THE END OF POVERTY

“If you shall lend silver to My people, to the poor who is with you, you shall not be a creditor to him, you shall not impose upon him interest.” (Shmot 22:24)

‘Poverty alleviation’ is a phrase that one often hears in South Africa. There are millions of citizens who are unemployed, a large percentage of whom live well below the bread line. In many instances, poverty is a multi-generational problem, an unfortunate legacy handed from father to son to grandson. This is true not just here but in many developing countries and even in certain enclaves of prosperous first-world democracies. What is the solution to systemic poverty? Some would argue that education is top of the list. The more educated the population, the more chance they have of finding gainful employment. Moreover, there is a tendency among the educated class to have fewer children. Others advocate for programmes of birth control. If the population is kept in check, there are fewer mouths to feed and scarce resources can be shared more equitably. For decades, China had a ‘one-child-per-family’ policy. Rather than fix the problem, the country is now burdened with a top-heavy population and not enough young people. Yet, others would argue that the economy is the answer and, if allowed to flourish, the market would eventually solve the problem. The socialist and communist ‘utopias’ of the twentieth century all attempted to solve poverty by creating a single working class that would share the resources of the country fairly. These attempts were failures of epic proportions and most former socialist societies have now embraced capitalism. What then is the answer to this problem that plagues humanity?

The Torah identifies some of the causes of poverty and offers bold solutions. Broadly speaking, there are four causes: (1) landlessness; (2) massive debt due to the heavy cost of borrowing money; (3) the inability of the ‘lower classes’ to escape their situation and (4) indentured servitude that continues from one generation to another.  

The first solution to the problem of poverty is to stop it before it happens (Vayikrah 25:35), “If your brother should become poor, and his means fail while living with you, you shall support him, stranger or resident alien, and he shall live with you.” The Torah demands that we “support” someone who is on the brink of financial collapse. The word for ‘support’ used in this directive, v’hechezakta, means to grasp something tightly. Rashi explains: “Do not allow him to fall and collapse, making it difficult to pull him up again, rather grasp him tightly from the time he begins to falter. To what may this be compared? To a load that is on the back of a donkey. While it is still on the beast, one person can grab it and steady it so that it does not fall. But once it has fallen to the ground, even five people will struggle to pick it up.” When we see that someone is in financial distress, we must come to his aid immediately by providing him with a loan or outright gift. This is the highest form of charity according to the Rambam (Hilchot Matanot Aniim 10:7) who writes, “The highest level [of eight]… is to support a fellow Jew who is faltering and to give him an outright gift or loan, or enter into a partnership with him, or find him gainful employment thereby strengthening him so that he will not have to depend on the support of others or beg…”

This solution can sometimes create a new problem. If the struggling individual takes a loan to solve his cash flow crisis, he might be caught in a debt trap due to the heavy cost of financing the loan. The Torah addresses this in the very next verse (ibid 25:36 and see Shmot 22:24, above), “Do not take interest or increase from him; you shall fear your God and your brother shall live with you.” A loan must be interest-free. Admittedly, this is a difficult demand to place on a lender. And that is precisely why the Torah adds, “you shall fear your God.” As Rashi explains, “Because a person is drawn after interest and finds it difficult to desist therefrom and he seeks justification to charge interest so that his money does not have to ‘sit idle’ in the borrower’s possession, the verse has to state, “you shall fear your God.” However, even if no interest is charged, the borrower might still struggle to repay the loan and end up in an endless cycle of debt. Once again, the Torah has a bold solution (Devarim 15:1-2), “At the end of seven years you shall perform a remittal. This is the matter of the remittal: Every creditor that has extended credit to his neighbour shall remit [his right to demand repayment.] He shall not demand it from his neighbour or from his brother, because remittal has been proclaimed for the Lord.” At the end of the Sabbatical year, all outstanding loans are cancelled. Naturally, this does put the creditor at risk. The sages dealt with this but the solution is beyond our scope.

