[Avodah] Torah Institutions = Tzeddakah?

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, November 16, 2007 1:38 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
:> Since in these more affluent times, many poseqim (and English guide
:> writers) are chosheshim for the Shelah (ma'aser kesafim deOraisa) or
:> the Maharil (deRabbanan), I wonder if one can blindly rely on this
:> tiny shiur lemaaseh.

: This itself is the current *minhag*; and that same minhag is also that
: this maaser can go not just for actual tzedaka defined narrowly, but
: for any good cause within the broad definition of "tzedaka".

I presumed that a 173 pg guide (preview available on books.google.com
at <http://tinyurl.com/35yxj9>) on exactly how to take maaser kesafim
(as just one example) was proof that poseqim who replied to the survey
to be cited the book were pasqening lechumrah lehalakhah, not saying
one should be machmir qua minhag.

Historically, Ashkenazim gave maaser. But nearly all of us did so in
the form of taxation by the autonomous kehillah. It's hard to separate
that from Torah to know if it was considered din, minhag, or a decree
of tuv'ei ha'ir. It would therefore be hard to find Ashkenazi
acharonim discussing the problem -- most people had no choice.

Among Sepharadim, maaser kesafim simply wasn't done. The Rosh
discusses his own accepting it as a personal chumrah.

But drifting back on topic... I really took the spate of English
books, and really more their citations of modern poseqim, to mean that
we had a new pesaq on the rise that *halachically* require maaser.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
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