The Talmud And The College Loan Program, Etc.

Saperstein, David

THE TALMUD AND THE COLLEGE LOAN PROGRAM, ETC Can Jewish texts be used to prove contemporary political wisdom? DAVID SAPERSTEIN Jewish scholars, writers and community leaders often seek to "prove"...

...While that view never became the normative view in this nation, its legacy lingers still today...
...Conservatism asserts that there are inherent differences between people, and, therefore, that there are intrinsic limits as to how far an individual or society can progress...
...Concern for the dignity of the poor led to certain procedures that distinguish the Jewish tradition from even the enlightened U.S...
...The expected reduction in fiscal 1983 social programs totals $17.5 billion...
...and if the entire infrastructure of bridges, roads, sewers and trains falls apart in New York and other large cities...
...This was regulated by the government officials who also monitored the weights and measures of retailers...
...the presumptions of the past are usable as instruction for the present...
...9. Freedom of choice and the concomitant responsibility of each person for his or her own actions...
...Ultimately, we as Jews must recognize that we fulfill the mandate of darchei shalom only when we convince this country that the quality of American life, the state of our cities and the status of group relations are the ultimate measures of our national security...
...Nedarim 81a) The Reagan Administration's decision to cut education aid by 17.9 percent at a time when our schools are beleaguered thus runs counter to the thrust of the Jewish tradition...
...we are endangered by an America angry and torn apart...
...Social welfare programs had to be run in such a way as to meet the needs of the weak and vulnerable, whose dignity and inherent rights had to be respected...
...In addition, the ways in which Jewish communities have implemented those principles can be an instructive (albeit not determinative) model for our own society...
...denied the citizens their request about that matter but he did not obstruct them when they desired the city might be paved with white stone...
...The eighth and most meritorious degree of charity is to anticipate charity by preventing poverty...
...What good is a neutron bomb if drugs and crime destroy Miami, if we can't afford public schools in D.C...
...There were special community officials, agronomos, who regulated and tested the quality of the foods and liquors and who controlled the weights and measures...
...It rejects the idea that there are intrinsic limitations to the progress that a determined individual or society can make...
...But the Administration's proposals endanger the entirety of the programs, gutting their substance and their spirit...
...These are human inventions, to be assessed according to the universal and eternal values of our tradition...
...This not only helped each individual fulfill the mitz-vah of tz'dakah, but also prevented the stratification of society into two classes...
...Shabbat 119b) The Jewish Tradition and Full Employment: If the Jewish view of charity required that the dignity of the recipient be of preeminent concern then we must conclude, as did the Talmud, that "greater is one who lends than one who gives, and who, with the loan, helps the poor person to help himself...
...Hachnassat Kallah (providing dowries for poor girls...
...The issues raised by President Reagan's economic program are not new issues...
...We do not believe that God seeks for us to "Judaize" America, i.e., to make Jewish law applicable to this non-Jewish society...
...7. The existence of certain laws (the seven Noachide laws) that are regarded as essential to any civilized society...
...A recent Congressional Budget Office report notes that about 86 percent of all the federal income tax benefits enacted last year by Congress at President Reagan's request will go to families with incomes over $20,000, while two-thirds of all cuts in benefits will be taken from families with incomes below $20,000...
...Government was an indispensable tool in fashioning programs that would further the fundamental values which underlie the tradition...
...It is a matter of self-interest as well...
...It was an absolute requirement that the help be given in such a way as to enhance the dignity of the recipient...
...decent education...
...each collector could check the others...
...and the kupah, the communal money fund, the contents of which were distributed every Friday to poor members of the community...
...And God has not ordained the social welfare state—or supply-side economics...
...To millions of the disadvantaged in our society, the programs which have fallen victim to Reaganomics gave hope, opportunity—indeed, life...
...The Puritans might well have attempted to dress their legal and political structures in Old Testament clothing, but they themselves wore Calvin genes...
