The Talmud in tractate Baba Batra (8a) records a teaching about almsgiving that medieval Jewish communities took very seriously — so seriously that it became the foundation for how charity was organized across the Jewish world for centuries.
The principle was simple but radical: every single person in the community must give. Not just the wealthy. Not just the comfortable. Everyone. Even a poor person who himself receives charity is obligated to give something to someone even poorer. There are no exceptions and no excuses.
The rabbis explained the reasoning with devastating clarity. Charity — tzedakah (צדקה) — is not generosity. It is justice. The Hebrew word itself comes from the root meaning "righteousness." When you give to the poor, you are not being kind. You are doing what is right. And justice is not something only the rich owe.
Medieval communities took this teaching and built entire systems around it. Every town with a Jewish population established a communal charity fund called the kuppah. Collectors went door to door. Records were kept. Those who refused to give could be compelled by the court — because failing to give charity was considered a violation of the law, not merely a lapse in manners.
Maimonides later codified eight levels of giving, with the highest being a gift that helps the recipient become self-sufficient. But the folk tradition preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis emphasized the most basic level: just give something. A single coin. A crust of bread. The act of giving transforms the giver as much as it helps the receiver.
No one, the rabbis insisted, is too poor to participate in justice.