I might agree with you, except that individual charity simply doesn't meet the need. Plus the model for the ideal society in the Torah makes redistribution of wealth a priority central to the law.
Who do you think enforced tzedakah and wealth redistribution in ancient Israel?
Do you think it was voluntary to leave unharvested the four corners of your field, or to redistribute the land back to the original families in the year of jubiliee? No, it was manditory. Now, who do you think enforced it?
Not arguing that man enforces that which they think is right, just questioning whether you think God wanted it to be that way.
God established it that way, so His desires are pretty apparent.
But in real life, people often don't do what God wants, and for any society to work, including ancient Israel, compliance must be community wide. Redistribution of wealth only works because everyone participates. So who do you think enforced it?
Exactly. The elders enforced it. The elders were part of the government How exactly they did it scripture didn't say. By the second temple period they had i.e. temple guards. But we don't know exactly how it worked back in the agrarian times. We do know, however, that there were consequences for disobedience.
Yes. It's MANIPULATIVE. And it shoves the gospel down the throats of those who really don't want to hear it.
In the days of early Israel, virtually all were farmers. Towns only had a couple hundred to several thousand people usually. But even those in towns, because they were part of families, owned land. Thus absolutely everyone in Israel had a source of income (even the Levites, although indirectly).
No excuse. They decide for themselves. We don't live in the dark ages where stuff gets forced on people.
