On a religious Jewish topic... More on the issue of why it is a mitzvah to give to non-Jews...
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol13/v13n055.shtmlDate: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 12:44:22 -0400
From: "Jonathan Ostroff" <
[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Storks and Tzedakah
> There's a famous idea that the stork is called Chasidah
> because it acts with chesed to its companions, sharing food
> with them.... As far as I know, the mitzvah of
> tzedakah for non-Jews is only due to darkei shalom...
According to Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Hoffman zt"l (Hildesheimer Rosh Yeshiva and well-known posek), darchei shalom is a different category to evah. The Mishna in Gittin (e.g. 59a) and elsewhere uses darchei shalom to regulate behaviour between Jew and Jew (not just between Jew and Gentile), e.g. you may not steal from a deaf-mute. We do not refrain from robbing a deaf-mute just in order to appear to be his good friend so that he will not hate us.
Thus darchei shalom is a positive active principle applicable to all times.
Hence it does not say "mipnei hashalom" which would mean to obtain or seek peaceful relations but rather "mipnei darchei shalom" (I think he means to stress lashon "derech"), i.e. to create and promote ways of peace. This also follows, he says, from the Rambam's codification of the Talmudic law:
"Even with respect to gentiles the Sages commanded that we visit their sick and bury their dead with the dead of Israel and provide for their poor together with the poor of Israel, out of "darchei shalom" (peace), for it is written "G-d is good unto all and His mercies are upon all His creatures", and it is written "(the Torah's) ways are ways of pleasantness and all (its) paths are paths of peace".
The "ways of pleasantness" Mishlei quote is used in the Talmud for good relations between Jew and Jew (e.g. Yevamos), and hence we have a positive Shalom principle based on a verse in Tanach.
Of course, in the case of a Gentile who accepts the 7 Noachide commands (the ger toshav), there is a positive command to sustain him. In the case of a pagan, Emes and Din would say that to support him is to support paganism. It is Shalom that comes along (as explained by R. Hoffman) and overrides Din even in this case.
Kol Tuv ... Jonathan
PS: Is it ironic it is called 'Darkie Shalom'?