...Mishneh Torah, Matnot Anivim 9:14, 16, 17) The Jewish system of social welfare, then, was aimed at encouraging people to maintain the economic standard they had achieved...
...It is this act which helps us to approach the divine and which infuses meaning to our existence...
...It is the extra-legal principles, assumptions and values underlying the halachic system that are ordained by God to be applicable to all people— Jews and non-Jews alike...
...Be zealous with children of the poor, for from them learning will come forth...
...This liberal view of Jewish communal intervention in the society manifested itself in other forms...
...We are the oldest community in America ? today...
...Old furniture could not be restored and sold as new...
...People today have more income, in terms of real purchasing power, than they had in 1960...
...of "winners" and "losers" under the tax spending cuts, the only winners are families with incomes over $47,800...
...He must not feel pressed to dispose of his property at an inopportune time...
...The median age of the Ameri-i can populace is 28...
...After the transfer payments of cash and non-cash, only 6.9 percent lived in poverty...
...In 1976 only 14.1 percent lived in poverty...
...and Pundak (a highway inn sponsored by the community for travellers, offering food and shelter...
...Stabilizing the Working Poor and the Middle Class: Once people had jobs, the Jewish welfare system continued to intervene in the economic processes of the society in such a way as to support them in their efforts to support themselves...
...3. The capacity of all people, given the will and the right educational tools, to improve themselves...
...But the problem with our tradition is that there is hardly a political, social, economic or even religious matter on which there is just one valid Jewish position...
...It was not just those who were unable to survive without aid who were recipients of aid from the social welfare system...
...these give rise to the presumptions that have far more weight than individual decisions, for they reflect the general perspectives out of which the individual decisions grew...
...you can swim and fish in more rivers than you could in 1960...
...Regardless of a family's economic status, each child was guaranteed a Would anyone in this nation really wish to go back to a time when government was not seen as a tool of social justice...
...Among these communal agencies were Bikkur Cholim (visiting the sick, including women convalescing after childbirth...
...Even when, in later legislation, there were attempts to limit those areas of the economy where the one-sixth rule applied, it was always applied tfc food and other necessities of life...
...Rather than protecting the weak and the poor, as our tradition requires, the/Reagan program places an unfair and disproportionate burden on the shoulders of those who are least able to sustain it...
...The other aspect of self-interest is that the Jewish community's well-being is undermined in a society that lacks a sense of social justice...
...So when the people saw that the workmen were unemployed, who were about 18,000, and that they, receiving no wages, were in want, because they had earned their bread by their labors about the Temple . . . they persuaded (King Agrippa) to rebuild the eastern cloisters...
...In large cities where vacancy rates were low (making housing difficult to find), the eviction notice time was 12 months...
...However, a strong case can clearly be extrapolated from the principles and historical motifs discussed above to the effect that both individuals and societal structures have a responsibility to pursue the goal of full employment...
...He is permitted to subsist on poor-tithe up to one-half of the value...
...Antiquities of the Jews XX, 9:7) Since pre-modern Jewish communities never faced precisely the complex decisions involved in establishing a full employment economy, no definitive statement can be made regarding the tradition's stance on this issue...
...they provided a chance to share in the American dream and in the bounty of God's earth...
...a clothing fund...
...While some of that improvement is due to better private pension funds, most of it is the result of the growth of social security, and of Medicare and food stamps...
...Will it profit us to become Number One militarily, if the cost for that superiority is a society that unravels at the seams, where the quality of life degenerates and our people divide into angry, squabbling opponents, fighting for crumbs of a shrinking pie...
...The family's income, according to the study, would be 79 percent of the poverty standard if working—and 86 percent if not working...
...Indeed, to be indigent was a sure sign that a person was not one of God's "elect...
...Those "ways" were based on the belief that government and society had the authority and responsibility to see that the rights of the individuals in the community, particularly the poor, the elderly, the ill, the widowed and the orphaned, were honored...