There was another way for a struggling Jew to find succour and that was to sell himself as an eved ivri, an indentured Jewish servant (Vayikrah 25:39 and Shmot 21:2-6). This was a drastic measure but it provided the man and his family with board and lodgings (Rashi, Vayikrah 25: 1). The servant was to be treated with dignity and his master was not permitted to make him do slave labour. The problem with this solution is that it encourages unhealthy dependency and leads to the risk of creating a servant class. The Torah therefore limited the period of servitude. At the end of the servant’s sixth year of service, he goes free (Shmot 21:2). If he wants to remain in the ‘employ’ of his master, he must undergo a humiliating procedure called retziah, whereby his ear is pierced against a door (ibid verse 6). Even then, he can serve only until the jubilee year at which time “he shall go out from you, he and his children with him. He shall return to his family and to the ancestral portion of his fathers, he shall return. For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves.” (Vayikrah 25:41-42).

Even more drastic than a person selling himself as a slave is the heartbreaking case of an impoverished father selling his young daughter as a Hebrew maidservant (Shmot 21:7-11). This is unimaginable to most of us in the twenty-first century but there were times when poverty was so extreme that a father could not support his own daughter and had no choice but to find her a master who would provide her with a livelihood. In that sad scenario, the period of servitude was also limited, even more so than the Hebrew manservant. The maiden would go free at the end of six years or when she reached puberty, whichever came first.  Moreover, she was not permitted to extend her period of service until the Jubilee year (Rashi on Shmot 21:7). There was another way in which her servitude could end and that was through marriage to her master or his son. Rabbi David Fohrman (Exodus: A Parsha Companion) suggests that this arrangement enabled a woman from a poor family to climb the social ladder and escape her life of poverty. Under normal circumstances, people from the ‘upper classes’ do not socialise with or marry people from the ‘lower classes’. In the case of the maidservant, however, she had the option of becoming the lawfully wedded wife of an aristocratic and wealthy family, thereby ending generations of poverty.

Then there is the issue of landlessness. We learn in the book of Bamidbar (chapter 26) that every Jewish family that entered the Land of Canaan with Joshua was granted a parcel of land. Nine and a half tribes received their ancestral land west of the Jordan and the tribes of Reuven, Gad and half of Menashe received their land in the area east of the Jordan (Bamidbar 34:13-15). The tribe of Levi was given cities within the provinces of the other tribes (ibid chapter 35:1-8). Consequently, every citizen of Israel had a piece of land, no matter how small. In addition, that piece of land could never be alienated from its owner. Even if the landowner sold his land out of poverty, he had the option of repurchasing it once two years had elapsed since the sale. If he could not ‘redeem’ it, then a relative could do so and the purchaser could not protest (Vayikrah 25:25-28). In the event that neither the seller nor a relative were able to redeem the land, it reverted to its original owner at the beginning of the Jubilee year. Hashem proclaims (ibid 25:23), “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, as the land is Mine, for you are strangers and resident aliens with Me.” Rabbi Steinsaltz (Weisfeld Edition of the Humash), citing the Rambam (Guide to the Perplexed 3:39) explains: “In principle, land is a permanent inheritance that cannot be transferred between families. At most, it can be leased until the Jubilee in order to provide a livelihood for the owner, who retains the right to redeem it even earlier than that. The goal of this system is that no one should become utterly impoverished, as one always retains the right to the portion of land he inherited.”

We look forward to the time when (Devarim 15:4) “there will be no indigent among you, as the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to take possession of it, if you only heed the voice of the Lord your God, to take care to perform this entire commandment that I command you today.”

Lee, Chani Merryl & Naomi join me in wishing you Shabbat Shalom. Rabbi Liebenberg

Rabbi’s YouTube message:  https://youtu.be/D6S-R-1P6Vg?si=nRWNvgnjRyv7VjBt

*Friday 28 February and Shabbat 1 March – Rosh Chodesh Adar

Adar contains the joyous festival of Purim which is celebrated in most places on the 14^th (Friday 14 March) and in Jerusalem and other ancient walled cities, on the 15^th (Shushan Purim, Shabbat 15 March). Purim is preceded by the Fast of Esther (13 March). The Molad (appearance of the new moon) for Adar is on Thursday 27 February at 19h02 and 0 chalakim (a chelek, literally a “portion”, is a Talmudic measure of time equal to one-eighteenth of a minute, or 3 and 1/3 seconds).