Eighth grader Gujjar wants to know, what is an "amount set aside for the poor and needy?"

Hi Gujjar, I'm guessing that you're looking for a specific word with that meaning? Probably the word you're looking for is "alms."

The word alms is defined by one dictionary as "charitable donations of money or goods to the poor or needy."

Notice that "alms" is a plural noun; it is defined as "donations" rather than "donation." However, I have never ever heard the word used singularly as "alm" - you wouldn't say "I gave an alm" for "I gave a gift to the poor." Even if it was just one gift, you would still say, "I gave alms."

Alms-giving is treated differently in different parts of the world. Here in the United States, if you're driving down a city street, it's not unusual to find a person standing at the corner with a sign asking for money. The tendency here is to not engage; we are often suspicious that the recipient might use the money for bad purposes (i.e. drugs). In one place I visited in north Africa, I remember being surprised at the number of people who were on street corners asking for money, but I was even more surprised at the number of people who engaged with them. It was explained to me that it is simply part of the culture, and people carry coins in their pockets specifically for the purpose of giving. In some religions, alms-giving is commanded, and in most religions it is strongly encouraged.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus famously said, "Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly."

Jesus makes the assumption that people will give to the poor and needy*, and then points out that even something as good as giving to the poor can be undertaken badly; it is not done in order to receive glory from people. If you give in the hope that people will pat you on the back for your giving, you're doing it for the wrong reason. 

Instead, Jesus says, your giving should be so secret that even your left hand doesn't even realize that your right hand is being generous. That's a clever way of saying, "Keep it VERY secret" To this day, people still use the phrase "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" - although most people use it to describe a situation where people are working at cross-purposes because they don't know what the other person is doing. But originally, it was meant as a positive thing, not negative.

Incidentally, in case "alms" wasn't the word you were looking for, here are thesaurus.com's synonyms:

aid, assistance, benefaction, charity, contribution, dole, donation, offering

[Note: the image shown above is a portion of a painting of Bishop Nicholas of Myra giving alms, painted by Jan Heinsch in the 1600s]

* It's no wonder that Jesus makes this assumption; the Old Testament has several commands and recommendations to this effect, such as in Deuteronomy 15:7 "If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be." and Proverbs 19:17 "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed."

"Hello The Professor. Please explain additive and subtractive in art." ~Anon

I'm assuming you mean additive and subtractive colors. This is a fascinating topic from both an artistic and a scientific point of view. 

Additive Color Sample

One of the best ways for me to help you visualize additive colors is to show you some color swatches generated on my computer. These color swatches will progress from left to right with the left-most swatch being fully saturated red, and then progressively adding more and more blue and green, until the blue and green are fully saturated in the last swatch. You can see that the swatches progress from red to pure white.

Subtractive Color Sample

For the subtractive color sample, I used my Prismacolor Premier Pencils. I made eight swatches in the following manner. I covered the entire region with my Crimson Red* pencil. Then I covered seven of the eight swatches with Copenhagen Blue and Grass Green. I then covered the entire region with red again, and colored six regions with blue and green. I repeated this process until my last layer of blue and green was just on the final square. The final result is that each swatch has eight layers of red, and successively from left to right they have 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 layers of blue and green. I've simulated the conditions of the additive sample, except using pigments instead of light.

As you can see (and I verified using a color-chooser tool in my graphics software) the last square is almost perfectly gray with just a hint of blue (it's very close to black - we would call it 85% cool gray).

What's the Difference?

One simple way of describing the difference is to say that in one case, light is emitted, and in the other, it is reflected. It should seem reasonable to you that if you add more light, you'll get something brighter, not something darker. 

My computer screen is emitting the light, rather than reflecting it.

But when you're dealing with pigment, you're not dealing with something that emits light; you're dealing with something that reflects light. My red pencil reflects red light. But wait! If it reflects red light, what does it do to all the other colors of light? It absorbs them. So white light (which is made up of all the colors) hits my red pencil, all the visible light except the red gets absorbed and doesn't reflect (in reality, the pencil is made up of pigment suspended in wax, so it is somewhat translucent; some of the light passes through the wax and pigment, hits the white paper, and is reflected back).

Of course, the same is true of the blue and green; the blue pencil absorbs everything except blue light, which it reflects, and the green pencil absorbs everything except green. So what happens when I put a layer of red, a layer of blue, and a layer of green down on paper? Each of the three colors is partly absorbed by the other two pigments, which deadens the color. Keep adding more layers, and you decrease the translucence, and the color gets more and more "dead and dark." Why is it called "subtractive"? Because more and more light is absorbed, which decreases the amount of light that is reflected.

* I've included Amazon links to the individual colors so you can see what they look like, but I don't really recommend buying individual pencils from Amazon. You'll get a good deal on a set from Amazon, but when it comes to buying individual pencils (which you will do on a regular basis - you'll find there are certain colors you just love using, and you can't get enough of them), you'll want to visit your local art store (and I don't necessarily mean the big name chains like Hobby Lobby) and see what their prices are. If you are fortunate to have a locally owned art store, consider supporting them with your business. If you spend some time getting to know the people that run them, you may feel comfortable asking them questions about their business. You may find that they take a loss on some items in order to get people in the store. Find out where they make their money (it's probably scanning and framing of artwork), and take that business to them.