Living Generously - Tzedakah in the Sources: Priorities

Determining Tzedaka Priorities

איכא דמתני לה להא דרב הונא אהא דתני רב יוסף (שמות כב, כד) אם כסף תלוה את עמי את העני עמך עמי ונכרי עמי קודם עני ועשיר עני קודם ענייך ועניי עירך ענייך קודמין עניי עירך ועניי עיר אחרת עניי עירך קודמין

Bava Metzia 71a:3

Others referred this statement of R. Huna to [the teaching] which R. Joseph learnt: (Exodus 22:24) "If you lend my people money, even the poor with you..." My people and strangers, my people have precedence, a poor person and a rich one, the poor have precedence. Your poor and the poor of your city, your poor have precedence, the poor of your city and the poor of another city, the poor of your city have precedence.

גיטין ס״א א:ה׳

ת"ר מפרנסים עניי נכרים עם עניי ישראל ומבקרין חולי נכרים עם חולי ישראל וקוברין מתי נכרים עם מתי ישראל מפני דרכי שלום

Gittin 61a:5

Our rabbis taught: We provide for the gentiles' poor with Israel's poor, we visit gentiles' sick with Israel's sick, and we bury the gentiles' dead with Israel's dead, due to the ways of peace.

The obligation to meet the needs of one's elderly parents is superseded only by the obligation to care for ones children. Helping people in need within one's own family is thus a form of tzedaka. This order of priorities parallels most people's nature inclination to help family first, then friends, then others in the community, and then those beyond their own community [emphasis added]...The intensity of need must also be considered. If a family's tzedaka needs are minimal and across town people are going without adequate food, then clearly a significant portion of the family's tzedaka resources must go to those going hungry (David Teutsch, "Tzedakah" in A Guide to Jewish Practice)

When does one become obligated to give tzedaka?

בבא בתרא ח׳ א:ט״ו

והתניא שלשים יום לתמחוי שלשה חדשים לקופה ששה לכסות תשעה לקבורה שנים עשר לפסי העיר

Bava Batra 8a:15

It is taught in an earlier tannaitic source that [A person who resides in a city] thirty days becomes liable for contributing to the tamchui [soup kitchen], three months for the kuppah [tzedaka fund], six months for the clothing fund, nine months for the burial fund, and twelve months for contributing to the repair of the city walls.