17 Dec GIVING TZEDAKAH TO UNVERIFIED COLLECTORS

I. Obligations to Give

Giving charity, sup-
porting those in need,

is a great mitzvah. It
is important not only
in order to help those
who need financial
assistance but also to create a giving
character, which is integral to the Jewish
personality. Sadly, there are people who
try to take advantage of the mitzvah to
give tzedakah and the merciful and giving
Jewish personality. What do we do when
we encounter people who might be trying
to take advantage of us? Some communities
require charity collectors to go to a rabbinic
board that checks references to ensure
the collector is legitimate and provides
a verification letter to show the public.
What about collectors who do not have
such letters or who collect in places that
do not have such a robust system? Despite
the importance of the obligation to give
tzedakah, it only applies to someone who
is genuinely poor. If there is no mitzvah
to give someone tzedakah, there is also no
prohibition against hardening your heart
and closing your hand.
Rav Gedaliah Felder (20th cen., Canada)
explains that the positive and negative
commandments are inherently connected.
The prohibitions only apply when the

positive commandment applies. If so, when
there is no obligation to give tzedakah then
there is no prohibition to send him away
empty-handed. However, Rav Moshe Isserles
(16th cen., Poland) adds that it is forbidden
to turn away a poor person without giving
him even a minimal amount because of the
verse, “do not return an oppressed person
ashamed” (Ps. 74:21). Even when there is
no technical obligation to give tzedakah to a
poor person, such as you already gave your
maximum or he is asking for a future need,
you cannot shame him by turning him away
with nothing (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah
249:4). You have to give him something.
II. Verifying Collectors
The Gemara (Bava Basra 9a) has a
disagreement between Rav Huna and Rav
Yehudah about when we verify charity
collectors. Everyone agrees that if someone
is starving to the point that his life is in
danger that we must feed him. When
someone is hungry but not starving, Rav
Huna says we must verify his need before
feeding him. But if someone needs clothing,
we do not make him wait in the shame of
his tattered or missing clothing while we
verify him. Rather, according to Rav Huna,
we only verify for food but not for clothing
or other needs. Rav Yehudah says that we
verify for clothing and other needs but not
for food. It is painful to wait in hunger

while the rabbi or communal functionary
verifies your need. This is in contrast to
Purim, which is the one day a year on which
we give to anyone who stretches out his
hand in request (Shulchan Aruch, Orach
Chaim 693:3). The consensus follows Rav
Yehudah that normally we verify for any
request other than food (Shulchan Aruch,
Yoreh De’ah 151:10).
It would seem from this ruling that if a
charity collector asks for food, we have
to give him something to eat. If he asks
for anything else, we should verify his
need before giving to him. (Rav Ya’akov
Yeshaya Bloi (Tzedakah U-Mishpat 3:1
n. 2) leaves as an open question whether
someone who asks for money to buy food
is considered someone asking for food or
not.) When a collector has a verification
letter, we give him generously. When he
does not, it would seem from Rav Isserles’
ruling above that we must give him at least
something, a minimal amount. Indeed,
that seems to be the mainstream approach
and such is reported in the name of Rav
Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (20th cen.,
Israel; Ve-Aleihu Lo Yibol, vol. 2, p. 111).
A contrary view is taken by Rav Menashe
Klein (21st cen., US). He argues that when
someone asks you for tzedakah, you are
obligated either to give or to verify whether
the recipient is needy. If you choose not
to spend the time and effort to verify
the collector then you have to give him
tzedakah (Responsa Mishneh Halachos,
vol. 16, no. 69). According to the first
approach above, you only have to give
a minimal amount to an unverified
collector. According to Rav Klein, you
must give a robust amount like you would
to a verified collector.
III. Giving Nothing
Rav Aharon Aryeh Katz (cont., Israel)
says that many people commonly
refrain from giving anything to
unverified collectors. He finds this
problematic because Rav Isserles
says that you have to give at least a
minimal amount. Rav Katz offers four
justifications for this practice (Pesakim
U-Teshuvos 249:8 n. 54):
1) There are so many charity collectors
that they know not everyone will give
and therefore you do not embarrass
them by declining to give anything
(based on a statement by Rav Chaim
Ozer Grodzinski).
2) A collector will be upset by and
return a minimal donation.
3) Many collectors are collecting for
other people, not for themselves, in
which case this rule does not apply.
4) If a collector does not provide a

verification letter, maybe we do not have
to give to him.
While Rav Katz says this only as a
justification and not a recommendation,
Rav Shlomo Aviner (cont., Israel) advocates
refraining from giving tzedakah to an
unverified collector. In his commentary to
Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 34:1), Rav Aviner says
in very strong words that you should not give
tzedakah to someone who does not have a
rabbinic verification letter. His investigations
and discussions with other communal leaders
and police officers have led him to conclude
that roughly 90% of charity collectors in Israel
do not need the charity money. They collect
thousands of dollars that would otherwise go
to people who are deep in debt and struggling
to survive. Presumably, when Rav Isserles
says that we must give a minimal amount to
collectors, he is referring to legitimate needy
people who for one reason or another we are
not obligated to give but he is not referring to
unverified collectors.
The Gemara (Kesubos 68a) says that we
should appreciate the fakers (rama’im)
because if not for them, we would be sinning
every day when we refrain from giving
charity to collectors. The exact meaning here
is unclear. Is it that we are supposed to give
to everyone, whether verified or not, but
we sometimes fall short of that obligation?
However, that shortcoming isn’t always
a sin because we might be refraining from
giving to a faker. This seems to contradict the
Gemara in Bava Basra.
Rav Ya’akov Yehoshua Falk (18th cen.,
Germany) explains that everyone agrees
there is one category of people to whom we
should give without verification. According
to Rav Huna it is someone asking for clothes
and according to Rav Yehudah it is someone
asking for food. Each view would say that
the Gemara is referring to his category of
collector who does not need verification
(Pnei Yehoshua, Kesubos 68a). We should
give everyone in that category all that they
need but we do not always do so. The only
reason we aren’t always sinners is that some
people within that category do not really
need tzedakah.
The danger in this type of conversation
is that it might discourage people from
giving tzedakah to the people who need it.
We must be particularly careful to develop
generous personalities and to support
those who need our help today. Those who
give minimally or not at all to unverified
collectors should make sure to give extra
to those who are verified. The needs of our
people are great. We must take care to hear
the cries of the needy and help each other
survive and thrive in difficult situations.