In Hebrew, charity is called "Tzedakah." But it means more than mere charity. It refers to righteous behavior. According to AskMoses.com, "if you have a couple of coins for a beggar, that’s charity. But if you don’t, and you give him a smile and a boost instead… now, that’s tzedakah."
According to Maimonides, there are eight levels of tzedakah:
- Giving financial stability to someone who’s down and out: a loan, or a job, so that he doesn’t need to rely on others.
- Giving where neither the donor nor the recipient know each other’s identity.
- Giving where the donor knows who the recipient is, but the recipient doesn’t know who the donor is.
- Giving where the donor doesn’t know who the recipient is, but the recipient knows who the donor is.
- Giving before the poor guy says, “Please give me!”
- Giving after the poor guy says, “Please give me!”
- Giving less than needed… but with a pleasant, all-smiles attitude.
- Giving begrudgingly or with a scowling attitude.
My wife has a general rule about the minimum amount of money one should give to charitable causes each year... which she has to harangue me about sometimes, to spur me to action, because I am the check writer. And before any femminists get upset, it is part of the division of labor in our household. I make sure the bills are paid on time, my wife looks after all our investments, etc. There will be more crossover eventually, but for now, this system works alright.
Anyhow, the point is, over my first few years in the job market, I rarely gave squat to charities. I know too much about how nonprofit organizations squander and waste money to trust most of them with my money and that cynicism just left me indolent. So my wife and I have to vigorously debate who should get donations, and I feel we are doing right by this. The Jewish Ethicist would disagree, but I am not convinced by his argument.
Update: The Acton Institute offers its Samaritan Awards as a guide to effective charity.
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