The Second Tithe and the Making of a Strong Society
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
Biblical Israel from the time of Joshua until the destruction of the Second Temple was a predominantly agricultural society. Accordingly, it was through agriculture that the Torah pursued its religious and social programme. It has three fundamental elements.
The first was the alleviation of poverty. For many reasons the Torah accepts the basic principles of what we now call a market economy. But though market economics is good at creating wealth it is less good at distributing it equitably. Thus the Torah’s social legislation aimed, in the words of Henry George, “to lay the foundation of a social state in which deep poverty and degrading want should be unknown.”
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