Not being in school any longer I have to go to a little more effort to learn new things. One of my joys is hearing what my friends are learning or researching in their schooling. My friend Ben has been taking an Old Testament studies class and has heard some interesting presentations. One of them was about Maimonides’ Eight Levels of Charity from the Mishneh.
It’s an extremely interesting way to look at giving and for us to consider our motives.
- The greatest level is helping someone enough that they no longer need help. I wonder if sponsoring a child might possibly fall into this category. Other then that these stories are more rare then I would imagine. I would hope to find more opportunity to do this in my life.
- Anonymous giving through a trustworthy administrator is given the second highest status. I find this surprising since it seems to divorce our giving from our personal relationships, which I’m not sure is a good thing. At the same time this does encourage giving to the many organizations that help our neighbors overseas.
- Anonymously giving to someone you know.
- Giving anonymously, though the receiver knows his benefactor. I’m unsure how they decided the order of levels 3 and 4, but I’m glad they differentiated them no less.
- Giving directly into the hand of someone in need WITHOUT being asked. I like the specifics of this one being giving directly into the persons hand. There doesn’t seem to be much disclaimer on this, and there shouldn’t be. I do recall stories of people trying to help someone without being asked where the person took offense, or didn’t really need anything, but they are rare. The majority of the time we are scrooges until someone makes a request of us (I know because I am horrible at this).
- Giving after being asked. This, if I’m not mistaken, is the way the vast majority of us give
- Giving INADEQUATELY, but gladly. And I think we ALL do this one a lot of the time.
- Giving unwillingly. Yeah, not so noble.
What do you think of these categories?