...Many regulations were enforced to protect the consumer...
...It rejects the notion that wealth is a reflection of superiority and that to seek to redistribute it is foolish and self-defeating...
...This was done so as to insure the honesty of the system...
...But today, a different view is accorded considerable political weight...
...And friends in Congress tell us that as people become more concerned over how to find jobs, how to provide their families with decent meals, health care and education, they become less willing to support this country's foreign aid programs—including, inevitably, aid to Israel...
...As the late Hubert Humphrey once said, "Providing justice and equality to all its people is a legitimate function—indeed responsibility—of government...
...When someone was hungry, however, it gave first and investigated later...
...Respect for the Dignity of the Poor: The assertion of the inherent dignity and equality of each and every person led our tradition to emphasize those forms of charity that respected the poor...
...Halachah is not a legal system that is intended to be imposed on all the world...
...And this trend \ is becoming more conspicuous...
...God has abdicated part of the function of the divine," argues Professor Isadore Twersky, "in order to enable us to continue and extend creation...
...As a political tradition, however, in its view of society, of the individual and of the role that organized communal and governmental structures play in society, it is equally clear that Judaism reflects a profoundly liberal tradition...
...Does this mean that Judaism, because it has too much to say about modern issues, has nothing to say about them...
...Jewish communities rarely had the economic wherewithal actually to implement full employment programs...
...It contains, as well, tendencies, approaches, patterns...
...more own automobiles...
...namely, to assist the reduced Jew, either by a considerable gift, or a loan of money, or by teaching the person a trade, or by putting the person in the way of business so that the person may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out a hand for charity...
...they persuasively animate our rejection of the theory and particulars of the Reaganomic program...
...The community recognized that fraud could never be eliminated completely...
...These assumptions and principles are eternal...
...Storekeepers could not delude the buyer by displaying the best wares on top...
...The median age of ; the Jewish community is 48 (primarily 1 because we have been practicing zero population growth for a generation and tend to live longer than most...
...People today live longer, and infant mortality is lower...
...Because of such work-related expenses as child care, the family would end up with $40 less in monthly disposable income if the mother took a job in which the gross pay was $486 a month, the average for working welfare recipients in this state...
...I would suggest ten: 1. The inherent dignity and importance of all humankind, derived from the belief that we are all made in the image of God...
...Of particular concern are the proposed cuts in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that provides federal assistance to school districts with a high concentration of poor children and Title VII that does the same for school districts with a high concentration of children who have limited English-speaking backgrounds...
...About $6.9 billion of that will be cut from families with incomes under $10,000...
...no economic program is...
...It set up means by which to eliminate those who were not qualified...
...The Reaganomic program, on the other hand, functions in a way that serves to undermine those who wish to help themselves...
...The funds were distributed by at least three people in order to insure the efficiency of the programs...
...Better no giving at all than the giving which humiliates...
...It is difficult, therefore, to see how a program that results in drastically higher unemployment rates and a sharply reduced government role in providing jobs can be reconciled with the principles and values of the Jewish tradition or with the historical models that the Jewish community developed...
...Animals could not be given drugs that would make them appear younger than they were...
...Poverty was viewed not as something endemic and inherent in the society, but as a terrible blight that should be eradicated...
...Indeed, humanity was created only on the assumption that we would passionately pursue chesed (kindness...
...Many of those 6.9 percent were better off than they would have been without the programs...
...welfare system...
...Bet Y'tomim (orphanage...
...As we read in Deuteronomy 15:7,8: "If there be among you a needy person, one of your brothers and sisters, within any of your gates, in your land which the Eternal your God has given you, you shall not harden your heart nor withhold your hand from your needy sibling...
...Polemicists often speak mistakenly, as though a political response that successfully implemented the values and principles of Judaism in a Jewish state or self-governing Jewish community is equally useful in all times for all communities...
