[Avodah] Torah Institutions = Tzeddakah?

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, November 14, 2007 6:41 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
> : The actual obligation of tzedaka on each person is very small: only
> : a third of a shekel a year (YD 249:2).  Anything more than that is
> : voluntary, and therefore can be given to other causes.

> What about maaser kesofim? 
> Isn't this because the mechabeir holds (as articulated explicitly by
> the Bach) that maaser kesafim is at most a minhag? And given his
> omission altogether in a book that contains minhagei Yisrael, it would
> be a minhag chasidus that happens to be the norm, not even subject to
> minhag Yisrael kedin.

It was a minhag Ashkenaz; in the Rosh's will he asked his sons to
follow it, even though they generally followed the minhagim of their
native Sefarad, where maaser kesafim was apparently unknown.


> 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".

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas