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A couple of months ago at a Worship Committee Meeting we were all talking about the upcoming pledge drive and focus for the spring, waving mental butterfly nets in the fields of our associations, looking about for bright ideas for services to address the complexity of giving and generosity. I had just been told by my grandmother, who heard of it listening to NPR about a new book describing the Jewish tradition and hierarchy of charity. This colorful morsel was immediately caught in the net and pinned to a date. So this morning I offer you a sort of book report, with a bit of editorializing and comparison with Emerson that I can't resist, given my curiosity to see how the quintessential Unitarian psyche might address these issues. My intention is to explore the more internal aspects of generosity, and the impact of different attitudes around it, to ask you each to sit quietly with yourself and your feelings about giving- how it affects you as a giver, and the other as a receiver-as giving is described from various perspectives.

Written by Julie Salamon, an author and journalist, the small book my grandmother mentioned is called Rambam's Ladder: A Meditation on Generosity and Why it is Necessary to Give. In it Salamon presents the eight-step Ladder of Charity, a progression of giving used in the Jewish tradition, as defined by the 12th century scholar, physician, philosopher and rabbi Moses ben Maimon, or in Greek, Maimonides, also known as Rambam. Salamon was compelled to pursue this topic in response to her experience in New York City during and following the World Trade Center attacks. She was profoundly affected by the range of responses she witnessed, from acts of selflessness, to fear and seeming indifference, as well as all the existential questions raised in the shock and aftermath of the tragedy, and she was struck by the parallel she saw in Maimonides' personal metaphysical and practical struggles, growing out of his own traumatic experience of exile and spiritual journey as a Jew born in Spain and cast adrift in a sometimes hostile Islamic and Christian world. Maimonides addressed core issues like evil, ambivalence, good, justice, love and God, as well as Jewish Laws and the proper treatment of the poor and our relationship with humanity, and he and Salamon both consider the scale, scope and triggers of to the urge to give. They ask how, and how much should we give, how widely, and what makes us do it.

Salamon notes that much has changed since the 12th century, but enduring is our human desire to be good, our need to believe that we are righteous, and the tremendous challenge in figuring out how to follow through successfully in these areas. Maimonides example, his template of the Ladder, offers a progression, from base to gold, from baby steps to immortal leaps, from realistic to idealistic manners of morally or ethically fostered giving. Maimonides steps range from his first-and I hate to say, as we have all likely been there-what he calls the lowest form of giving, reluctant giving, through proportionate giving, solicited giving, shaming giving, boundaried giving, corrupted giving, and anonymous giving, to what he identifies as the penultimate, responsible giving. Rather than putting value judgments on the achievement of any one level, I see them as each holding various attitudes and issues raised about giving, expressed through expanding layers of consciousness. Distinct dilemmas and new questions arise in each level. I will focus more on some than on others, trying to hold the bigger picture in mind

The most basic dilemma of giving is the very fundamental one: to give or not to give.
Maimonides identifies this in his first tier of giving, that of begrudging or reluctant giving.
What does it mean to be charitable. Is there an inherent human reflex to give? We would like to think so. If so, from where or what does it arise. Do you consider yourself inherently generous? And what do we mean by charity and generosity. Charity is synonymous with almsgiving, donation, and patronage, as well as with values like tolerance, virtue, and love. Its definition is related to caritas, or Christian love, the virtue of loving God, the divine love of man, the disposition to love all men as brothers because they too are sons of God, or also to the kindly or sympathetic disposition to aid the needy and suffering. What it looks like clearly varies, by degree as well as by depth.

So, reluctant giving is the sort in which the person gives with the hand, but not the heart. It is a gift with a frown. How could this occur? Contrary to our idealistic or dogmatic notions, giving is not a law of nature: Salamon reports that "most people (she) know(s) feel overwhelmed by the requirements, real and perceived, placed on them every day". This is true for the people I know as well, myself included, one day or another. We may want to give, in our minds, we may feel and think it is a good thing to do, but we may not feel secure in our own financial or situational lives to be able to do so. We may, and likely do, have our own needs unmet, or be unaware of psychological barriers in ourselves that make it difficult to feel free enough to give. Life feels tenuous. Money is always scarce. Or the world feels ungrateful. We may feel we give in many ways already. Another factor is how accurate are our perceptions about our giving? Salamon reports on a research experiment done in the Psychology Department of Cornell University that showed that people consistently over estimate their own generosity, and under estimate that of others. Isn't that fascinating? There is a discrepancy between intention and action, an ambivalence maybe, or a powerful judgment getting in the way. The authors of the study conclude that "self-sacrifice is so noble because it is so hard". Giving is very, very hard.