...By medieval times the work of tz'dakah had become so specialized that numerous charitable societies—indeed, a veritable social welfare bureaucracy—had sprung up...
...Lack of learning was conducive to poverty," the tradition wisely observed...
...In its view of individual behavior, the Jewish tradition was profoundly conservative...
...Such an owner is allowed to subsist on the poor-tithe as long as may be necessary to enable him to sell at a normal price, people being made to understand that he is under no pressure to sell...
...Yet there were major reforms that were required...
...There was specific legislation as to when workers must be paid, in accordance with the nature of the work and the custom of the community...
...As a medieval Jewish tradition says, "If one says, 'What have I to do with the concerns of the community, what have I to do with their pursuits, why must I listen to their talk...
...If all the afflictions of the world were assembled on one side of the scale and poverty were placed on the other, poverty would outweigh them all...
...In areas of high elderly Jewish ! population, such as Miami, as many I as 50 percent of the Jewish elderly I need some kind of government benei fits, primarily food stamps, in order to : provide for themselves...
...What are these principle assumptions...
...In order to answer that question, an essential methodological distinction must be made between those aspects of the tradition that, from a Jewish perspective, are universal—and therefore binding upon the United States— and those that are either binding only upon Jews or are not binding at all, and therefore capable only of providing insight into our modern societal problems...
...4. The community often passed ordinances that protected the environment, particularly the roads and the streams nearby...
...And while the proposed 1983 cuts will affect all benefit progams across the board, the working poor will be hurt to a degree that impairs the economic incentive to work...
...They had brought with them a religious dogma that told them that the impoverished suffered either because of laziness or God's will...
...the air is cleaner and the highways are safer...
...In 1976, without government benefits, 64 percent of elderly families had incomes of 25 percent above the poverty line or less...
...It is rooted in the belief that both individual human beings and human society are capable of being improved...
...The historian Josephus records what may well have been one of the first public works projects ever undertaken to alleviate the debilitating impact of unemployment: "And now it was that the Temple was finished...
...but you shall surely open your hand and shall surely lend to him sufficient for his needs in that which he wants...
...Since the right to better oneself was universal, education was universal...
...With all of the problems regarding social welfare programs, with all their faults and limitations, on the whole they have worked...
...8. The rule of law, to which even the highest human ruler is accountable...
...America today is a far more decent, compassionate and fair society than ever before...
...Malbish Arumim (clothing the poor—literally, "the naked...
...More Americans own homes and vacation homes...
...6. The belief that a society or a state is created to serve the needs of its citizens—not vice-versa...
...In 1977, without transfer payments, more than 25 percent of all families recorded income below the poverty level...
...To this, Scripture alludes when it says: 'And if your brother or sister becomes poor and falls into decay with you, then you shall relieve that person...
...they ensured survival and betterment and a chance to pursue happiness—and that is what any government, and especially the American government, is supposed to be all about...
...The paramount obligation of individuals and societies to pursue justice, righteousness and darchei shalom, the ways of peace, i.e., to be involved in the work of social justice...
...Pidyon Sh'vuim (ransoming of captives and care of refugees...
...The abuse becomes apparent when a person with the opposite position cites, with equal vigor and scholarship, his or her equally authentic "proofs...
...Liberals tend, in pursuit of society's goals, to tolerate a broad range of values, life-styles, religious beliefs and individual differences...
...This view of the poor as being equal to those who have wealth, as entitled as a matter of right to the help necessary to live at a minimally adequate standard, has also been the foundation of the U.S...
...3. Talmudic legislation protected the rights of tenants against the hardship of eviction...
...The world rests on the breath of the children in school," we read in Shab-bat 119b...
...The Administration might well heed the admonition of the Talmud that "Jerusalem was destroyed only because the children did not attend school and loitered in the streets...
...So it is today that our self-interest as Jews is served by our commitment to a just and fair society...
