TRADITION Questions: Weak Ties and Purim

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What is it?   
How many poor people do you know personally? As our society becomes more economically stratified that number is declining for many at the top.

One of the four laws of Purim is giving gifts to the poor (Shulhan Arukh, O.H. 694:1). Typically, this obligation is fulfilled through rabbis and charitable organizations, rather than through direct personal giving. This has long been the case. The Talmud records the collection and distribution of such funds by public officials (Bava Metzia 78b). Why doesn’t the normal preference to perform a mitzvah oneself rather than through an agent (Kiddushin 41a) apply to this rabbinic command?

Why does it matter?
Rabbi Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg (Turei Even) questions whether a person can fulfill the obligation of both mishloah manot and matanot la-evyonim by sending gifts to a poor friend on Purim (quoted in Rabbi Akiva Eiger, O.H. 695:2). Because Shushan Purim falls on Shabbat this year, in Jerusalem the two mitzvot apply on different days and as such this question would not apply there. R. Yosef Engel (Gilyonei ha-Shas , Shabbat 10b) claims that the identity of the giver must be known to the recipient because the verse describes matanot la-evyonim as “gifts,” which one gives expecting the recipient to know the specific identity of the giver. These sages assume that the poor man would personally know the one who gives to him. Is this true anymore?

What questions remain?
The geographic separation between rich and poor has grown dramatically in the last forty years.  How does this distance affect Jewish communities and Jewish culture? How might the mitzva of matanot la-evyonim be different if we knew the people to whom we give?

What does it mean to have a friend in a different socio-economic class from yourself? Jewish communities were once hotbeds for what sociologist Mark Granovetter termed “weak ties”—acquaintances, people you see infrequently, and near strangers with whom you share some familiarity. The rich knew the poor and vice versa. With the rise of boutique minyanim, people meet fewer “near strangers” in the big shul. It’s great to develop deep connections with the same people every week. Yet close relationships only go so far. Granovetter’s research led him to a conclusion that was at the time groundbreaking and is still, to many people, counterintuitive: Casual friends and acquaintances can be as important to well-being as close friends. In a survey he conducted of how 282 men in the United States got their jobs, Granovetter found that a person’s weak ties—their casual connections and loose acquaintances—were more helpful than their strong ones in securing employment. How might facilitating more weak ties facilitate advancement for those who receive matanot la-evyonim? What other benefits might accrue, both personally and communally?

Much has been written about the “Shidduch Crisis,” including a recent report by the Orthodox Union. To what extent might the decline of weak ties in our communities contribute to this problem?

Chaim Strauchler, rabbi of Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, is an Associate Editor of TRADITION.