What, I wonder, is an indication of this reluctant or begrudging giving then? For example, when we do write a check, or make a donation, is there a reason or a stipulation attached? What are we hoping to accomplish? How does our desire to control, or make a certain impact, or alleviate guilt affect any encumbrance on our giving. Think of the philanthropy of the cigarette and oil companies-does this constitute charity in your minds? Most of us would agree with Salamon who points out that charity doesn't have to be selfless to be worthwhile, but neither should it be strategic graft. Her cousin Jimmy, an orthodox Jew in Jerusalem elaborated to her on the Hebrew word for charity, tzedek, or justice, righteousness: he wrote "the attitude of the giver can be more important than the amount of money involved. You can kill the soul of person by giving him an insincere smile while administering your bounty". What of those who can only give begrudgingly, or those who decide not to give, or feel they cannot at all. Perhaps reluctant givers feel a separation that isn't there for others. Powerful feelings of disconnection can correspond with this reluctant relation to the world, and it is difficult to say which arises first, the disconnection or the sense of scarcity. Cousin Jimmy, in fact, asserts that the act of charity binds you to the receiver in a "remarkable transaction", that the act of giving to someone in need, especially a total stranger, closes the space between people in an amazingly intimate way". Somehow we bridge a felt gap between us, and feel a link, a responsibility through giving.

Now, Emerson, in Self-Reliance, wrote some strong words about the poor not being "his poor", and has been criticized for his so-called uncharitable attitude. But reading the context around those un-politically correct words, I feel he was making more a statement on motivation than on action. His message was that "nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind". He insisted we cannot listen to other's versions of what is good and right, what causes are just or not, we must feel it deeply from within. "Truth", he said, "is handsomer than the affectation of love". External obligation is not just, if it is wholly external. He called what we might now call knee-jerk liberalism a "foolish philanthropy", and was scathingly critical of fads or popular charities and relief societies that are not linked with integrity to each individual who participates. He wrote:

"men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation...their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate but to live. My life is not an apology but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady."

Which leads us, once we have decided to give, to Maimonides' second tier and perhaps the biggest dilemma, that of proportionate giving. If we give, how much is just right? Certainly not our lives to all causes. This is the arena of a gesture or a partial gift, or a huge and ostentatious gift. We give less or more than is proper but to do so cheerfully. Salamon writes of examples: she describes one man who responded to every charitable solicitation with a $1 contribution; another wealthy man who gave no money to charity, believing that the amount he paid in taxes covered his debt to society; or another of the richest men in the world who believed he should follow his talent, which is making money, and then intended to give it all away after he died.

Who can say what is the "right" proportion to give. In 2000, Salamon cited, 78% of American adults said they made charitable gifts, averaging $886/person; in 2001 individual giving was 1.8% personal income. There is the reference point of the classic church tithe, mentioned by Pam Allen Thompson when she spoke here last month, of one tenth, but this is of what, of total income, of disposable income, of profit? How is need differentiated from excess, especially for most of us, in this land of high cost of living. Maimonides differentiated between crops that are subject to tithing and those that are not (for example figs and vegetables are exempt because they aren’t harvested all at once). His rules, Salamon reports, go on and on with helpful details we do not have: he commanded followers to clothe the poor man and buy him furniture, if the poor person is a woman you are to marry her off. But the task of quantifying morality is impossible, and it begs the question of how generosity relates to goodness. And we are not just talking of money—which is quite helpful, and indeed is the objective and symbolic gold standard in our culture—but what of time and energy. We were just talking last week about the dearth of free evenings most of us enjoy due to the multitude of ways we are involved in giving of ourselves to the others in our lives. Maybe that is why they are called "free evenings", the others we are "paying for" with our time to an identified need. Why do we do this? I believe it is a result of a basic sense of connection and good will. To get beyond reluctant giving I think you, I, one has to be able to touch, at least periodically, the sense of being a part of a universal humanity. To feel a connection with others that allows some sense of space to be able to rise a millimeter above the daily stresses and pressures that can sink us into disconnection and despair, into a sense of scarcity which separates us, and places us in competition with others, rather than in cooperation with them. Feeling connected allow us to touch a generous place in ourselves.

