Parshat Re'eh

1998

Caring For the Most Vulnerable

Deuteronomy 15:4-11
Take a look at this passage from Parshat Re'eh. A close reading of verse 4 and verse 11 reveals an apparent contradiction. Take a look.
4 However, there will not be among you any needy-person, for YHWH will bless, yes, bless you in the land that YHWH your God is giving you as an inheritance, to possess.
5 Only: if you hearken, yes, hearken to the voice of YHWH your God, by taking-care to observe all this commandment that I command you today,
6 indeed, YHWH your God will bless you as he promised you; you will cause many nations to give-pledges, but you will not (have to) give-pledges; you will rule over many nations, but over you they shall not rule.
7 When there is among you a needy-person from any-one of your brothers, within one of your gates in the land that YHWH your God is giving you, you are not to toughen your heart, you are not to shut your hand to your brother, the needy-one.
8 Rather, you are to open, yes, open your hand to him, and are to give-pledge, yes, pledge to him, sufficient for his lack that is lacking to him.
9 Take-you-care, lest there be a word in your heart, a base-one, saying:
The seventh year, the Year of Release, is nearing and your eye be set-on-ill toward your brother, the needy-one, and you not give to him, so that he calls out because of you to YHWH, and sin be incurred by you.
10 You are to give, yes, give (freely) to him, your heart is not to be ill-disposed in your giving to him, for on account of this matter YHWH your God will bless you in all your doings and in all the enterprises of your hand!
11 For the needy will never be-gone from amid the land; therefore I command you, saying: You are to open, yes, open your hand to your brother, to your afflicted-one, and to your needy-one in your land!

Your Torah Navigator
So, which is it? Will there be no poor or will there always be poor people and if there will always be poor people irrespective of what we do, how is that an incentive to feed them?

In the midrash halacha, the Sifre on the book of Devarim, the apparent contradiction is reconciled by saying verse 4 is speaking of a time when all the commandments are being obeyed by Israel and verse 11 is speaking of a time when the commandments are not being observed.

Your Midrash Navigator
1. Does this mean when it says, "the needy will never be-gone from amid the land" that God has given up on us ever fulfilling the commandments?
2. Would the Torah say such a thing?
3. Why should we continue to alleviate human suffering if verse 11 is true? Why bother?

Shmuel, a Talmudic sage, brings verse 11 as a proof that the messianic period will be a time when the only major difference will be that we there will be an ingathering of exiles and we will be politically autonomous. For as long as there is a land, the fact that there will be poverty indicates that the world itself will have changed very little. How would Shmuel handle the contradiction between verses 4 and 11, if he feels that poverty will never be erased from the earth?

A Word
In the Sifre's understanding, we are taught that poverty is a communal affliction. Even if we are not afflicted by it, the fact that poverty exists among us is proof of the Holy One's dissatisfaction with all of us. The way we are told that we are supposed to behave at this time is to open our hands and do what the Holy One has refrained from doing. Even though we understand that we will never be able to eliminate poverty from the earth, we are engaged in the task of trying to make someone's life a little better.

We are humbled by the fact that the completion of this work requires more than generosity. It requires a consciousness that appreciates there are other aspects of God's Torah which need to be addressed if poverty is to be completely obliterated. Somehow, a consciousness of God through the recitation of blessings, the sanctification of Shabbat, the way we eat, also has an impact on whether our society will be afflicted with poverty.

Some commentators say God understands that His people are incapable of such devotion and thus verse 11 resigns itself to a reality of poverty. Shumuel's statement echoes this, that even a messianic era some will be left wanting.

If this pessimistic view is true then at the very least we can humbly try to alleviate what suffering we can, for according to the verse, poverty diminishes all of us.