Step by step, a way to give

0 Comments | USA TODAY, December, 2003 | by Cathy Lynn Grossman

Every December your mailbox overflows with anguished pleas from umpteen groups on behalf of the sick, the suffering, and the impoverished -- all with return envelopes awaiting your check.

The holidays are prime time for charity. Christians are enjoined to regard each other as they would Jesus, Jews to give righteously. Muslims honor charity as one of the five pillars of Islam. And the IRS charitable deduction deadline looms.

But how much do you have to give to be good? Does the spirit matter as much as the cents? Who "deserves" your help?

Author Julie Salamon finds modern answers in the work of a 13th-century Jewish philosopher, physician and scholar. Rabbi Moses ben Maimon -- born in Spain and exiled to Egypt, called Maimonides by the Greeks and Rambam by...