Doing Righteousness

"Do the Right Thing" is a 1989 film by Spike Lee which explores simmering racial tension between blacks and the white operators of an Italian pizzeria in a Brooklyn neighborhood.  Whatever elements the plot elevates, it's the title we're grabbing here.  Because doing the right thing is precisely what is meant by TSEDAQAH (צְדָקָה).

 

TSEDAQAH  is the Hebrew noun commonly translated as “righteousness”.  It’s possible that you have already heard of the word.  Like SHALOM (שָׁלוֹם), CHESED (חֵסֵד), and other Hebrew words, it is one that Western Christians might toss into a conversation when they wish to sound educated.  In combination with its masculine form TSEDEQ (צֶדֶק), which also gets translated as “righteousness”, it appears nearly 300 times in the Hebrew Text.

Among its occurrences is its first and arguably most significant one in Genesis 15:6:

“Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

Another favorite Messianic prophetic reference is the word’s final use in the Hebrew Bible, in Malachi 4:2:

“But for you who revere my name, the sun of RIGHTEOUSNESS will rise with healing in its rays.  And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.”

Like all Hebrew words, its meaning is more complicated than a simple one-for-one correlation with our English word “righteousness”.  For example, translators occasionally render it as “justice”, “just”, or “right”.  In Psalm 35:27, many translations have it as “vindication”:

“May those who delight in my VINDICATION shout for joy and gladness; may they always say, “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant.”

By the time of Jesus in the Second Temple era – the so-called “intertestamental period” between the completion of the Jewish Canon and the beginning of the Christian one – the word had taken on an even more significant meaning.  Taking their cue from Daniel 4:27, Rabbinic sages began to use TSEDAQAH to mean “charity”.  Here’s the verse:

“Therefore, Your Majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by DOING WHAT IS RIGHT, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed.  It may be that then your prosperity will continue.”

 

The sages equated “being kind to the oppressed” (CHANAN) with “doing what is right” (TSEDAQAH).  This notion is expounded upon in Second Temple writings such as Ben Sira and Tobit.  And the concept is carried forward into the Talmud, which comprises the written record of Jewish oral teaching. 

For observant Jews, doing TSEDAQAH (charity) is the supreme command (MITSVAH).  The sages say:

“Tzedakah and acts of kindness are the equivalent of all the mitzvot of the Torah” – Jerusalem Talmud, Pe’ah 1:1.

“Greater is tzedakah than all the sacrifices” – Talmud, Sukkah 49b.

“If only the people who lived in the generation of the Flood and the people of Sodom had given tzedakah, they would not have perished” – Midrash Zutta, Song of Songs 1.

“Great is tzedakah, for since the day that the world was created until this day the world stands upon tzedakah” – Midrash Tanna d’Vei Eliyahu Zutta 1.

At the time of Jesus, then, TSEDAQAH did not simply mean “righteousness” in the sense of being morally correct and justified.  It also incorporated into that meaning the idea of doing charity toward the less fortunate, not just as a good idea, but rather as a supreme command from the LORD.  How would a Torah-observant Jew such as Jesus the Messiah regard this idea?  Well, we have hints if we read the New Testament with Hebraic eyes.

“Be careful not to PRACTICE YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS in front of others to be seen by them.  If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.  So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Matthew 6:1-4

Orthodox Jewish interpreters today say that Jews do not believe in charity.  In fact, there is not a Hebrew word that translates to our English charity.  Instead, they say that Jews believe in doing the right thing, which is TSEDAQAH.  The giving of TSEDAQAH is rooted in the organismic understanding that when there is a need expressed within the organization that we are part of, and we have the means to satisfy that need, it is our sacred duty to do so.  TSEDAQAH is the socio-spiritual mechanism whereby each part bears responsibility for the well-being of the whole.  (Does anyone else hear echoes of St. Paul’s discussion of the Church as an organismic body?)

TSEDAQAH means righteousness.  Doing TSEDAQAH is simply doing the right thing.  And when you have an abundance of something, the right thing is to share it with someone who does not have an abundance.  As Jesus teaches us in St. Luke’s gospel:

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”