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Poverty and G-d's Plan
By Rabbi Pesach Wolicki

This week's parsha deals with the topic of charity. This subject is mentioned in the context of discussion of the forgiving of loans at the Sabbatical year. During this year it is forbidden to farm the land and anything that grows is free to be claimed by all. It is quite clear the poor depended on the Sabbatical year for their livelihood. In this context the Torah states:

"However, may there be no needy person among you, as G-d will surely bless you in the land that God your Lord will give you as an inheritance, to possess it." (Deut. 15:4)

Seven verses later, the Torah states: "For needy people will not cease to exist within the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall surely open your hand to your brother, to your poor, to your needy in your land." (15:11)
 

A number of commentaries make note of the incongruity of these two verses. The first states that there will be no needy people in the land. The second states definitively that there will be needy people. The Midrash responds to this problem with the following statement. "At a time when you are doing the will of the Omnipresent One there are needy people among others and not among you. When you are not doing the will of the Omnipresent One there are needy people among you." (Sifre 104, as quoted in Rashi)

One approach to this Midrashic quotation - that of Ibn Ezra, Ramban (Nachmanides) and others - is that if the people of Israel follow all of G-d's commandments, there will be no poverty. As Ramban puts it, "This is mentioned as a promise that there will not be a needy person among them when they are keeping all the commandments. [G-d] said 'But I know that not all the generations for all time will be entirely fulfilling the commandments, to the extent that it would not be needed to command [rules] for the needy at all." (Ramban Deut 15:11)

In other words, the first verse quoted above refers to the ideal situation in which all the commandments are being kept and G-d has removed poverty from the land. The second verse refers to those times in history when the generation is not keeping all of the commandments and there is poverty.

This approach paints a picture of an ideal world in which there is no poverty at all. However, is a world without poverty truly ideal? If there were no poverty, could there possibly be charity? If there is no one who is needy there is no opportunity to give charity. This may seem to be a peculiar concern. However, it certain critical ways society would certainly suffer if there were no possibility for charity.

The Purpose of Economic Inequality

Rabbi Moshe Shick (Maharam Shick, Hungary, 19th cent.) sees the second verse - the promise that there will be needy people - as part of G-d's ideal. "[G-d] planted people in his world, some are rich and some are poor for the good of humanity. If all were rich, there would be no relationships between people and money would be meaningless. Money is merely a tool for the fulfillment of His will and if all [people] were equal, money could never be elevated [to a higher purpose]." (Maharam Shick al haTorah, Re'eh; d"h ki yihiyeh)

Seen this way, the fact that some are needy serves a higher purpose. G-d guarantees that there will always be some needy people in order to allow for charitable interactions between people. One may imagine a similar argument for the value of illness as a guarantee that people will continue to visit and do kindness to the ill and infirm. This approach, while interesting, is admittedly fraught with theological difficulty as well as posing the question of what the first verse - promising no poverty - means.

Natural Neediness

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (Germany, 19th cent.), like Rabbi Shick, sees poverty as a necessity. "It lies quite in the course of the natural development of things that - left to itself - the greatest difference in fortunes, want and surplus, poverty and riches should exist next to one another. The inequality of mental gifts would already produce such inequalities as a natural consequence, and two sons starting from home with exactly equal means, and one having to provide for a single child, the other for a large family would soon present a very considerable difference in their means... But this condition of need which naturally exists elsewhere in the world, you are not allowed to occur in your land, in the land of G-d's Torah.... under the regime of a Torah community penury and need would only temporarily affect any individual, and with G-d's assistance, be changed to a happy existence on earth commensurate with the dignity of a human being." (S.R. Hirsch on Torah, Deut. 15:11)

As Rav Hirsch sees it, economic inequality and poverty is are inevitable features of the natural world. They are the direct result of other imbalances and differences in people's life circumstances. The goal of the Torah is not equality of economic status. Rather, the goal is to limit the inevitable poverty to a minimum. According to Rav Hirsch, the meaning of the Midrashic quote above is that "when you are doing the will of the Omnipresent One" refers to caring for the needy. In other words, as long as the people do G-d's will and care for the poor, there will be no needy people. If we do not do G-d's will - we don't care for the poor - there will be poor people. (see the end of Rav Hirsch's comment here)

Rav Hirsch agrees with Maharam Shick that there is a value in the existence of poverty inasmuch as it facilitates charity. He sees the first verse - the one that promises poverty - as a charge to the people to do something about it rather than as a promise that there will be no poverty.

Keeping it Personal

If, in fact, poverty serves the positive purpose of perpetuating expressions of charity, we must be careful to not undermine charity in other ways. As Rav Hirsch puts it, "The notice affixed to houses no beggars need apply, the owners subscribe generously to the public funds' has not engendered the Jewish spirit which this law has nourished." (S. R. Hirsch Deut 15:7)

If we start to think of the needy as the government's problem and content ourselves with the knowledge that our tax dollars help the poor, we may find ourselves falling out of the habit of charitable giving. This is one built-in problem with government programs to alleviate poverty. As Maharam Shick and Rav Hirsch point out, the preservation of this habit of giving may very well be the reason that poverty exists at all.