RE'EH 5782 Beth Sholom Torah Study

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אֶבְיוֹן (a-m) heb

1. • in want, needy, chiefly poor, needy person
   • subject to oppression and abuse
   • needing help, deliverance from trouble, especially as delivered by God
   • general reference to lowest class

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Opening Our Hearts and Our Hands: Deuteronomy and the Poor - Rabbi Shai Held
https://www.hadar.org/torah-resource/opening-our-hearts-and-our-hands
In broad outline, our chapter offers remedies for each of three significant challenges the destitute face. The Torah responds to the inability to repay debts by insisting that debts be remitted every seven years (15:1-6). It responds to the difficulty of acquiring loans by exhorting Israel not to refuse loans to those who need them (15:7-11). And it ameliorates the ancient institution of debt slavery by placing a limit of six years on the tenure of an indentured servant (15:12-18) , , ,
But Deuteronomy is not content to stop there. It goes much further, attempting to instill in the Israelites a sense that they are one large family, with all the care and compassion, responsibility and obligation that family ties entail. One word in Deuteronomy 15 merits special attention—ah, or brother (or, perhaps better, kinsman). Repeatedly, as the Torah lays out the laws aimed at alleviating the sufferings of the poor, the latter are referred to as brothers—and not just as brothers, but as “your brothers” (15:2, 3, 7, 9, 11, 12). In part, the word “brother” distinguishes members of the community from outsiders; in Deuteronomy’s vision, the former merit greater concern than the latter. But the constant invocation of brotherhood points primarily in another direction: It “indicates an emphasis on the relationship... Those with whom one lives as brother and sister always have a proper claim on one’s compassion and care. Where [the] term—brother/sister or neighbor—is applicable… enmity, disdain, negligence, and disregard are out of order.” ....
Exodus teaches that the Israelites must not oppress widows and orphans. God threatens the people: “If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me, and My anger shall blaze forth and I shall put you to the sword, and your own wives shall become widows and your children orphans” (Exodus 20:21-22). Deuteronomy radicalizes Exodus’ teaching: It is not just active oppression of the poor that God finds intolerable, but even a refusal to be generous to them.

Deuteronomy again radicalizes the requirements laid out in Exodus. Not only is the tenure of indentured servitude given a firm limit of six years (Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 15:12), but the Israelite is enjoined to help the newly freed slave achieve a fresh economic start: “When you set him free, do not let him go empty-handed. Furnish him out of the flock, threshing floor, and vat, with which the Lord your God has blessed you” (15:13-14). To send someone back out into the world with nothing is almost to guarantee that he or she will fall back into debilitating debt. Deuteronomy mandates that the Israelite not inflict such economic helplessness on one who has served him.

Deuteronomy is not content merely to ameliorate the suffering of the poor. It dreams bigger, telling the people that if they obey God’s will, poverty can be eliminated. “There shall be no needy among you… if only you heed the Lord your God and take care to keep all this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day” (15:4-5). (This refers not just to the laws about treatment of the poor, but to Deuteronomy’s social and religious vision more broadly.)

The Torah’s simple but radical claim is that the plight of the poor is our responsibility. A society in which there are no economic second-chances, let alone one with a permanent underclass, is intolerable to God. . .
It is a religious imperative to build a society in which the poor are seen and treated as truly equal, and to work to ensure that entrenched poverty does not rob people of the dignity of opportunity. Well-intentioned people will no doubt disagree about how best these goals can be achieved, but we are nevertheless obligated to keep them firmly in mind. Cynicism and empty rhetoric have no place in a life of religious integrity; we are summoned to open both our hearts and our hands. Deuteronomy makes clear that only a society truly committed to alleviating the suffering of those ravaged by poverty is worthy of God’s blessing.