The Spirit of Giving

 This week's quotation, by Mother Teresa, reads, "He who gives with joy, gives the most."

This view of the spirit of giving chimes in well with Maimonides' Ladder of Charity, which I first came across when I did the UK Unitarian Build Your Own Theology course some years ago. Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides) was a 12th century Jewish rabbi, physician and philosopher, one of the greatest Hebrew scholars. He compiled a vast mass of Jewish oral law into the Mishna Torah, also called The Strong Hand. One of his best known writings is The Golden Ladder of Charity', in which he ranked the spirit of giving or charity as follows:       

1. to give reluctantly, the gift of the hand, but not of the heart.
2. to give cheerfully, but not in proportion to need.
3. to give cheerfully and proportionately, but not unsolicited.
4. to give cheerfully, proportionately and unsolicited, but to put the gift into the poor person’s hand, thus creating shame.
5. to give in such a way that the distressed may know their benefactor, without being known to him or her.
6. to know the objects of our bounty, but remain unknown to them.
7. to give so that the benefactor may not know those whom he or she has relieved, and they shall not know him or her.
8. to prevent poverty by teaching a trade, setting a man or woman up in business, or in some way preventing the need for charity.

He says that giving is most blessed and most acceptable when the donor remains completely anonymous. There is a lot of food for thought here. We in the privileged West are very good at giving "aid" to those less fortunate than ourselves, but very often our motivation is not pure - part of it is to make *ourselves* feel better.

And the absolute best way of giving is, as Maimonides says, to bring someone out of poverty by setting them up to function independently, so that they no longer need our "charity".