Tzedaka

Why is Tzedaka so important? At first I thought that Tzedaka was the same as charity. But what I never new were the differences...When you give to charity its not that you want to, you usually give when your feeling generous. On the other hand with Tzedaka, as a Jew you are obligated to give ad least 10% of your annual earnings to Tzedakah.

As a very small religion we need to take care of each other or else there will be nothing left except a few Jews lying around here and there. We need to give Tzedaka or else there might not be a jewish religion with in the next month.

The 8 levels of giving Tzedaka are very important or else we would just be giving to Tzedaka as if we were giving to charity, with out wanting to. We wouldnt know the meaning of why it should feel so good to give to Tzedaka and why we as jews are obligated to care for everyone else and ourselves. Here are the levels of Tzedaka from how you should give Tzedaka and how you shoudlnt give Tzedaka according to Rambam.
1. Helping the recipient find a job or how to make money and by giving him a loan
2. Giving money to someone with the recipient not knowing who you are and you not knowing who the recipient is
3. Giving anonymously
4. Giving money to a recipient while you dont know who you gave to but the recipient knowing it was you.
5. Giving before being asked
6. Giving what you are obligated to give after being asked
7. Giving graciously but less than what you should
8. Giving reluctantly and with regret


Am I aloud to give Tzedaka? Of course I am, some people might not think that kids giving Tzedaka counts but I think that wouldnt it be better for a kid with a lot of knowledge about Tzedaka to give instead of an adult who maybe just converted to a jew and doesnt even know the difference between the 2 things? But on the other hand some places pre-judge kids and adults just like the example above.

I dont know if I have convinced my self if Tzedaka has anything to do with Judaism. Sure the word Tzedaka means Justice and come from the word Tzedek. But it might be possible that someone invented Tzedaka a long time ago, and thn a Jew found it and made a story to go with that word. This probably isnt true but anything could be possible.

Excuses for money. In which ever house you go to you'll here kids saying "Mom, could I have some money to get a new game for my wii" or "Can I have money to go to the movies?" but what you'll probably never here, is "Mom, could I have some money to give to Tzedaka?" which brings me to my next point, if you give Tzedaka, give it with will and proud of your accomplishment. There might be an incident where your mom or dad force you to give to tzedaka and you might not want to, thats OK. Its just like charity, you only give when your feeling generous. So if you dont want to give to Tzedaka you might want to consider that were all one nation and we have to take care of each other and even more importantly that some people dont have homes or anything to eat.