Maimonides on Almsgiving: A Levinassian Reading

Levinas’s analysis of the relationship between ethics, with its uncompromising responsibility, and politics, with its compromises, is difficult. An examination Maimonides’s chapters on charity may help us understand it. According to Maimonides, one is commanded to give the poor person everything he or she lacks, including clothes, furniture, a spouse, as well as a horse and a herald. One is, moreover, required to give “with a friendly face” and to see the face of the poor person. However, it is impossible to fulfill one’s infinite ethical obligation to him or her, since there are many other poor people; one thus compromises and gives a fixed sum to the city’s charity fund. The greatest charity, according to Maimonides, is the ransoming of captives, who are not only destitute but in imminent danger of death.