An ancient Jewish practice says that a tenth of everything you earn belongs to someone who needs it more. It is called ma’aser — the tithe — and it has been kept from father to son, mother to daughter, since the days of the Torah.
Here is where that idea comes from, what the sages taught about it, and what it builds — told simply, for everyone.
A tenth of what we earn was never ours to keep — it belongs to those in need.
Eight short teachings, each drawn from the sources themselves.
Jewish tradition teaches that a tenth of what we earn was never really ours to keep — it passes through our hands on its way to someone who needs it. This practice is called ma’aser kesafim, the tithe of money, and Jews have kept it faithfully for millennia. Its roots reach back to the Torah itself, where farmers in ancient Israel were commanded to set aside a tenth of each harvest: “You shall surely tithe all the yield of your seed” (Deuteronomy 14:22). Even earlier, our father Jacob, alone on the road with nothing but a stone for a pillow, made a vow: “Of all that You give me, I will surely give a tenth to You” (Genesis 28:22). When we set aside ma’aser today, we are keeping Jacob’s promise — one generation after another, for thousands of years.
Deuteronomy 14:22 · Genesis 28:22Jewish tradition has no word for charity. The word we use, tzedakah, comes from tzedek — justice — the same word the Torah repeats when it commands, “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” The difference matters: charity is a kindness the giver chooses to bestow, but tzedakah is something the world is owed. When we give, we are not doing the poor a favor; we are returning what was always meant to flow to them, setting a crooked accounting straight. That is why giving in Jewish life has never depended on feeling moved or generous on a particular day — it is simply part of living justly. And there is a quiet freedom in that: the question is never whether we are good enough to give, only how we will do our part.
Deuteronomy 16:20 · “Tzedakah 101,” My Jewish LearningJewish tradition teaches that God pays special attention to the people the world overlooks. Again and again — more than thirty times — the Torah names them: the widow, the orphan, the stranger, those with no one to stand up for them. “He upholds the cause of the orphan and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:18) — and then comes the turn toward us: you too must love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. We give for those who cannot secure tomorrow for themselves: the family that lost its breadwinner, the elderly neighbor alone in her apartment, the newcomer with no one to call. In caring for them, tradition says, we are doing God’s own work with our own hands.
Deuteronomy 10:18–19 · Exodus 22:20–22Jewish tradition answers the question “how much should I give?” with unusual practicality. Ten percent of one’s income is the baseline — the ordinary, honorable measure kept by ordinary, honorable people. Twenty percent, called chomesh, a fifth, is the generous measure for those who wish to do more. And then the sages did something remarkable: they set a ceiling. In the town of Usha they ruled that one who gives lavishly should not give away more than a fifth, lest the giver himself come to need help (Ketubot 50a). Tradition wants giving to be sustainable — a steady stream that flows for a lifetime, not a flood that empties the well. Every gift within your means is exactly the right size.
Talmud, Ketubot 50a · Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 249:1Jewish tradition teaches that not all giving is the same, and Maimonides — the Rambam, our great twelfth-century teacher — described it as a ladder of eight rungs. At the bottom stands the person who gives grudgingly, with a frown; even that gift counts, and the poor are fed by it. Higher up are those who give cheerfully, those who give before being asked, and those who give in secret, so that neither giver nor receiver ever knows the other’s name and no one’s dignity is bruised. But the highest rung of all is this: helping a person stand on their own feet — with a job, a loan, a partnership — so that they never need to ask again (Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 10:7). The ladder is an invitation, not a scorecard: wherever you step on today, tradition simply asks you to keep climbing.
The eight levels, from the lowest rung to the highest.
Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor (Matnot Aniyim) 10:7–14Jewish tradition teaches that kindness moves in widening circles, and the first circle is the one you are standing in. “The poor of your own city come first,” the Talmud rules (Bava Metzia 71a): family before neighbors, neighbors before strangers, your own town before a distant one. This is not narrowness — it is wisdom about how care actually works. The needs closest to us are the ones we can see clearly, respond to quickly, and follow through on faithfully; and a community that tends its own becomes strong enough to reach further. When you give here in Los Angeles, to families whose streets you drive and whose children go to school with yours, you are practicing tzedakah exactly the way the sages drew it: starting at home, and letting the circle grow.
Talmud, Bava Metzia 71a · Deuteronomy 15:7,11Jewish tradition teaches that tzedakah changes the one who gives at least as much as the one who receives. Maimonides states it plainly: no one has ever become poor from giving tzedakah, and no harm ever comes of it (Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 10:2). Our grandparents believed him — which is why nearly every Jewish home kept a pushke, a little tin coin box on the kitchen windowsill, and dropping in a few coins was as natural as lighting candles. A child who grows up feeding that box learns, without a single lecture, that some of what we have is for others. The coins were small; the habit they built was enormous. Giving, tradition says, does not shrink a household — it trains a heart, one small gift at a time, until generosity becomes who you are.
Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 10:2Jewish tradition teaches something astonishing: even a person who lives on tzedakah is asked to give tzedakah (Gittin 7b). Not because heaven needs the pennies of the poor, but because giving is a dignity no one should be denied. To give — even a token amount, even a single coin — is to stand among the givers of the world, to be someone whose hand helps another. The law asks only what each person can truly spare; from the poor it asks a gesture, not a tithe. But it insists on the gesture, because every soul needs to know it has something to offer. In the economy of tzedakah there are no spectators: everyone gives, everyone matters, and the smallest gift given with a full heart stands as tall as the largest.
Talmud, Gittin 7b · Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 7:5Everything on this page is exactly what Chesed Foundation does with every gift: meals for the hungry, homes for those without one, and dignity for our neighbors in crisis — housing, meals, and assistance for people everywhere the need finds us. No pressure and no amounts to pick from here — just an open door, whenever you are ready.
Give with us — we’ll call you backA gentle note: This page is an educational overview, offered with love. The laws of ma’aser have many details, and customs vary by community — for personal guidance on ma’aser, speak with your local rabbi.
