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When someone is volenteering there time or talant for a charity cause, can they deduct the equivelent of that from maaser?
I would be very surprised to hear a yes.
There’s an inyan of asiri kodesh. But I don’t think that is a real ma’aser either.
I may be mistaken, but i believe R’ Moshe paskened that one has to give maaser of his time in addition to money. (He said this in regard to ayeshiva bachur asked him if he is required to give time to learn with another bachur who needed extra help.)
(Needless to say, this is not a psak) I would imagine one could not pattur up an obligation of tzedaka by doing chessed, even if the IRS allows it.
I actually asked a similar question to R’ Shmuel Berenbaum & R’ Dovid Feinstein. My question was, can I do work for a yeshiva & not charge them & count that as Maaser, & can I do work for somebody who I know has no money, & do extra work & not charge them.
R’ Shmuel Berenbaum said absolutely it could be counted as Maaser. He said that you could be Mekadesh a Isha with that value, so why should it not be counted as Maaser.
R’ Dovid Feinstein said that he feels that Maaser is something that has to actually come out of my pocket. He therefore felt that I could not count the time as Maaser unless I charged them & then returned the money
What if your volunteered time actually caused the Tzedakah to get more money?
Ie Instead of giving the Tzedakah $54 you vounteered at a chinese auction helping to raise money (Finding volunteers for these events can be harder than you think)
R’ Dovid Feinstein said that he feels that Maaser is something that has to actually come out of my pocket. He therefore felt that I could not count the time as Maaser unless I charged them & then returned the money
Is that because it literally has to come out of pocket, and if someone was moichel his salary to a mosad (as in dz’s example) it would not be ma’aser? Or is it because if he wasn’t offered a salary, then it’s not considered as if he’s given money?
I would think the latter.
What seems most logical to me is that one could only deduct work as ma’aser if he actually could have received compensation.
I would think these are all examples of chasadim. Somehow with the da’as Torah of an anemone, I feel the same way as R’ Dovid Feinstein. But the fact that R’ Shmuel Berenbaum says differently tells me that I obviously have no clue what I’m talking about.
What if you gave a Tzedakah a NON-CASH gift like say a computer would that count?
What if you gave the Tzdekah something of value. for example a man died recently and his sister was a nun and he gave the convent where his sister had lived a Honus Wagner T206 Baseball card, It was in poor condition but fetched $262,000 (This baseball card is the holy grail of baseball cards, In mint condtion its worth in the millions)
What if you gave the Tzdekah something of value.
I would think that this is the same as giving a check. I think this discussion even comes up by paper money as well.
Rav Shlomo Zalman says that you can bill the Mossad, and then be mochel as maaser. He says that it only counts for 9/10 value, as this bill also needs Maaser.
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