Redistribution not the only solution: Judaism as religious democracy, same Law and Sabbath for all

But if we were to ask what a religious tradition can contribute to the problem of poverty, one would have to recognise that direct confrontation is only one part of the answer. Judaism, for example, is an all-embracing culture; and so it has many more resources at its disposal than, say, the politician or economist.

Fundamental to the rabbis' conception of Judaism, for instance, was the idea that its practice should never impoverish or be beyond the reach of the poor. It should be a classless religion. This was not a theoretical issue. Judaism did make economic demands, and it is important that these should not be divisive. Hence, for instance, the institutions that burials should be as simple as possible; ³⁶ and that on the special festive days when the girls of Jerusalem danced before the boys and wives were chosen, they would wear borrowed clothes "so as not to put to shame those who did not have".³⁷

Let me give an example here of the kind of situation that arose from time to time, and of a characteristic response to it. The festival of Passover involves a major upheaval in the running of a household. No leavened bread, nor anything containing a leavened ingredient, may be eaten or even kept in the home. Different utensils must be used for cooking and eating. The third century Babylonian community followed the rulings of their great leader, Rav. But one of his rulings had severe implications. Any earthenware pot that had been used for cooking during the year, and so had absorbed some leaven, must not merely be put away during Passover, but actually broken and disposed of. In effect this meant that families had to buy complete new sets of cooking equipment each year. This created a concentrated seasonal demand for earthenware pots; and in the free market, traders were quick to take advantage and raise their prices. It was the kind of situation of exploitation familiar to us from the prophetic literature.

Rav's contemporary and friend, Samuel, responded immediately. He gathered the merchants together and informed them that unless they held their prices steady, he would pronounce in accordance with the more lenient tradition which held that old pots need not be broken, simply stored away. It worked. ³⁸

Many, perhaps most, of the innovations of the rabbis had a similar motive. They were guardians of the tradition, but they were also guardians of the unity of the people; and they were aware that nothing could be more destructive of that unity than a Judaism that was identified with a particular economic class.

The most potent of all religious institutions were those which occupied the realm of not working. The first was the Sabbath, and no-one will disagree with Ahad Ha-Am's famous judgement that "More than the Jews kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept the Jews". It created an alternative world in which differentiations based on work, income, or expenditure had no room in which to operate. At all times, even in those many Jewish communities that lived in grinding poverty, one saved to dress and eat well on the seventh day. It was impossible, on the Sabbath, to internalise the pariah image that the outside world seemed to impose. The Sabbath created the coherence of the religious community. It also, perhaps, was decisive in preserving the attitudes which made the Jews so adaptable and socially mobile. It was, if you like, the insertion into the world of an alternative identity, in which the white tablecloth, the silver candlesticks, the leisurely meals, the assembled family, enacted rather than symbolised a freedom from the existing economic and social order.

This, it seems to me, is an important part of the place of religion within the system. Poverty restricts choice, as indeed does wealth: "the more property, the more anxiety",³⁹ as Hillel used to say. But how significant the choices are that a given economic standing puts beyond one's reach is, by and large, culturally determined; and a religion succeeds or fails to the extent that it shapes that culture. Naturally Judaism could not rest content without its ela borate programme to alleviate poverty. But it was also well aware that, in most times and places, simple redistribution would not solve every problem.

The Talmud, for example, recreates the following imaginary dialogue between King David and his counsellors:

At dawn the wise men of Israel came to him and said: Our lord, the king, your people Israel need sustenance. He said: Let them support one another. They replied: A handful cannot satisfy a lion, and you cannot fill a pit by the earth which you dig from it.⁴⁰

David proposed redistribution; his sages told him that the cake was not big enough, however it was sliced.

It followed that a major religious task was to maximise the range of significant choices available to a person regardless of income. Nor would Judaism ever have contemplated the obvious strategy of deriding this world for the pleasures of the next. The answer had to be substantive. On the Sabbath the poor man was wealthy, and not in any metaphorical sense. And since the sages had, as it were, dignified wealth by institutionalising charity, they also laid it down as a rule that even the person who subsists through charity must give charity, and be given enough to give it.⁴¹ Above all, they created a culture of study and education, which dominated their lies and to which access was universal and lifelong. They were aware of its democratising implications. They said: Israel had three crowns. The crown of kingship belongs to David and his sons. The crown of priesthood belongs to Aaron and his sons. The crown of Torah, which transcendeth them all, lies before you. Let whoever wishes, come and take it all.⁴²

This, then, was the second great alternative world. Again, let me illustrate what I mean with a fragment of a Talmudic narrative. Shortly after the destruction of the second Temple, there was some opposition to the attempt by Rabban Gamliel, head of the Jewish community, to systemise the religious tradition and restrict the freedom of argument and opposing rulings. He was particularly harsh on his deputy, Rabbi Joshua, when the two disagreed on points of law. The scholars of the academy responded by deposing Gamliel; and in due course he visited Rabbi Joshua to apologise.

The description is graphic. Evidently stuck for a way of opening the conversation, he looked round Rabbi Joshua's house, noticed that the walls were black, and said: "Judging the walls, I can see that you must be a blacksmith". Rabbi Joshua replied: "Alas for the generation of which you are the leader, seeing that you know nothing of the troubles of the scholars and how they have to make a living".⁴³

The story fascinates me, because it is apparent that Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Joshua were able to work and debate together day by day in the academy, the one as its head, the other as his deputy, without the wealthy Rabban Gamliel being aware that Joshua was a poor man. To this day, this rings true as a description of the spirit of the learning community.

Its second implication, no less important, is that ignorance of the real economic difficulties of a people disqualifies a sage from being a leader.