Q&A: Gifts to the Poor
Gifts to the Poor
Question
It is clear from the Talmud (Megillah 7) that gifts were given to the poor on Purim day itself, and in most cases food was given for the Purim meal.
Today, when the economy is different and a person prepares the needs of his meal several days in advance, would it not make more sense to give gifts to the poor a few days before Purim?
Seemingly, the source for giving on that very day is the Magen Avraham, who is concerned that the poor person may use it before Purim. To me this seems odd, since we are preferring the giver over the recipient. That is, the experience is that one has to shake the poor person awake, so to speak, in order to fulfill one’s obligation.
Precisely on Purim, when the Men of the Great Assembly allowed the Megillah to be read several days before Purim in order to provide for the needs of the town, it would have been appropriate to give gifts to the poor on those days and allow the poor to prepare for Purim, rather than waiting until that very day itself (of course only after the Megillah reading) to see whether they will even have anything with which to make a meal.
I would be happy to hear your opinion.
Answer
By logic, you are completely right, especially if one gives the poor money rather than food.
But you are not right that the source for giving on that very day is the Magen Avraham. First, he himself cites it in the name of Ba’al HaMaor. Beyond that, this is the straightforward reading of Maimonides, and likewise the straightforward reading of the Talmudic passages and all the halakhic decisors. On the contrary, it seems that the explanation that one gives on that day so that the poor person will not divert it to some other purpose is a novel idea of the Magen Avraham and Ba’al HaMaor. (One could have suggested a different reason: that the giving must be done on that very day because it is part of the laws of the day. Especially if the giving is for the giver rather than for the recipient—see Tur 236, and also a practical difference there.) True, in the Shulchan Arukh it is stated precisely regarding mishloach manot that it must be done by day and not at night, whereas regarding gifts to the poor he does not write this, and that requires further analysis.
But in practical Jewish law, it seems that if one gives in advance so that the poor person will use it for the Purim meal, that is also fine. This works both according to the reason of Ba’al HaMaor and according to the logical definition of the commandment, since this too is considered giving for Purim (as long as the money is still with him on Purim). And indeed, we do not find in the Talmud explicitly the rule that it must be given on that very day; rather, that is what the halakhic decisors wrote. And as long as the Talmud did not state this as a binding rule, it is not truly binding, and there is room to act in accordance with reason.