Tithing: should I give to my church or to my neighbor?

You are asking the right question, and asking it honestly. You want to give, you want to give where God actually wants it, and you sense those two destinations might not be the same. That instinct, to follow the money back to God's intent, is exactly right.

And giving to the people who teach and gather you is not wrong. Sha'ul (Paul) said those who labor at teaching are worth their keep, and a community needs support to exist. Supporting genuine shepherds and real fellowship is a good thing.

But you have probably felt the pinch of a system that aims almost all of it at a building and a budget, while the widow two doors down goes unseen. That discomfort is not stinginess. It is your conscience reading the Torah more accurately than the sermon did.

The frame to put down is the one that says the tithe belongs to the institution by default, the bring-it-to-the-storehouse line aimed at you as a building-fund lever. In the Torah the tithe was never a salary for a clergy class. It fed the Levites who had no land, it funded the feasts, and every third year it was set aside specifically for the orphan, the widow, the stranger, and the poor in your own gates (Deuteronomy 14:28-29, 26:12-15).

So the weight of the biblical tithe falls closer to your neighbor than to the offering plate. The God who designed it tied it to the hungry person near you, and Yeshua (Jesus) put the whole thing on display: what you did for the least of these, you did for Him (Matthew 25:35-40). Give to your gathering as it genuinely serves the work and the needy; give to your neighbor as the very thing the tithe was built to do. If you have to choose, Scripture already chose the one in need.

Do not take it from me. Read Deuteronomy 14 and 26 and watch where the tithe actually goes, then read Matthew 25 and James 1:27 and ask which giving God calls pure. Let the text, not the building's needs, set where your generosity lands.