THE JERUSALEM INSTITUTE OF JEWISH LAW 
Rabbi Emanuel Quint, Dean

Lesson # 121 (part one) • Levying Taxes on a Community 

In the synagogue on Purim, whenever the reader of the Megillah mentions the name Haman, the congregants make noise with noisemakers or stamp their feet or just hiss. There is another word in the Megillah that elicits a similar response of hissing and stamping of feet. When the reader, near the end of the Megillah, reads “And the king Ahasuerus placed a tax (mas) upon the land,” there is usually a sustained hissing and stamping of feet. 

Needless to say, taxes are very seldom popular. In fact a great deal of white collar crimes deal with illegal tax evasion. High priced tax attorneys find loopholes for their clients to legally avoid paying certain taxes. But even since the earliest times, taxes are a way of life in most civilizations. There are many types of taxes, many often overlapping. The Jewish community is no different than other communities; taxes have to be collected to support the workings of government, to provide the usual expected services to the citizenry, including security of the citizens. 

Before I commence the next paragraph I think a few words are in order. Throughout the lessons I write about the Shulhan Aruch, Hoshen haMishpat. A few weeks ago my wife and I were invited to some friends, for dinner. After dinner our host showed me a small volume and proudly displayed his “Shulhan Aruch”. He wanted to know where in th e Shulhan Aruch he could find the part that in my lessons I label as Hoshen haMishpat. I explained to him the volume that he showed to me was not a “Shulhan Aruch” but rather a “Kitzur Shulhan Aruch” a condensed version of some, but certainly not many, of the sections of Shulhan Aruch. The next day in the synagogue library I showed him the Shulhan Aruch, consisting of ten tall, thick volumes. These volumes are divided into sections, the first three volumes are known as Orach Chaim, the next three volumes known as Yoreh De’ah, one volume known as Eben haEzer, and three final volumes known as Hoshen haMishpat. If you have not seen the Shulhan Aruch, please go to your synagogue library and ask the rabbi to show it to you. With this introduction, I can begin this lesson speaking about the Shulhan Aruch. (More about the authorship in some future lesson.) 

In Shulhan Aruch Hoshen haMishpat, Rabbi Karo, in those chapters that contain the laws of joint ownership of real estate has a chapter, 163, that he calls “Those Matters Which the Inhabitants of a Community may Compel the Others [to do]." This chapter relates to taxes, since obviously the inhabitants of a community can compel the payment of taxes to the community. 

In this lesson and the next two lessons, I shall discuss taxes as levied according to halachah (Jewish law) in the Jewish community. 

For the purposes of this lesson and the next lesson, whether the community be a small town or a large city, the laws are usually similar. Many of the laws that were codified in Shulhan Aruch, Hoshen haMishpat, and the commentaries on the Shulhan Aruch, reflect the fact that for the last 2,600, except for 153 years including the present State of Israel, and about 100 years under the Hasmoneans, the Jews did not at any time have sovereignty in their own homeland. They were subject to the whims of secular rulers where they resided, including in the Land of Israel, which until 1948 was ruled by foreign secular rulers. Very often these rulers foisted extraordinarily exorbitant taxes on the Jewish community, and left it for the Jews to raise the taxes within the community in any manner they saw fit and then remit the moneys to the ruler. The Western democracies generally do not “at this time” have tax laws that discriminate against Jews living in their country. I say, “at this time” since Jewish history is replete with comfortable living in foreign countries and then a sudden shock and rude awakening of pogroms and expulsions. 

In this lesson and the next two lessons, the secular ruler is designated as "the ruler." The ruler may be a king, dictator, or a democratically elected government such as in some western democracies. 

Many Jewish communities developed a system of representative government based on the local council, usually consisting of seven members. In this lesson such council is designated as "the Jewish council," and local Jewish government is designated as "the Jewish government." Taxes are differentiated in this lesson between the taxes foisted on the Jewish community living under the secular rulers and the taxes that the Jews imposed on their own residents for the normal operations of their internal governmental functions. The former are designated herein as "external taxes" and the latter as "internal taxes" and are used for internal matters. 

The topics of this lesson and the next lessons are arranged as follows: external taxes; internal matters for which taxes may be levied; who may vote in the election of the Jewish council; who may be taxed; certain exemptions from taxation; graduated taxes; establishing the taxpayer's worth; and collection of the taxes. Every inhabitant of the community is obligated to pay the external taxes imposed on the Jewish inhabitants of the community, whether or not the inhabitant is a permanent resident or has some other exemption, described below, from internal taxes. The reason for this is, that the ruler in imposing the taxes looks to see how many people are in the Jewish community and does not take into account that many of the persons in town are not permanent residents. He deems all of the persons that he finds present to be part of the tax base. If the ruler imposes a head tax, everyone must pay such tax, including Torah scholars.

Because of the special role that Torah scholars play in Jewish life, they are exempt from some internal taxes, the theory being that it is because of their scholarship that the city is safe. 

Rabbi Moshe Isserles (Ramo) in his glosses to Shulhan Aruch, Hoshen haMishpat, chapter 163, writes the following law: A [Jewish] community loaned money to the [secular] ruler, who told the [Jewish] community to repay itself from taxes collected for this purpose. Thereafter, the [secular] ruler changed his mind and insisted that the loan be cancelled and that taxes collected be sent to him without the offset for the money loaned to him, which the [secular] ruler had in essence expropriated for himself. The [Jewish] community reconciled itself to the fact that the money raised by these taxes was lost and that the other taxes would have to be paid, and the townspeople did actually pay the additional taxes. The [secular] ruler died and his son ascended the throne and agreed to the original arrangement made by his father, that is, that the citizens would not have to pay twice. It was held that under such circumstances, the money recovered by the [Jewish] town council from the ruler may be held by them and need not be refunded to compensate the taxpayers. The reason is that when the ruler stated that he would not repay the loan, there was a universal acceptance that the Jews had given up any hope of recovering the moneys. Once hope has been given up the moneys are deemed abandoned. 

(To be continued in the next lesson, IYH) 

The subject matter of this lesson is more fully discussed in Vol. V, Ch.163 of A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law by E. Quint, published by Jason Aronson, Inc. and on sale at local Judaica bookstores. 

Questions to quint@inter.net.il