Charity

Abstract

Leading rabbinic figures emphasized the great importance that Judaism attached to giving charity, as well as the lengths to which individuals and communities must be prepared to go in the fulfillment of this precept. MAIMONIDES (1138-1204) wrote that "we have never seen nor heard of a Jewish community which does not have a charity fund." Nahmanides (1194- 1270) noted that charity is a weighty precept chat engendered numerous exhortations and admonitions in biblical literature. "And I need not mention the sources in rabbinic literature because the entire Talmud and all prescriptive works are replete with such material." Judah the Pious of Regensburg (d. 1217) instructed that "if a community has neither synagogue building nor hospice for the poor, the hospice should be built first." MEIR OF ROTHENBURG