Erich Fromm and the Tzedakah
Posted in Uncategorized on 03/30/2011 12:00 am byThe psychoanalyst Erich Fromm was an atheist who had been brought up in an Orthodox Jewish environment, and it is traditional Judaism which has shaped his secular humanistic values throughout life. One such factor involves the psychology of poverty, that what makes being poor so ruinous isn’t simply not being able to afford the luxuries of life or even the basic necessities, bad as that is; being poor is particularly bad because one cannot even help others.
Being poor almost means that one can, by definition, only take, not give. Yet giving is a great joy in itself; in giving we share of ourselves, of our own happiness, of our own power. One who is not able to give – a poor person, for instance – is deprived of a fundamental human faculty or ability, akin to not being able to laugh or sing or dance. Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.
Thus it is that Judaism, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, or Ultra-Orthodox, acknowledges a religious responsibility towards philanthropy. Even secular Jews, people not typically observant but who are otherwise steeped in the rich intellectual culture of the larger Jewish tradition, tend to be concerned with social justice to some extent. And so it is no coincidence that the Hebrew word for this sort of religiously motivated charitable giving, “tzedakah,” literally means “fairness” or “justice” – “righteousness.” Part of what the rabbis believe God to conceive of as being righteous is to be fair, to be just – to one’s fellow man.
And because an act of tzedakah is a moral duty, and not only philanthropy of the sort in which one indulges as one is moved (moreover, the rabbis teach that even the money for tzedakah is not to be regarded as one’s own – and therefore should be properly disbursed, wisely doled with recipients exhaustively scrutinized) – even the poor are obligated to participate.
And here is the most amazing thing of all: even the poor can give – even they are called to give, to take part, just as even the most prominent members of the community do. One need not be a Robert Toussie to give; one only has to give as one is able to give. An act of tzedakah therefore restores to the poor person an important aspect of his or her humanity – the ability to share.