Cohen School students explore the meaning of tzedakah

Seventh-graders Jennifer Berman and Stella Mayo. /Torat Yisrael

Giving tzedakah is a major component of many spiritual and religious belief systems and can provide inner peace and contentment: Helping others often creates an improved sense of well-being and a sense of purpose in life or work.

Performing acts of charity and giving to others is something that many communities around the world try to accomplish – so what makes it a Jewish experience? What is the Jewish perspective and why is it just as important how we give as the actual act of charity?

Students at the Cohen School at Torat Yisrael, in East Greenwich, have kick-started their 2015–2016 community tzedakah program by exploring the Jewish perspective on charitable acts and giving. Throughout the year, the students, in grades K-7, will participate in various tzedakah programs that will benefit Rhode Islanders.

Led by the program’s facilitator, Barbara Dwares, the school focused its first lesson on Maimonides’ eight levels of charity. Maimonides, a 12th-century Jewish scholar, created an eight-rung ladder of giving, offering a Jewish lens through which to view charity. Each rung represents a different degree of virtue: 

                8.            (The lowest) Giving grudgingly and making the recipient feel disgraced or embarrassed.

                7.            Giving cheerfully but giving too little.

                6.            Giving cheerfully and adequately but only after being asked.

                5.            Giving before being asked.

                4.            Giving when you do not know who is the individual benefiting, but the recipient knows your identity.

                3.            Giving when you know who is the individual benefiting, but the recipient does not know your identity.

                2.            Giving when neither the donor nor the recipient is aware of the other’s identity.

                1.            Giving money, a loan, your time or whatever else it takes to enable an individual to become self-reliant.

The students were then provided with a box filled with arts and crafts materials and were encouraged to use their imagination to create a visual of their vision of Maimonides’ eight rungs.  Working in small teams, visual art was created from Popsicle sticks, ropes, straws, foam, tape, colored construction paper and other recycled materials, and then proudly shared during all-school tefilah at the end of the school day.

Moving forward, the students will make tie-fleece blankets for a local animal shelter for National Animal Shelter Week in November, collect gloves and other warm clothes to be distributed throughout the winter, and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and soup for local food cupboards and family shelters.

DORI ADLER is education director at Temple Torat Yisrael. If your organization is interested in partnering with the school on future community tzedakah projects, contact her at school@templetoratyisrael.org.