...Most premodern Jewish communties had a G'milut Chesed society whose primary purpose was to grant loans to the needy without interest or security...
...Darchei Shalom: Social Justice as a Function of Jewish Self-interest Finally, it must be recognized that, for the Jewish community, social justice is not just a matter of altruism...
...It animates the denials of David Stockman and Reaganomics supporters, who reject the notion that America's needy citizens have access to jobs, housing, medical and food programs as a matter of right, of "entitlement...
...that the person may live with you.' This is the highest step and the summit of charity's golden ladder...
...It wpuld reject much of the contemporary liberal view that we are each entitled to "do our own thing...
...after benefit payments, that percentage shrank to 24 percent...
...For example, since tz'dakah is an individual as well as communal obligation, the communal authorities taxed every person in the community...
...The medieval equivalent of the working poor and even of today's middle and lower classes were, under certain circumstances, entitled to help as well...
...talmudic and post-talmu-dic communities dealt with analogous matters, and an exploration of the ways in which they dealt with such matters helps clarify what I mean by "presumptions"—and, incidentally, helps frame the Jewish approach to Reaganomics...
...Nearly an entire chapter in tractate Baba Kama is devoted to environmental regulation...
...A person is not required to sell at a time when people are paying high prices, while the seller, because of his straightened circumstances, can obtain only a low price...
...Hekdesh (an agency serving as a hospital and shelter for the aged, the poor and the stranger...
...Many of the most famous rabbis of the talmudic and medieval periods came from the poorest families...
...The hopeless elderly trapped on fixed incomes...
...Such a position is, on face value, confusing and unjustified by Jewish law or history...
...But God did not ordain the society for Bikkur Cholim or Tamhuy...
...The four funds mandated by the Talmud included a daily food distribution program, the tamhuy, which gave to every hungry person, even to the stranger...
...Only if we work together with those of the Christian community, the labor unions, the public interest groups and our other traditional allies who share our belief that we must guarantee that people be enabled to live their lives with dignity and self-respect—only then will we be able to help our own...
...The mitzvah of tikun olam and the pursuit of darchei shalom mandate that Jews remain deeply involved in achieving such goals and in applying the sharp ethical insights of our tradition to contemporary problems...
...I In particular, many elderly Jews living J on fixed incomes could not live at a minimally-adequate standard without government intervention on their behalf...
...This view comes to us from Calvinism, through the Puritans, into the mainstream of American thought...
...First, one out of every 13 I Jews lives at or below the poverty line...
...Would anyone in this nation really wish to go back to a time when government was not seen as a tool of social justice, when the federal government was not involved in regulating economic, business and environmental concerns...
...In almost every area of social welfare concerns, the Jewish tradition mandated that it was not only the right, but the obligation of the society and the government to intervene in the workings of the economic and social fabric of the society...
...Non-Jewish modern states can only extrapolate from the wisdom of the halachah, adapting and applying it to their own economic and social realities...
...In some communities, the right to strike was protected...
...Girls also had to be taught to read and write...
...Mishneh Torah, Matnot Aniyim 10:7) In fact, helping people to help themselves by providing jobs was more a goal than an attainable reality...
...Regulations as to the wages and hours of the laborers were promulgated and enforced...
...They are human creations, political, economic and social responses that men and women of former times believed to represent Jewish values...
...it clearly violates the fundamental values of that tradition...
...Do Jews, for example, have halachic responsibility to engage in charitable work that helps non-Jews...
...So it is sometimes specious, often disingenuous and almost always fruitless to assert a classical proof for a contemporary position...
...In Roman law, price was a matter to be determined by free contract only...
...With a touch of irony and a sense of frustration, the Talmud finds a use even for the freeloaders, noting, "Be good to impos-ters...
...The severe cuts in the student loan program will make it almost impossible for some students, and very difficult for many others, to afford a decent higher education...
...When this vision of the world came into contact with the cornucopia of the colonies, a hardened opinion of the poor set in...