Salamon described this with some of her examples of the response to the World Trade Center tragedies. She said "the desire to help that day was urgent, automatic, as though the balance of good and evil had tilted so far to one side that there was an instantaneous impulse to right the ship. Contributions to major organizations for the relief and recovery effort were estimated at 1.8 billion, with 1.25 billion coming from individuals." There was an over-abundance of giving, the Red Cross turned away blood donors, food was uneaten. After a few months though "compassion fatigue" developed, and the impulse to give receded. Blood supplies became dangerously low, nasty fights broke out about the donated money and how it was used, the economy stagnated, the stock market declined, giving was politicized, corporate scandals erupted. Now, she says "we were back to business as usual". The proportion of giving is not consistent.

Most of us are faced with what Salamon labels a "charity conundrum": how much to give and to whom, with conditions or without? How do we know if we’re being cheated, do we give til it hurts or only so long as benevolence feels good? How do we find that right proportion? To be generous, if we believe its definition, is to be benevolent, copious, indulgent. It is a grand word. Generosity, by its derivations, is connected to nobility by birth—in terms of prestige, power, and obligation—and in liberality of spirit. Maimonides expressed what Salamon called an obsessive pursuit of righteousness, and to some extent he speaks of one’s worthiness as dependent on which level of giving we are able to achieve, reflecting this derivation. But he was also committed to a more grounded standard, that of giving with compassion and good sense. Emerson connects virtue and being, saying that the quality of giving depends not on amount, but on the essential character of the giver. "Character is a natural power, like light and heat...the reason why we feel one man’s presence, and do not feel another’s, is as simple as gravity. Truth is the summit of being: justice is the application of it to affairs." We are, and we do, they are one. We are not only, or just, our actions: "it is disgraceful", he wrote, "to fly to events for confirmation of our truth and worth...our action should rest mathematically on our substance." We give as we are. This is a rigorous standard, but an internally derived one. When we look at the issue of giving from these perspectives on a cultural level, the implications are dire. Culturally, we are monumentally out of proportion, with the huge discrepancy between rich and poor in our country and in our world. The attitude of the United States is a sort of intrusive and bullying noblesse oblige. Charity has become a profession, but materialism has overtaken altruism. Ultimately, Salamon agrees, it seems, with Emerson, saying that proportion is a moral question, and that personal commitment and passion are the keys to assessing proportion.

Now what of solicited giving, Maimonides third tier of giving, which is to hand money to the poor after being asked. Maimonides was vigilant to protect the dignity of those in need, believing that they should not have to ask - thus to him this is a lower level of responding to need - although he was in favor of soliciting help for the perceived needs of others, sort of soliciting once removed. Seven hundred years later, Salamon believes people are too busy these days to notice all distinct needs, and have to be asked, and in fact, in our world bashfulness is scarce, and she observes that the sheer mass of solicitations we each receive these days threatens to overwhelm individual goodwill. This addresses the issue of awareness of need. Are we aware of need and do we respond. Maimonides mostly addressed the issue of giving in terms of the most essential giving relationship: the haves giving to the have-nots, and the resulting profound relationship between obligation and fulfillment. This assumes the haves realize they have it, and that others do not, and a rightness emerges from a necessary equalization. Emerson finds a simplicity in this obvious necessity, and points out the impact to those who find themselves in need: "if the man at the door has no shoes, you have not to consider whether you should procure him a paint-box....necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience." He recognizes the essential state of universal interdependence.

