Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

April 4, 2017

Does the Torah Mandate Charity for Those Who Don’t Wish to Work?

It’s not a clear-cut issue.

During testimony before a Congressional hearing on the federal food-stamp program, a representative of a Jewish “social-justice” organization asserted, citing Leviticus, that “the Jewish tradition” mandates the distribution of charity without regard for whether the recipients are able to earn money themselves. While Mark Tooley has responded to this claim from a Christian perspective, Gil Student explains that the Jewish view is in fact far more nuanced than the witness at the hearing suggested:

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