ORDER OF SUSTENANCE

QUESTION:

What is the Jewish attitude with respect to the order of distribution of a diminishing world food supply? On what basis should priorities be established? (Asked by Rabbi Kenneth J. Weiss, Glendale, California.)

ANSWER:

THE JEWISH LEGAL literature gives a clear-cut order of social importance in the Jewish community. This leads to a series of laws as to who or which group, in time of need, should be sustained first. The list is given most clearly at the end of Mishnah Horayos 3:7 and 8. It reads as follows: A man precedes a woman in being saved alive and in having his lost objects restored to him. A woman precedes a man in receiving clothing and being ransomed from captivity. A priest precedes a Levite, a Levite an Israelite, an Israelite a mamzer, etc., provided all of them are of equal degree of learning, but if the mamzer is a scholar and the high priest is an ignoramus, the scholarly mamzer precedes the ignorant high priest. With this remarkable statement the tractate Horayos and the whole Mishnaic order of Nezikin come to an end.

In Ketubos 67a ff., the Talmud analyzes these statements and develops the laws in more specific detail. The basis of the discussion there is the Mishnah Kesuvos 6:5, which ends with the statement on that page that if a man marries off an orphan girl, he must give her as much dowry as he can afford. This leads to the statement that if an orphan boy and an orphan girl both need food, we feed the girl first because men grow accustomed to beg from door to door, but a woman is too embarrassed to do so.

On this basis the law is established that a woman in need should be given food before a man in need. This seems to contradict the Mishnah in Horayos, namely, that a man precedes a woman. But the contradiction is explained as follows: The Mishnah in Horayos means that a man must be saved from mortal danger first, but clothing and food should be given to a woman first. This is the form in which the question of sustenance as between man and woman is recorded in the Codes (in Maimonides, Matnos Ani’im 8:15, and in Shulchan Aruch, Yore Deah 251:8).

The precedences mentioned next—namely, Kohen before Levite, Levite before Israelite, etc.—are explained as follows: They apply only if a man has such limited resources that he cannot give as much as he would wish to give to all who apply. He then gives first to the Kohen, and then to the Levite, etc. But even this sequence is modified by a more basic thought, that the recipients earn their sustenance to the degree of their learning; hence the statement that a learned mamzer has precedence over an ignorant high priest.

There is still another test leading to precedence given in the Talmud, in Ketubos 67b. What a recipient is given must depend as much as possible on what he has been accustomed to. The Talmud there gives cases in which poor people were rather lavishly maintained because that had once been their accustomed mode of living. In fact, the Talmud tells there that a man came for food to Rabbi Nechemya, and the rabbi sustained him on a diet of lentils, although the man had told him in answer to a question that he was accustomed to finer food. The man died, not having been accustomed to this harsh diet of lentils, and he was thereafter referred to as “the man whom Nechemya killed.”

There is still another test of charity. A man’s obligation first is to his own family, then to the poor of his own city, then of his own country, and so on. In other words, charity does indeed begin at home ( Yore Deah 251:3). This is a dominant rule. Samson Morpugo, rabbi of Ancona (d. 1740), in his responsa Shemesh Zedakah {Yore Deah # 19) , states that even if the poor of another city are learned men and the poor of one’s own city are ignoramuses, the poor of one’s own city have precedence.

If we would analyze the rules given above, we might derive certain principles of the order of sustenance according to the spirit of Jewish law. First, consideration must be given to the temperament of the recipient. A woman must not be shamed to have to ask for food. She must be fed first. Also, consideration must be given to the previous standard of living of the applicant. Then, learning entitles a recipient to precedence because the learned man is of special value to society. Also, the needy at home must first be provided for. All this is based on the assumption that there is a limit to the resources available and choices must be made; but if resources are relatively unlimited, then all receive as they need.