Despite their emphasis on giving, Judaism takes a pragmatic approach. Orthodox Jews are expected to give at least 10 percent away to charity. But there’s an upper limit to giving too. Unless one is enormously wealthy, people are discouraged from giving more than 20 percent. Why? Because giving everything away causes you to become impoverished, and then you can’t help anyone else. One sage commented, “It’s better to give one shekel a thousand different times than a thousand shekels at once, because each time you give, you become a kinder person.”17
