Tithing in a social democratic country

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asked 8 years ago

Hello, Your Honor.
Regarding tithing:
It is known that there is interest in giving tithes, and there is considerable disagreement among the poskim about the degree of obligation, and what the order of priority is in choosing recipients.
It seems to me that the situation is different today.
Today, each of us reluctantly ‘contributes’ taxes to the state, whether directly (income tax) or indirectly (VAT).
The state distributes the money for various purposes, including those that are included in legitimate purposes in halakhic law: a comprehensive scholarship, various welfare budgets, medicine, as well as various other worthy public purposes.
Why isn’t it said that when I pay the tax imposed on me, I thereby pay my halakhic debt? (It is possible to calculate proportionally how much of the tax imposed on me goes to legitimate purposes, and if necessary, I will pay up to the tithe amount).
Of course, in the time of Chazal, this was not addressed, because back then the state did not allocate funds for such purposes.

Am I right?

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מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago

This is not a simple question, since it is accepted that obligatory payments (i.e., those that do not depend on you) should not be considered as tithes. Although, in simple terms, the intention is not obligatory charity (for example, if there are collectors who take charity from you by virtue of community decisions, it is likely that it can be given at the expense of tithes). Indeed, there are rabbis who have written that the tax is considered a matter of tithes, and some of them write that this applies to all of our taxes and not just to the part that goes to welfare and relief. The reason for this is that public needs are considered by law to be charity. In any case, at least with regard to offsetting the part that goes to welfare and relief, there is certainly someone to rely on.

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אהרן replied 8 years ago

Shalom Rabbi.

You express reservations about exempting tithes from tax payments, because it is a ‘mandatory payment’ as you put it.
In my opinion, in a democratic country, tax payment is mandatory at the ’micro’ level, not at the ’macro’.
That is, it is true that I personally cannot decide on expanding or reducing the tax rate, but as part of a ’collective entity’ I can.
The people, through their representatives in the Knesset, are able to decide that they do not want to provide disability and unemployment benefits, or to finance meetings.
The public as a collective supports these benefits, and therefore these payments are not forced upon them.
This is not similar to the taxes that were imposed on the public in the past, which were imposed upon them ‘from above’.
Therefore, I think that being part of a group that chose to provide benefits to the underprivileged, I am exempt from giving ‘tithe’.
What do you think?
If you agree with me, I will ask about a person who personally does not support benefits, whether the mere fact that he supports the democratic rules of the game means that he indirectly also supports the provision of benefits, which are determined through these rules.

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

An interesting explanation and perhaps there is some truth to it. But it should be remembered that at least some of the poskim wrote this also about charity collected by collectors. It is no longer imposed from above like by a king.

To your question at the end, in my opinion it does not depend at all on support or lack of support. If one pays in his name then he gave charity.