...The Jewish tradition, as reflected in our texts, is much, much more than a collection of apparently contradictory decisions...
...The relentless undermining of our social welfare programs goes on and on, all for the sake of eliminating a budget deficit that this year may reach unprecedented levels of over $ 150 billion...
...In 1982, the group that shouldered the greatest proportion of the benefit cuts was the working poor...
...But these programs, in accordance with the values of our religious tradition and our national heritage, filled human needs—and human beings are sacred...
...It was regarded as a high honor to contribute to the support of a poor student...
...Is that past relevant to the issue of Reaganomics...
...There is less room for divergent beliefs and positions...
...in contrast, the Talmud stipulated that the sale price could not ordinarily differ by more than one sixth from the fair market value of the product sold...
...2. The equality of all people, rooted in our common descent from Eve and Adam...
...It posits the notion that equal rights and equal opportunities in the context of a just and fair society can provide the political and social framework for such progress in the human condition...
...The Talmudic prohibition of bal tashchit ("do not destroy") underlies many laws which protected the environment against waste...
...The Budget Cuts: It is clear that there were changes that had to be made in our economic and welfare programs...
...The pursuit of the "ways of peace" reflects the belief that the Jewish community thrives best in an atmosphere that cherishes the mutual well-being of all people and cooperation among the various segments of the community...
...While the point has been argued, most scholars hold that darchei shalom is an extra-legal source of Jewish law...
...Ketubot 68a) In his superb book, The Ways of Righteousness, Rabbi Richard Hirsch describes how, as Jewish society grew more complex and the needs of its members increased as well, the Jewish community began to expand its communal social welfare system...
...President Reagan pledged that he would not destroy the "safety net" for the truly needy of this land...
...Shabbat 63a) Almost a millenium after this was written, the medieval philosopher Maimonides defined the various types of charity and categorized them into his famous "eight degrees of charity," the highest of which is to enable to person to become self-supporting...
...From talmudic times on, the Jewish community was (incidentally) concerned about freeloaders, about those who might take from these funds though not truly needy...
...They imply, thereby, that the position they espouse is the only valid Jewish position...
...bidden to destroy fruit-bearing trees but whoever breaks vessels, tears clothes, demolishes a building, stops up a fountain or wastes food, in a destructive way, transgresses the law of 'thou shalt not destroy.'" (Mishneh Torah, Melachim 6:10) Applying the Tradition Does this survey of how Jewish communities of the past translated the values of our tradition into the social and economic fabric of society provide us with any guidance...
...Further, it is essential to note that the political manifestations of our tradition that I have mentioned above are not mandated by God...
...Liberalism asserts that if the natural workings of the economic and social mechanisms of a society do not result in a just society, government has a responsibility to intervene in the functioning of those economic and social processes to guarantee both equal opportunity and a basic standard of living to which all its citizens have an inalienable right...
...Analyzing the Tradition The underlying ideological issue is, of course, the continuing debate between conservatism and liberalism...
...Education and the Fulfillment of Human Potential: The belief in the dignity and value of each human being and in the inherent ability of each human being to progress, if given the proper tools, led the Jewish community early on to develop universal education—at least for boys...
...Judaism regards halachah as the outcome of the covenant made at Sinai between God and the Jewish people...
...This is so for two reasons...
...2. The rights of the workers were also protected by government regulation...
...Yes, the programs worked...
...God does not ordain either capitalism or socialism...
...The Way of the Upright 107) Where possible, communities would undertake efforts to provide employment...
...They include bans on murder, robbery, blasphemy, idolatry, sexual crimes and the eating of living flesh, and they require that every community establish courts of justice...
...By talmudic times, government-run welfare programs were an integral part of Jewish communal life...
...Through their acceptance, the Jewish people has altered the way the human race looks at itself and its world...
...Ketubot 50a) The responsibility to engage in tz'dakah is one of the most clearly stated and oft-repeated mitzvot in the Torah...
