All gifts are valuable

Editorial

Far be it from us to undermine the notion of tzedakah, a key tenet of Jewish practice, which dictates, basically, that all Jews are supposed to give 10 per cent of their income to those less fortunate than themselves. What troubles us is the way in which such donations are sometimes solicited and the preferential recognition bestowed upon those able to give more than most.

Fund-raising campaigns provide crucial support to social programs in our own community and emergency programs abroad, particularly in Israel. There can be few among us who are not aware of these campaigns, through articles, ads and mail-outs – and most give gladly as a result.

What makes us uncomfortable is when representatives of these programs then appear at synagogues around the city, during services on the holiest of holidays, to try and extract further donations. Unfortunately, their pleas never seem to include such lines as, "please give what you can afford," or, "if you cannot afford to give money, perhaps you can give of your time." The main message is, "we only need another million dollars and we're asking you to help us with that."

There are many wealthy members of our local community, and their contributions to the host of worthwhile organizations are, of course, both welcome and much-needed. But there are also many Jews in our community who do not have much spare change. In fact, according to figures advertised by this year's Project Isaiah campaign for the Jewish Food Bank, one in six Jews in the Greater Vancouver area is living in poverty. What options do these people – or the people who barely manage to put food on the table for their own children – have? Should they shamefacedly return their food bank bags half full?

We recently heard a story about a member of the community who is now able to give generously to the campaigns, and has been applauded loudly for doing so (never mind that one of the highest forms of tzedakah is anonymous giving). What baffled her, she said, was that years ago, when she was a working as sales clerk, she had given what amounted to her entire week's salary to a campaign. Nobody fell over themselves to be grateful for that donation – and yet it was an amount that put far more of a dent in her day-to-day living expenses.

We need to be careful to recognize that not everyone can afford to donate thousands of dollars. While those thousands make up the sum of campaign goals more quickly, that is not the point. The point is that we are making those with lesser means feel inadequate and under-recognized, when their intentions are equally noble.

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