At the fourth level of giving, while recognizing this dependence, its negative aspect is underscored. This is the level of giving that shames. Should there be shame attached to need? Should I feel humiliation because I am dependent? Here is an attitude of giving in which the dependence is tempered by judgment, even superiority by those who disdain to give. Of course there are opposing opinions in this arena: on the Lord Chesterfield side there is the sentiment "do not refuse your charity even to those who have no merit but their misery" versus the perhaps more Unitarian side which says "what a bleak world it would be if we only helped those who were thoroughly blameless". The argument is over who to blame: some say the individual character of the poor is the problem, blaming the victim, versus those who say the real culprits are the larger societal forces, and the individual is not - to blame - but is caught in a socio-politico-economic morass. One sixth of the American population is part of the working poor, earning between $17,000 and 34,000 a year. Is a cultural correction the answer? One person wrote this about welfare: "Relief, being impersonal and legal, destroys any sense of morality. The donor, the taxpayer resents his involuntary contribution, and the recipient feels no gratitude for what he gets as a matter of right, which, in any case, he feels to be insufficient." And what of our cultural lifestyle? Salamon writes that being poor has social pressures that are not entirely economic, saying "Why should poor people in America today feel ashamed about trying to grab at minimal comfort, living in an age of unparalleled excess? Even the people who are not blessed with big incomes are affected by it." What could be at the heart of this shaming kind of giving? Self-protection? Fear? Emerson has a different take: he says shaming is giving without love. This is his small poem:

"gifts of one who loved me -
- twas high time they came;
when he ceased to love me,
time they stopped for shame."

The fifth level of giving is that of boundaried giving, where giving moves to a wider horizon, beyond the safely personal. Here Salamon cites the philosopher Peter Singer, who differentiates between people who live in "absolute poverty" - in dire absolute conditions, with malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality rate and low life expectancy - think of Bangladesh or Ethiopia - from those who live in relative poverty, like at the shelter in Petaluma. In stark relief are those who have resources for basic life necessities as well as luxuries, like lattes and a winter wardrobe, who have absolute affluence. He asks a confronting and difficult ethical question: by failing the absolutely poor are the absolutely affluent engaged in a kind of genocide? Is there a moral distinction between omission and commission? Boundaried giving identifies the issue of giving to utter strangers, aliens to our way of life. Do we, do you, do I, know what it is like to be an outsider, a stranger? Unboundaried giving is giving to those who may be exiled, excluded, deeply unknown. Here philanthropy can become diplomacy, helping those from outside your own community, promoting peace. Here too a distinction is made between generosity and altruism: in giving we often expect a result, we have the self-interest of tax benefits, benefits from the supported charity, or social status, giving as an extension of personal and social identity and goals. Altruism is different from this: it is giving to give, as a collective duty, to that larger community. Salamon's statistics underscore the difficulties we Americans have in this area: American contributions tend to go to religions causes (38%) and higher education (15%). In contrast, are British contributions: 25% goes to international aid. Americans give more than twice as much in dollar amounts, and we have much more than that to give proportionately; but we give at roughly same percentage: between 2/3 and 3/4 of individuals give something. However in the UK institutions that benefit themselves, like the religious and educational institutions which most give to in US, are not considered charitable institutions in the UK. The universal justice of give if you can, take if you need - not only money, but whatever it is you have something of - is not so widely practiced. Cousin Jimmy, remember him, suggested we need to acknowledge the stranger within ourselves: "sometimes you have to look in the face of a stranger to find your own soul".

At the sixth level of giving the dilemma of corruption is explored. Here greed comes into play. Salamon addresses institutional charity and corruption, the exploitation and impersonality of the one who needs, and the over-weaning focus on the one who gives as the issue here. She writes of the fantastic burgeoning of the business of Foundations, which identify a target population of those in need, and then reap tremendous institutional benefits in the process. For individuals, at this level of giving we want to make our giving a wise investment. Hubris, greed, envy, and ethics are at issue. "Philanthropy" she writes,

"has become big business, often depersonalized, stripped of its spiritual content and meaning... As a larger group of Americans has grown richer, while a far larger group has grown poorer by comparison, charity has become more and more entwined with commercial considerations. The more people have to give away, the more concerned they become with maximizing their gifts. Sometimes it seems as if the strategy overwhelms the endgame, which is intended to redistribute some of the wealth. Moving the money around becomes far more time-consuming than worrying about the inequity that allows us this indulgence..."