...Bamidbar Rabbah 19) If a community grew to a certain size and the communal authorities had not established a school, those authorities could be punished...
...From a Jewish perspective then, there are certain principles that we regard as binding upon all nations and by which we must insist the Reaganomic program be measured...
...David Saperstein is Co-director and Counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Chairperson of IMPACT, the largest interfaith social action network in the United States...
...We Jews have a profound stake in an America that is compassionate and whole...
...But the orgy of criticism of liberal programs threatens to drown the baby in the bath water...
...Even as early as talmudic times: 1. Communal authorities intervened in the marketplace so as to guarantee that sales would be fair and equitable...
...That vision is in danger of being lost...
...While the social welfare community evolved by the Jewish rabbinic authorities is not necessarily the only way to further the values of our tradition, the pattern that emerged in Jewish history and in Jewish law provides a powerful standard against which the programs of our own society can becompared...
...King Agrippa, who had the care of the Temple committed to him by Claudius Caesar...
...In fact, the Jewish communal welfare state contained many of the features that have evolved in our own country over the last 50 years...
...Studies over the last few decades have found that anti-Semitism increases when people are deprived of a decent education, and when people lose confidence in the ability of the society to protect their economic well-being...
...that "ethics are relative...
...But in the aching abyss between the promise and the deed lie the shattered lives of millions of Americans...
...This occurred especially whenever economic problems such as inflation plagued the community or when an individual suffered temporary economic reversals...
...Conservatives tend to see personal behavior and social issues in more, absolute terms than do liberals—often rooting that morality in what they see as "traditional values...
...According to a newly released study from the University of Chicago, "poor people who choose to work would have less disposable income than if they depended entirely on federal aid under the President's proposed budget for the coming fiscal year...
...This government role was a manifestation of a basic philosophic assumption underlying Jewish notions of tz'dakah: It is a requirement for both individuals and the community to be involved in tz'dakah...
...Without them, our stinginess would lack its chief excuse...
...Jewish welfare legislation did not require people to plead poverty nor to divest themselves of their possessions in order to receive assistance...
...In New York State, for example, a three-person family with no earnings would get, on the average, $508 a month in welfare, food stamps and energy assistance under Mr...
...He who gives charity in secret is even greater than Moses...
...a burial fund, likewise usable for all...
...The citizens of this country may need to make sacrifices, but they ought to be equitable and fair...
...In businesses where extension of long-term credit was essential, the eviction time could be even longer so that the tenant-proprietor could collect all outstanding debts...
...They inhere in the very nature of humankind...
...Proposed cuts by 50 percent in job training programs and by 96 percent in public service jobs reflect a sharply different view of the role of government than that which our tradition embodies...
...Everybody with incomes less than $22,900 loses...
...The fact is, even if we increased drastically our contributions to Jewish federations (which we certainly should) we could not provide for our own without government help...
...These cuts will deprive not only the young...
...No society that throws millions of people on the junk heap and no administration that places a balanced budget, reassurance to business or even fear of inflation above concern with human catastrophe can be judged to have enhanced the vision of America or furthered the values of the Jewish tradition...
...Social justice elevates our life from brutishness to sensitivity and extricates us from chaotic, vacuous biological existence...
...Chevrah Kaddishah (for burial of the dead...
...Maimonides analyzes in some depth whether Jewish standards of tz'dakah should control the behavior of the Jewish community towards its non-Jewish neighbors...
...Many of them, have, in fact, been absorbed into the mainstream of Western civilization...
...welfare system...
...Instead, the policies have created undue hardships for those who are already buffetted most severely by our current economic problems...
...It echoes in the accusations against welfare chiselers...
...Rabbi Alexander Schindler has pointed out: "The programs that were cut were not sacred...
...It regards skeptically any attempt to change the natural order inherent in society's social and economic fabric...
...Peace to thee, ? my soul,' such a person destroys the world...
