Recently I somewhat casually flung the phrase 'chessed le umim chatas' (charity among the nations is flawed) into the discussion, as regards the immense outpourings of support for the Palestinians from various quarters, most particularly the European and American so-called progressives.
Yossi Izrael commented:
BTW, BOTH, that's not the primary meaning of the sentence. it means that when they do real chesed it's mostly for self-aggrandization or gain. Very often true.
[Here: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/dovbear/2418939851487145314/?src=hsn]
CHESSED LE'UMIM CHATAS
What it really means is that when they do what seems to be chessed, it is suspect or flawed - their good deeds lack something. Chatas is derived from cheyt, indicating that something is not up to snuff, does not measure up, is insufficient. There is also a connotation of unintentionality, as the term chatas is an offering to atone for an accidental sin.
The corollary is that one is supposed to do chessed intentionally, with no other agenda than that it is the right thing to do.
In this case, the reasons for the support for the Palestinians from so many non-Jews are ab initio and necessarily suspect. The more so as more deserving peoples do not attract even half as much attention and outrage. Certainly nearly half a million Darfurian dead are at least as deserving as several hundred Hamas members?
What about the hundreds if not thousands of Bangladeshi and Burmese migrants tied up, towed back out to sea, and left to die by the Thai coastguard? The people caught up in the war raging in the Congo?
Obviously, these and many others do not count; their oppressors are not Jews, and in consequence their suffering, though far worse than that of Hamas, is of no consequence.
Now, as regards self-aggrandizement or gain: On the one hand, that applies also to many Jews (hence all those plaques honouring those who made a bequest, and the mentions in every Jewish publication of the names of those who made this or that possible), and on the other hand, that reflects the times of the Talmud; in terms of ethically or morally inspired acts, most Gentiles of that age were bribing their idols to do things for them, ergo the motives that caused Jews and Gentiles to act charitably had to be assumed to differ.
One can assume that a charitable act committed by an idolater necessarily has an ulterior motive, because the pattern of bribing the idol in return for rewards not only inculcates the attitude that doing good gets rewarded, but also posits a bargaining position vis a vis the divine.
The presumption of an ulterior motive to the idolater's actions is pithily encapsulated in the phrase ‘chessed le umim chatas’.
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NOTE
Chaim (Bray of Fundie) brought the phrase back to the surface of my mind nearly two years ago. It had sat there for a while. I think I first ran into it back in the late nineties when reading Neussner's translation of the Mishna and researching some of the ideas therein. It did not sit there and fester; it fermented. Fermentation is good - without it, there would be no wine, no beer, no bread, no aged cheeses, no matured tobacco.
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4 comments:
Very good.
I'm not sure if we're having a machlokes or just saying the same thing with a difeerent amount of words.
What you write in the 1st para doesn't seem to negate what I said - it may be a further explanantion or a broader definiton.
RE the korban chatas - IIRC I saw a perush that says that they (also)actually do the chesed to appease their conscience.
Note that giving tzdakah lecatchila for atonement or further atonement is well accepted in yiddishkeit. So the 'wrong' part of it is obviously substituting tsdaka for tshuva, or even continuing to sin and give.
Which brings us to the plaques - usu. people don't give to a yeshiva etc just for the lousy gold plaque.
When the gmora discussed 'chesed leumin chats' they spooke about the huge monuments built by the Greeeks & Romans, so the claim is even the useful ones are for 'gayvah'.
BTW - the 'Le' in Leumim is in the root ("Leum"=nation, so it's not Le Umim. In gmora speak that would have been Le Umos. [The 'Um' synonym in loshon mishna and later is nekeivah Uma, Umos])
BTW - the 'Le' in Leumim is in the root ("Leum"=nation, so it's not Le Umim.
Yes, the leum as in Bank Leumi. But for me combining e and u in that order is a problem. I read eu as a Dutch sound similar to 'eww!', 'owe', or the oe in Loew. Think of the painter Breughel( alt. sp.: Brueghel), and you will understand my visual problem. And know that until about twelve years ago I thought of it as 'bank loomy'.
As a happy compromise, I have added an apostrophe between the ee and the oo.
Aaahhh... Dutch Jew... I see.
Maybe a better compromise would be to leave the vowels out altogether, as in the origina. 'nt t lt sr t ndrstnd vrythng lk tht?
BTW, check out the new 'parshanut' for the term "am levadad yishkon" on my website. You'll like it.
hey BOTH
just wanted to point out that the common Lubavitch interpretation of "chessed leumim chatat" is highly flawed and motivated by their typical xenophobia and lack of erudition. in fact, The Tanya misquotes that line in the Gemara in trying to prove that Gentiles are incapable of altruism.
Steg of the Goblin Kingdom has an okay post somewhere on the subject. My reading is Soncino-translation-based and even more liberal than his.
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