Parashat Lekh-Lekha tells of the prophecy of berit bein ha-betarim, which begins with God reiterating His promise to make a great nation from Avraham. The Torah then proceeds to describe Avraham’s response to God’s promise: “He believed in the Lord, and He considered it tzedaka” (15:6).
What does the Torah mean when it says that God looked upon Avraham’s belief as “tzedaka”?
Rashi explains the word “tzedaka” hear to mean “merit.” Quite simply, Avraham’s unbridled faith in God’s promise, despite his and his wife’s advanced age and many years of infertility, was a source of great personal merit for him.
The Rambam, in his Guide for the Perplexed (3:53), seems to explain differently, interpreting this verse to mean that faith itself is termed “tzedaka.” The word “tzedaka” is rooted in the word “tzedek,” or “justice,” which the Rambam defines to mean “the act of giving every one his due, and of showing kindness to every being according as it deserves.” As opposed to chesed, which denotes extraordinary kindness, tzedek refers to giving to people as they deserve. Tzedaka, according to the Rambam, means not giving to people what they rightfully deserve, but rather giving oneself, one’s inner sense of duty and responsibility, what it deserves. The Rambam writes:
…we do perform an act of tzedaka when we fulfill those duties toward our fellow-men which our moral conscience imposes upon us; e.g., when we heal the wound of the sufferer… When we walk in the way of virtue we act righteously towards our intellectual faculty, and pay what is due unto it; and because every virtue is thus tzedaka, Scripture applies the term to the virtue of faith in God. Comp. “And he believed in the Lord, and he accounted it to him as righteousness.”
The Torah here teaches that faith amounts to tzedaka insofar as we thereby “act righteously towards our intellectual faculty and pay what is due unto it.”
The Rosh, in his Torah commentary (cited in Torah Sheleima to this verse, note 81), likewise seems to interpret this verse as establishing the classification of faith as tzedaka, though without explaining how precisely the term tzedaka is an appropriate description of faith. Interestingly, he adds that this verse sheds light on a number of famous prophecies that speak of the importance of “tzedaka.” Among the prophecies mentioned by the Rosh is the famous verse in Sefer Yeshayahu (1:27), “Tziyon be-mishpat tipadeh ve-shaveha bi-tzdaka” – “Zion shall be redeemed through justice, and those who return to it – through tzedaka.” The Rosh contends that in this verse, too, “tzedaka” is used to mean faith, particularly, faith in the prophet’s message. Yeshayahu declares that Am Yisrael will earn its redemption through mishpat – living up to the Torah’s ethical ideals – as well as through tzedaka, unshakable faith in these prophecies. Without the nation’s firm belief in the predictions of its ultimate restoration, it could not possibly survive the tribulations of exile. Our national redemption thus depends not only on the exercise of mishpat, but also in our continued faith in the words of the prophets.