Q&A: Disability Benefits
Disability Benefits
Question
Hello and blessings —
If I’m not mistaken, recently you wrote against the claim that disabled people have a “right” to receive an allowance that enables a dignified existence.
I assume the claim stems from your fairly libertarian and capitalist outlook. That is, as long as there is no constitution requiring social rights to be given to weaker groups, you can’t obligate the majority to support them. Of course it is proper and customary to support the weak, but the weak do not have the right to force the strong.
As the father of a disabled child, I too initially held views like yours (correct me if I’m wrong). But lately, because of the public discussion, a different thought occurred to me:
The public in a democratic state lives within rules of the game, which to some extent are dictated by unwritten rules. The rules determine that the individual contributes to the success of the collective (such as budgets for universities), and the collective protects the needs of the individual.
A citizen born into this reality accepts the rules of the game whether he wants to or not. Just as if I had been born as “Yitzhak Tshuva” I would have been obligated to contribute from my profits to society, so too when I am born, for example, disabled — I have the right to demand reasonable support from society.
Sometimes it’s the same person: just as during my working years I paid income tax, so once I was injured in a workplace accident I have the right to receive help.
So true, the laws are dynamic and not fixed. But broadly speaking, it seems to me that there is a general framework for the game, and I have the right to demand that it be upheld. What do you think?
And have you written about this in the past?
Answer
Hello Haim.
I don’t recall having written anything systematic about this. Maybe comments. Recently I was asked to write about it, and I hope to do so soon.
Indeed, my approach is that disabled people do not have rights, in the sense that something is owed to them. Their allowance falls under charity, and charity is an obligation on the giver, not a right of the recipient.
The question of law and constitution is not relevant to the discussion at all. Even if the law or constitution requires giving them something, perhaps that can be defined as a legal right, but in essence it is still charity — except that society has decided for itself that it has an obligation to give charity. A decision by the giving party does not create a right, but at most constitutes taking an obligation upon itself.
The obligation to pay taxes is not a right but a duty, and therefore the analogy you made is, in my opinion, incorrect. Indeed there is an obligation to assist them exactly like the obligation to pay taxes. But I am talking about their right, not my duty.
The implication of the distinction between a right and a duty is that a right is something owed to me, and I can claim it in a religious court and generally. By contrast, someone else’s obligation that is not my right is not claimable. I can ask for it, but not demand it. A poor person cannot sue a rich person in a religious court to give him charity. At most, a religious court can compel him on the basis of coercion to fulfill commandments. On this matter, see my article here:
בין הטריטוריה שלי לטריטוריה של הזולת על חובות וזכויות בהלכה ומשמעותן
Discussion on Answer
I would like to understand why the Rabbi calls a disability allowance charity.
A person sets aside from his own pocket throughout his life hard cash for the National Insurance Institute:
so that one day they will insure him with a disability allowance, survivors’ allowance, and the like.
Just like a person insures himself with a private insurance company — if and when the insurance company needs to pay him,
would we call that charity?
To Dan:
I don’t think this can be compared to private insurance.
With private insurance, from the moment of payment you know the rules, your obligations, and your rights. You pay X amount of money so that in case Y you will receive Z amount of money.
Here the rules are being changed. Disabled people who paid National Insurance when the allowances were low are now coming and claiming that the insurance company has to change the rules because the rules don’t provide enough for them. That is really not similar.
There are disabled people who never paid disability insurance; they were born disabled. So your claim is irrelevant to them (even if they were not demanding an increase in the allowance, but only to keep it at its current level).
Therefore I suggested a broader system of obligation.
The situation here is even more difficult.
People are coming who were forced to pay into National Insurance, with no possibility from their perspective of opting out of it.
The amount they pay and the amount of the allowance are decided by the insurance system without any consideration of the insured.
They may be increasing their demands from time to time, but clearly this is not a demand to receive “charity” or a gratuitous gift, as described here.
Haim, rights in that sense of course do exist, but that is not interesting. As long as the legislator has legislated, the citizen has rights. But when nothing has been legislated, there are no rights. I am talking about a right in the essential sense, and that does not depend on legislation.
Regarding the insurance claim, you said it correctly. Disability allowances are not a premium paid like insurance, because otherwise it would have had to be defined when the insurance was made. Also, many do not pay, and this “insurance” does not distinguish between those who paid and those who did not. Clearly this “insurance” also transfers money from rich to poor, not only from the insured to those who were harmed.
Excuse me, Rabbi, but you didn’t answer my question.
You wrote that as long as the legislator has not legislated, the disabled person has no right.
That itself is what we are discussing.
The legislator is the agent of the people, and legislates according to the will of the majority. I, as the father of a disabled child, demand from the majority (through advocacy or blocking roads) to improve conditions for the disabled, through legislation by their representatives in the Knesset.
Why is my claim against them unjustified?
Their game is not fair! Again, if I were “Yitzhak Tshuva,” the people, through their representatives, would demand to enjoy millions from my profits. So why, when it happened that I had a disabled child, do they ignore me?
This is of course not an essential right (a moral one), but it is a right that stems from the obligation to keep agreements (a legal right).
So — do the disabled have a legal right?
I answered, and I’ll repeat: they have no legal right whatsoever. First, who says the majority of the public wants this? Especially if you present them with a demand to say what in the budget they are willing to give up in exchange for it. It’s easy to say that I support allocating funds to purpose X if I don’t have to offset it from place Y. That’s what a government and Knesset are for.
There is no breach of agreement here at all. The game is completely fair, though there is room to argue about it.
