For many people, philanthropy is something that other people engage in - people such as billionaires. After all, who else has the money to fund entire schools or hospitals?

Yet in the Jewish tradition, whether Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, or Ultra-Orthodox, the concept of tzedakah, literally "justice," is commanded of all, including the poor. For to make charitable donations is prescribed as a religious duty and not one subject to personal fancy. In fact, it is taught to regard the very money for available tzedakah as not one's own, but on loan, as it were, from G-d. This leads to the further injunction to carefully vet all recipients to ensure that any donations made will actually work for good and not ill.

On the face of it, it may sound surprising to an outsider, as with many aspects of Judaism. But - as with many aspects of Judaism, even to an outsider - there is an underlying logic that is at once compelling and beautiful. For in commanding even the poor to give, the rabbinical injunction to perform acts of tzedakah in effect empowers the poor to regard themselves as capable, too.

For what can be more empowering than to give? For to give means to share of oneself, and in sharing we express ourselves - our love, our sacrifice, our character. It is not poverty that ennobles, but to bear poverty in righteousness that is noble. Thus, in Judaism one need not be a successful investor like Isaac Toussie in order to give alms. In Judaism, making charitable contributions is not only a religious responsibility, but a right.

For poverty is not so base as when it prevents one from sharing of one's own means. It is the genius of Jewish culture that even with its traditional concerns for social justice and the poor that it should recognize that even the poor can contribute!

Now, having said all that, it must also be noted that while the tzedakah is a great idea in theory, people unfortunately seem to always manage to find a way to spoil things in practice. Thus, aside from those who just throw money away at their favorite charities, there has also developed a tradition of using tzedakah to mark some special occasion or other, bringing in an element of the personal and, even, frivolous when tzedakah is about, as its Hebrew etymology implies, "justice" -- what is owed to one's fellow man (and not what makes for a good show to mark some occasion or other).