...In fact, virtually every page of the Talmud records minority perspectives along with majority decisions, and in many cases, years later, those minority perspectives became the accepted doctrines...
...DAVID SAPERSTEIN Jewish scholars, writers and community leaders often seek to "prove" a modern political point by quoting a classical religious text...
...In 1959 nearly 38 percent of those over 65 had incomes below the poverty level...
...it was willing to risk supporting some who might actually be able to provide for themselves in order to support the many who truly needed help...
...Talmud Torah (for the education of children, especially of the poor...
...that "what is right for you may not be right for me...
...Moshav Z'kenim (home for the aged...
...Every tenant was given the right to 30 days notice of eviction...
...Reagan's proposals...
...Even the poor, who were recipients of welfare funds, were taxed...
...each person helped the poor...
...4. The concept of wealth as representing that which is God's, that is given to human owners in a trust relationship—a trust that requires sharing of the wealth with the less fortunate...
...Baba Batra 8a) This anonymity saved the recipient from embarrassment and a sense of humiliation...
...In the premodern world of the Jews, halachah reflected a cultural and political context rooted either in a Jewish state or in a self-governing Jewish community...
...The values and political models of Judaism continue to illuminate our political issues...
...As Maimonides sets forth the law: "One who owns houses, fields or vineyards, and who would, during the rainy season, have to sell them for less than their values but who would obtain full value if he waits until the summer season, is not required to sell during the rainy season...
...5. The attendant special concern that God has mandated for the poor, the widowed, the hungry and the orphaned...
...They feel a social obligation to defend a pluralistic society where different religious, ethnic and socioeconomic groups can coexist without necessarily conforming to the standards of those who are in power or the standards of any particular group that believes it alone possesses the one "truth...
...Zoning laws protected the community from industrially-induced smoke and odors...
...The notion of self-interest is roughly embodied in the Jewish concept of darchei shalom...
...yes, though that person be a stranger or a sojourner...
...the lost legion of minority young people, out of school, out of work, out of hope, out of patience—all these constitute an underclass that threatens to recycle itself into a permanent and profound moral challenge to this nation...
...The concept of "buyer beware" did not exist in Jewish law...
...Funds for charity were collected by at least two, and in some cases, three, people...
...Their position is foreign to the normative pattern of the Jewish tradition...
...While there is no Talmudic requirement to that effect, Maimonides concludes that for the sake of darchei shalom, for the sake of peace between Jews and their neighbors, Jews are required to engage in such endeavors...
...The precedents of the past are useful for an understanding of the past...
...Of what use are higher military budgets, if millions of people lose hope in the vision of America...
...Maot Chittin (furnishing the poor with matza and wine for Passover...
...False advertising was forbidden...
...the frustrated victims of sexism, racial discrimination and religious persecution...
...Liberalism presumes the equality of all people...
...Safety in the work place was monitored...
...According to a study (by the prominent Wall Street firm of A. Gary Shilling and Co...
...Many of the liberal solutions of yesterday have become problems of today...
...As Professor Twersky concludes, "One cannot claim to be a God-intoxicated being without having an unquenchable thirst for social justice...
...Those who developed the halachah could not have envisioned the modern, secular, democratic state...
...In between, it is an even break...
...Yet, within its economic limits, each community did what it could...
...No one could be evicted during the winter months...
...As Maimonides wrote, "It is not only forfrom a Jewish perspective, there are certain principles that we regard as binding upon all nations and by which we insist the Reaganomic program be measured...
...more children go to school and to college...
...they also cheat the nation and undermine the well-being of the society...
...Jews who would live up to the aspirations of the Jewish tradition will insist that all human actions and inventions—including Reaganomics— be measured by these principles...
...Hagigah 5a) Towards this end, every effort must be made to dispense charity anonymously...
...Every person was a giver...

Vol. 7 • July 1982 • No. 7


 
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