After all, “we compel charity,” don’t we? “Tzedakah” according to the Torah is not charity in the English sense but a full obligation, and it was for this that Sodom was overturned, as the prophet says: “Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease were hers and her daughters’, yet she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49).
However, regarding the matter at hand I saw another argument (in Assaf Mishnayot’s article, “No Allowance,” in Besheva, issue 763, 8 Tishrei 5778, p. 24) that is worth examining: they argue that a high disability allowance creates a negative incentive for disabled people to go out to work, whereas the highest form of charity listed by Maimonides is giving the needy person work that will allow him to earn a dignified living. This requires examination.
May you have a good “final blockade,” a good life, and abundant and dignified livelihood, materially and spiritually, for us and for all the Jewish people!
With blessings, S. Z. Levinger
As for compelling charity, the lesser folk have already chewed that over thoroughly (see Chidushei Rabbi Shmuel, Bava Batra sec. 9–10, at length). It is clear that charity is not the right of the poor person but the obligation of the giver, and therefore the coercion is by virtue of coercion to fulfill commandments. And they already asked, according to this, why we seize assets as in monetary-law coercion, and answered in several ways (for example, the well-known Nachmanides: instead of coercing him physically, coerce him financially, and more).
And when you raise arguments (like the one you brought from Besheva) one way or the other, that itself proves that there is no right of the poor person here. Would anyone raise arguments as to whether or not one should pay damages or repay a debt?
First of all, regarding rights discourse, even the disabled people who are claiming their right do not think this is a right
with which they can now go to court.
They are demanding that we as a society create a covenant among ourselves in which we agree to give these rights to the disabled.
And why should we do that? We healthy people who manage so nicely without help?
Toronosrufus already asked Rabbi Akiva this:
“If your God loves the poor, why does He not provide for them?” (Bava Batra 10a)
This is a very similar question to the one he asked about circumcision: why not create a person already circumcised?
And the answer is the same: the Holy One, blessed be He, intentionally created an imperfect world and commanded us to repair it.
He commanded us to circumcise our sons and commanded us to help the downtrodden.
There is no justice in a child being born disabled; there is righteousness in our giving him the ability to live within society. Tzedakah comes from the root tzedek, justice —
as if to repair what the Holy One, blessed be He, created flawed in His world.
Tzedakah is a different word from kindness.
It is giving that creates justice.
The prophet Isaiah says: “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the poor who are cast out into your house?” The sages said: If he merits — “share your bread with the hungry”; if he does not merit — “bring the poor who are cast out into your house.”
And it can be interpreted this way: if we merit, as a society, we will know to share our bread with the hungry before we reach the point where the poor need to come to our homes and cry out their distress.
Thank you, Dalit.
My claim does not stem from a religious place.
When I wrote that there is a legal claim, I did not explain myself properly. I meant a constitutional claim.
A constitutional claim, unlike a statutory legal claim, does not rely on the law but on the constitution.
Although our state has no constitution, there are rules — higher-order laws — according to which laws are legislated. Some of them have in fact been enacted (such as “Human Dignity and Liberty”), and some have not (such as the principle of equality).
What I mean is that fundamentally, the disabled have a “constitutional” right to receive an allowance, since the unwritten constitution says that the individual contributes to society and society protects the individual.
The constitutional right gives rise to a moral right. Morally, I am permitted to demand what has been promised to me.
Admittedly, right now the disabled do receive an allowance, and they are only asking to increase it.
Therefore, if and when it becomes clear and agreed by all sides that the allowance does not reasonably protect the disabled economically, then they will have a constitutional right to demand an increase.
As long as the dispute is about the matter itself — whether they can live on such an allowance — one cannot say that their demand is justified. One can say that the right to argue and demonstrate is reserved to them, like any other issue in a democratic state.
Rabbi Michi, do you agree now?
Even debt collection requires a religious court because of the commandment imposed on the borrower to repay his debt, and therefore they do not collect from the assets of minor orphans who are not subject to commandments (unless interest is consuming them, and the like). On the contrary, in charity the religious court does not wait for the poor person to sue, and they also care for the poor person who is embarrassed to ask, and they devise ways to give to him in the form of a loan that will turn into a gift.
With blessings, S. Z. Levinger
Hello Dalit.
Your question is based on a misunderstanding. I did not say that there is no obligation on us, but that there is no right on their side. That is, they can ask but not demand. This is not a legal statement, since legally it is clear that they cannot sue. It is a moral-social statement. The subtext is one of demand and not request, and in my opinion that is based on the same mistake, and that is what I pointed out.
You are trying to convince me that it is proper to give, and I can agree (though I don’t fully agree. In my opinion it should depend on the situation of each disabled person and on budget constraints. In my opinion the obligation falls on his family and relatives before it falls on the state as a whole). But that is not the question. The question is whether this is a demand or a request.
Rabbi, did you see what I wrote today?
I saw. That same contract leaves sick people who need expensive medicines to die. Protection is not at any price.
Okay. I understand. Thank you very much!!!
Excuse me, Rabbi, but I didn’t really understand the second and third parts.
When I speak about the right, as a disabled person, to receive an allowance, I do not mean that this is an essential right; it isn’t. I do mean that it is a right that can be claimed in court, because society undertook this toward me.
To illustrate: when I emerged from my mother’s womb, I made a deal with society: if I earn above average — I’ll contribute to you, and if I earn less or need more, you’ll support me.
I claim that society has not lived up to its commitment.
Does the Rabbi reject this claim?
(Without getting into the level of the allowances, the tone of the argument, and the like. I completely agree that it is problematic).