Now we come to anonymous giving, to give to someone you don't know and to do so without being known. This is often thought of as the highest good, grounded in a principle of selflessness, protecting the poor from condescension and from feeling obligation, giving without any expectation of anything in return. It removes the suggestion that sometimes charity is meddling, control seeking. Anonymity, according to Maimonides is the most foolproof way to protect the pact with God, assuring that the giving goes beyond human relationships, avoids hurt feelings, and eliminates praise. In ancient times, achieving righteousness was the goal of alms-giving - not a tax deduction, not personal aggrandizement or psychological well-being, not even identification with the fate of another. Righteousness would be its own reward. Giving at this level is a spiritual duty for its own sake, avoiding photo-op giving, and shaming. Yet Salamon brings in the other side of the issue, pointing out that this high standard means we miss out on a huge proportion of true generosity. She cites a study conducted at the Social Welfare Research Institute of Boston College in the late 90's tracking giving behaviors: if they are tracked narrowly, on average people gave 2.2% of personal income, and 15 person days of time per year; versus a much more widely interpreted definition of giving, including giving help to family and friends, donating blood, participating in a multitude of non-profit fundraisers, walk-a-thons, school auctions, volunteering at church events, after-school sports coaching, pet sitting, fixing gadgets for neighbors, and offering emotional support, in which participants contributed approx 10% of pretax family income in money and goods, and 102 person-days, as well as an average of 11 loans to others, and praise, congratulation or encouragement to others more than 460 times per year per participant. The study concluded that caring behaviors are "motivated by identification with the needs of others" which is lost in anonymous exchange. I get the feeling reading the book that she is reassuring her readers that, despite Maimonides judgment, climbing the ladder is not always a vertical experience, and ethics can be very personal. Emerson would agree. He wrote "We have no pleasure in thinking of a benevolence that is only measured by its works. Love is inexhaustible... People always recognize this difference. We know who is benevolent, by quite other means than the amount of subscription to soup-societies. It is only low merits that can be enumerated." He held that benefaction is the measure of a good life, and that true charity is giving of your best, living your fullest to give of yourself to others, the poet as a poet, the baker as a baker, personally congruent. "The moment is all, in all noble relations."

Giving at the highest level is giving that allows the other to have access to this good life. It is responsible giving, the gift of self-reliance, so that the other will never have to beg again. Cousin Jimmy says "If you come to me and tell me you are hungry, and I give you a fish your hunger will be gone for today. Why don't I teach you how to fish and you can eat for a lifetime?" This is charity that is respectful of the other, recognizing the ultimate goal. We have to ask, when we give at any level, how much does my charity help, how much does it hurt? What have I accomplished if people come to depend on charity rather than on themselves? Here we cannot avoid looking at the structure and principles of our domestic social policies, at our international aid, at the military interventions leading to inappropriate involvement in other countries affairs that have grown out of the wealth in the United States. More than a hundred years ago, Emerson wrote, with melancholy, "It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can afford to pay." He called it a general insolvency. How do we address this systemic bankruptcy? To give so that giving would no longer be required, to give so that others can then give, is the ultimate giving. Salamon offers a salve of generosity to address this malaise. She says "Giving may begin as a way to make order out of chaos, and turn out to be a transformation."

This has been just a glimpse at the many issues and dilemmas of generosity. The differentiation among Maimonides' levels is not so much a linear progression made through willful effort or Puritan accomplishment, as an unconscious effect of an ever more secure sense of being, an integration of self with other, an expression of spiritual embodiment. Emerson quips "it is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexacious to pay debts."We have an ideal to be good, to be generous, to be charitable, yet "the impediment lies in the choosing". How do we do it, what does it really look like. What are we measured by, by what do we measure ourselves? And it is not just us, I, as a giver, but what of you, I, the receiver? We are connected. In the end we must each decide for ourselves, for as Emerson suggests, "the only gift is a portion of thyself".