Pemikiran Yahudi Ulangan 14:22: Duties & Guide for the Perplexed

According to the above four divisions, human beings are under obligations to serve G-d. Whenever G-d increases His beneficence to an individual, that individual is under an obligation to render additional service for it. This is illustrated by the following examples. It is a duty to tithe produce, as it is written, "You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year" (Deut. 14:22). One to whom G-d has given one hundred kur of produce is obliged to give ten kur; one to whom G-d has only given ten kur has to give one kur. If the former were to separate nine and a half kur and the latter were to separate one kur, the former would be punished, while the latter would receive a reward.

The use of keeping festivals is plain. Man derives benefit from such assemblies: the emotions produced renew the attachment to religion; they lead to friendly and social intercourse among the people. This is especially the object of the commandment to gather the people together on the Feast of Tabernacles, as is plainly stated: “that they may hear, and that they may learn and fear the Lord” (Deut. 31:12). The same is the object of the rule that the money for the second tithe must be spent by all in one place (ibid. 14:22-26), as we have explained (chap. xxxix. p. 184). The fruit of trees in their fourth year, and the tithe of the cattle, had to be brought to Jerusalem. There would therefore be in Jerusalem the meat of the tithes, the wine of the fruit of the fourth year, and the money of the second tithe. Plenty of food would always be found there. Nothing of the above things could be sold; nothing could be set aside for another year; the Law orders that they should be brought “year by year” (Deut. 14:22); the owner was thus compelled to spend part of them in charity. As regards the Festivals it is especially enjoined: “And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow” (ibid. 16:14). We have thus explained the reason of every law belonging to this class, and even many details of the laws.