
Tzedakah may be charity, but it doesn't mean the same thing as "charity." The English word has connotations of love and caring; "tzedakah" is related to the word tzedek, or justice. In Judaism, giving money or material support for the poor is a matter of fulfilling an obligation, and of righting a social wrong. Jeffrey Dekro, founder and president of The Shefa Fund, taught me to think about the meaning of the image of scales that represents justice. The two sides of the scale of justice must be balanced. So too, the act of giving tzedakah involves restoring the relationship of giver and receiver as equals in society.
Although the purpose of tzedakah is to meet the needs of the poor (see dei machsoro below, Jewish law fixes certain guidelines for how much one must give. To give twenty percent of income is most desirable; ten percent is the "intermediate" standard. Rabbi Moses Maimonides, the most famous codifier of the laws of tzedakah, outlined eight levels of tzedakah. The highest is to enable someone to become self-sufficient (see v'he-che-zakta bo); other levels deal with issues of anonymous or gracious giving.
Gemilut Chasadim/Chesed
Chesed is the term that encompasses reaching out to or helping those in need-by visiting the sick, comforting people in mourning, welcoming travelers or guests, providing appropriate burial for the dead, throwing a wedding, or giving tzedakah. The rabbis of the Talmud teach that chesed is even greater than tzedakah because chesed can be done with the body as well as with money, for the rich as well as the poor, and for the dead as well as the living.
Here too the usual English translation of "lovingkindness" misses a key element. In the Bible, chesed meant living up to a covenantal responsibility, so my Bible professors taught me to translate chesed as "covenant loyalty." Loyalty captures the blend of duty and feelings of concern, connection, and sympathy that we naturally have for those with whom we feel a bond. Doing chesed means feeling that loyalty toward all other human beings. We owe each other our compassion, not only when it happens to well up within us.
Gemilut chasadim literally means "paying back chesed." Since chesed is showered on us each day, all our lives-from family and loved ones, from the created world around us-the only way to repay it is to do chesed for others.
Tikkun Olam
Tikkun olam can be translated as "repairing the universe" or "fixing the world." Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the great mystic and teacher of the 1500s, taught that during the creation of the world, in order to make room for the universe in the first place-the original act of chesed--God withdrew into the Divine self, and then sent a metaphorical divine light into the emptiness. The vessels that had been prepared to contain that light shattered, and as a result God's light dispersed throughout creation, where it remains trapped as hidden sparks. Creation is not finished until these sparks are released and reunited, which the mystics believe can only happen through the performance of God's commandments.
The wider lesson from this version of creation is that God requires humanity as a partner in completing the work of creating a world that is whole. Tikkun Olam has come to mean repairing all that is broken about society. Around the globe, poverty, environmental degradation, violence, discrimination and prejudice are evidence that things are in great need of repair and completion. We do not and cannot depend on God to make things whole. Only we can finish the job. By the same token, each small act along the way may not always seem to make a difference, but it liberates another spark of divinity and redemption, and is therefore of cosmic importance.
Next page: what does a poor person need?, how we can strengthen others, making "peah" a contemporary mitzvah, remembering our own oppression
