"Giving It Up"

GIVING IT UP

            We are continuing in this series to have dialogue during the sermon time.   You can hear the dialog on RealAudio at http://www.stjohnsdover.org/ , but I don’t have a full text.   On May 16 we talked about giving.   The conversation went in very different directions across the two services, but they both started with me reading from a book by Julie Salamon called Rambam’s Ladder:   A Meditation on Generosity and Why It Is Necessary to Give.   “ Rambam ” is a nickname for 12^th century scholar and theologian Rabbi Moses ben Maimon , known often by his Greek name of Maimonides .

            Maimonides outlined the way we grow in our ability to be generous by imagining the progression as steps on a ladder.   What I read to the congregation were the 8 rungs of Maimonides , beginning with the lowest rung.   They are as follows:

1. (Lowest) To give bedgrudgingly.
2. To give less to the poor than is proper, but to do so cheerfully.
3. To hand money to the poor after being asked.
4. To hand money to the poor before being asked, but risk making the recipient feel shame.
5. To give to someone you don’t know, but allow your name to be known.
6. To give to someone you know, but who doesn’t know from whom he/she is receiving help.
7. To give to someone you don’t know, and to do so anonymously.
8. At the top of the ladder is the gift of self-reliance.  To hand someone a gift or a loan, or to enter into a partnership with him/her, or to find work for her/him, so that he/she will never have to beg again.