[Avodah] Torah Institutions = Tzeddakah?

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:

> Historically, Ashkenazim gave maaser. But nearly all of us did so in
> the form of taxation by the autonomous kehillah.

AIUI the tax was only 5%, and the other 5% was "ish es kodoshov
lo yihyu".


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

Remember that the Rosh was an Ashkenazi.  The chiddush was that he
not only continued giving maaser when he moved to Spain, but asked his
sons, who presumably kept minhagei Sefarad, to do so as well.

 
> 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.

Perhaps so, but that itself is merely the new minhag.  And it has to
be taken on its own terms -- hapeh she'asar hu hapeh shehitir -- the
same minhag that has made maaser kesafim mandatory also permits it to
be used for any mitzvah or worthy cause, not just for feeding hungry
Jews, clothing naked ones, and sheltering homeless ones.  The core
requirement of 1/3 shekel per annum -- that, AFAIK, must be spent on
actual tzedaka in its strictest definition.


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