Avos chapter 3, mishnah 8 (in some versions of the Mishnah: mishnah 7). This is an especially important mishnah, and its subject is the proper attitude toward giving tzedakah - how a person should relate, in his thoughts and in his feelings, to spending his money on holy purposes and worthy causes. This is a topic that does not receive nearly enough attention, and it therefore deserves careful consideration.
The text of the mishnah:
"Rabbi Elazar ish Bartosa omer: ten lo mishelo, she'atah v'shelcha shelo" - Rabbi Elazar, the rav of the town of Bartosa, says: give to Him, to the Holy One blessed be He, from what is already His, for you and everything you own are His. "V'chen b'David hu omer: ki mimcha hakol umiyadcha nasanu lach" - and similarly David Hamelech said, in the context of collecting the funds for building a house for Hashem, the Beis Hamikdash: everything comes from You, and from Your own hand we give to You. The money gathered to build the house of the Holy One blessed be He - the house is His to begin with, and the money is His to begin with.
In several versions the mishnah continues with additional matters, but according to the version before us its words end here. What makes this mishnah distinctive is that it stands apart from most of the subjects of Pirkei Avos, which center on Torah study and the like; here the mishnah teaches how a person should relate to his own giving of tzedakah.
"V'nasnu" - giving that goes out and comes back:
It is well known that the verse speaking about the giving of the machatzis hashekel, the half shekel that is part of the census, appears in Shemos chapter 30 (in parashas Ki Sisa): "v'nasnu ish kofer nafsho laHashem". The word "v'nasnu" is a palindrome - vav, nun, tav, nun, vav - read the same forwards and backwards, hinting that the giving travels in both directions. Usually this is explained to mean that a person gives, but receives back in return for his giving. According to the point of our mishnah, however, we should focus on the opposite direction: the emphasis is not that a person gives first and afterward receives compensation, but rather that he first received from what the Holy One blessed be He gave him, and out of that receiving he gives back.
Even the cantillation marks that appear over that word "v'nasnu" are called "kadma v'azla", whose literal meaning is go forward and then return. Whatever a person has should be understood as a gift from the Holy One blessed be He to him, so that he will be able to give it back.
Rabbi Elazar ish Bartosa - giving taken to the extreme:
It is quite striking that this Rabbi Elazar, who is called by the name of his place, Bartosa, and who is referred to elsewhere in Shas as Rabbi Elazar ben Yehudah, did not merely preach but also practiced, and he took the matter to its very limit. The Gemara in Taanis chapter 3 relates that he would give away everything he had, until he was left without a penny. It reached the point that the tzedakah collectors of his city would hide from him, because every time he saw them he would empty his pockets, and they were uncomfortable with that.
Once they hid from him at a time when he was putting together money to marry off his daughter. When he noticed the collectors he ran after them and asked: "What are you collecting for?" They answered him: "An orphan girl and an orphan boy are getting married, and we are collecting for them." He said to them: if so, my money belongs to them, and he gave his daughter's dowry for the orphans' wedding.
And even then, the Gemara relates, he did not give away everything: he kept one coin in his pocket, and with it he bought a little wheat and put it in the storeroom. Immediately afterward his wife went to check the storeroom, and found it bursting with wheat, to the point that she could not open the door. She ran to her husband and told him that the storeroom was filled to overflowing. He answered her: this is a miracle Hashem did for us so that we would be able to give more tzedakah, but this is not our wheat, and we have no more right to it than any other poor person.
The limits of giving - the enactment of Usha:
Even so, this way of giving is not healthy. The Sages say "hiskinu b'Usha" - in the city of Usha, one of the places where the Sanhedrin convened after the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash - that one who is generous should not give away more than a fifth. There is an upper limit here: a person may not give more than twenty percent of his income to charity, because he is not permitted to impoverish himself. Charity begins at home, and a person must first provide for his family and his own needs, and the Sages did not want him to lose his livelihood.
Ma'aser Kesafim - Its Practice and Its Force:
Although Rabbi Elazar's example is extreme, the principle that emerges from it is enormously important. The custom throughout all of Israel's communities is to give ma'aser kesafim - ten percent of one's income for charitable purposes - and one who wishes to fulfill this in the finest way may go up to twenty percent.
There is a discussion about the force of ma'aser kesafim: one opinion holds that it is from the Torah, like the tithe of grain from which we give a tenth; some learned that it is an obligation from the Rabbis; but most authorities agree that it is a custom of Israel. This does not mean that it may be treated lightly because it is a custom, not at all. After all, a person does not walk around without a yarmulke on his head, even though neither the Torah nor the Sages require it - the yarmulke comes from custom, and it is a Jewish thing to do. Just as it is not fitting to be seen without a yarmulke, so it is not fitting to be seen without giving ten percent of one's money to charity. This is what a Jew is supposed to do, and there is no doubt about it.
The Parable of the Trustee of the Charity Fund:
How, then, should one relate to this? Rabbi Shlomo Farhi explains it in a way that speaks to the heart and illuminates the matter: a person should relate to the charity money in his hands as though the Holy One, Blessed is He, established a small charity fund and appointed him as its trustee. A person who receives a paycheck for one hundred - ninety of it was given to him to see to his needs, and he should enjoy it with a blessing; but the remaining ten percent is not his at all. This is money designated for charity, and he has been appointed to be the trustee, meaning the one with the authority to decide how those ten will be spent.
It is as if the Holy One, Blessed is He, is saying to him: I trust you, and I want you to feel like a giver and not like a receiver, to feel generous, to feel like My partner in creation and in caring for the world, and like a guardian over it. Therefore I am placing this charity fund in your hands - here is your allocation, and do with it what is incumbent upon you. The discretion is in the person's hands, and he may choose how to distribute his charity; there is halachic guidance as to what takes precedence, but in the end the choice is his. The main point is this: this is not his money. Those ten in the fund are not his.
Tzedakah - Social Justice:
In non-Jewish circles the prevailing view is that a person's money is his own, and if he gives charity it is an added merit that makes him a special person who gives of his own; and if he gives nothing at all - there is nothing wrong with that, he simply is not a special person. But this is not the Jewish outlook at all. Tzedakah means integrity and social justice, and we demand justice: "Tzedek tzedek tirdof" - justice, justice shall you pursue. A person is not permitted to do less than justice, and this is the cornerstone of Judaism's view of society. A person must build a just society, fight for it and actively pursue it, and social justice means that there is an imbalance in society, and the responsibility rests on the person to correct it through his charity.
Let us picture a person appointed as trustee over a charity fund, with ten thousand in the fund's account. The trustee generously distributes five thousand to the most worthy causes, and puts the remaining five thousand in his own pocket. No one will say about him: how kind-hearted he is, that he gave five thousand to charity. They will say about him: this man stole five thousand, it is a terrible act, and he is nothing but an untrustworthy and dishonest guardian of the charity fund, who took half the money for himself. That is exactly the person who gives five percent.
Therefore, when a person receives his money, he must tithe it and give ten percent to charity, and relate to that portion as money that is not his and never was his; and not giving it is like taking something that is not his - something he would never do.
A Halachic Proof of This:
This is not merely a beautiful idea. It certainly is a beautiful idea, but it is also reflected in the halachah itself, and what follows is a technical, legal proof that is worth paying attention to. The general rule is that when a dispute arises over who owns a sum of money, and Reuven and Shimon disagree over who receives it, the first and most important principle in any case of doubt is hamotzi mechaveiro alav hara'ayah: we establish who the presumed owner is, called the muchzak, and he represents the existing state of affairs; if someone else wishes to extract it from his hand, the burden of proof rests on him, and if he has no conclusive evidence, the money stays with the muchzak.
Now consider the gifts to the poor that are mandated by the Torah: pe'ah, the corner of the field left for the poor to harvest themselves; shichechah, the forgotten sheaves; and leket, the stalks that fall during the harvesting. Suppose a doubt arises about a small amount of wheat, and the farmer and the poor man disagree about it: is it from the edge, making it pe'ah that belongs to the poor man, or is it from the middle, making it the farmer's?
On the face of it, the field is the farmer's field, and we would expect to say that the farmer is the muchzak, and the burden of proof is on the one who wishes to extract it, so that unless the poor man brings proof, the wheat remains in the farmer's hands. But that is not the halachah. The halachah is that in a case of doubt regarding gifts to the poor, we give it to the poor man, and the poor man is the presumed owner; if the farmer wishes to claim it, the burden of proof rests on him. It emerges that in the area of gifts to the poor, the halachah views the poor man as the muchzak, and the wealthy landowner is not acting generously and giving from what is his - these are not his assets at all, but the assets of the poor man, and he is nothing more than a guardian and a trustee.
In practice:
Therefore every person should be careful to keep track of his income. One practical approach is to rely on the annual tax filings, since at that point a proper accounting of total income is drawn up, and one can see in retrospect exactly what was earned. A person should look at ten percent of his income - and according to many poskim this may be calculated after taxes are deducted, and that is the common practice - and that sum he should give to charity each year, to whatever cause he considers worthy.
Returning to the words of the Mishnah:
But one must look at this money as though it is not his own, but the money of the Holy One, blessed is He. In the words of the Mishnah: "tein lo mishelo" - give to the needs of the Holy One, blessed is He, from His own money, for He is the One who funded the principal by giving ten out of every hundred so that it should be handed over. "she'atah v'shelcha shelo" - everything a person has comes from the Holy One, blessed is He, and even his very life comes from Him. Anyone who imagines that he is doing something great by returning a little is mistaken. This is the plain meaning of the Mishnah, and with God's help may we all merit to fulfill this important halachah of ma'aser kesafim: giving charity, tithing one's money and giving ten percent to worthy needs.