Dear Friends,
In his commentary on Pirkei Avot entitled "Peirush Man", R’ Menachem Nachum Friedman of Itcani notes an apparent contradiction in this week’s parshah. In Chapter 15 verse 4, we are told “there shall be no needy among you—since the HaShem your God will bless you in the land that the HaShem your God is giving you as a hereditary portion”, but later, in verse 11, we are told “for there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kin in your land.” How is it that there will be no needy among us and yet there will never cease to be needy ones in our land?
R’ Menachem Nachum says that “HaKadosh Baruch Hu, master over all the Earth, gave the Jews the Land of Canaan as an inheritance and the land was divided portion by portion. Someone who lost their income due to poor decisions will be forced to sell their property; this is what the verse is referring to when it says ‘there will never cease to be needy ones in your land.’” The realities of life are such that, at times, a person may lose the land given to them and the subsequent financial security it affords. For that reason, there will inevitably be people in need.
At the same time, the Torah mandates safeguards to help such a person. R’ Menachem Nachum points out that, for one thing, during the Jubilee year, all land reverts back to its original owners. But if even after the Jubilee year, a person is forced to sell their land again, thus forfeiting any future rights to that land, we are told in Leviticus 25:35 that “if your brother grows poor, and his hand becomes shaky among you, then you shall relieve him”. This is expressed in the Torah’s mandate to leave the gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and corners of our fields unharvested and to give them, instead, to the poor and the stranger (Leviticus 23:22).
R’ Menachem Nachum observes that leaving these gleanings and corners to the poor is not, in fact, an act of charity, where the owner of the field gives of their own property to the poor. Rather, by Divine mandate, the owner of the field has absolutely no rights to this produce and it truly belongs to the poor and the stranger. He likens it to a partnership in the ownership of the field’s produce where the owner of the field owns the lion’s share but the poor and the stranger own the gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and the corners.
Life happens. People will always face unforeseen circumstances and financial hardships and in that sense there will always be needy in our land. At the same time, the Torah sets up a system of safeguards to ensure that the needy among us will always find their feet and never fall too far. This, says R’ Menachem Nachum, is why even though need will always arise, we are promised that there shall be no needy among us.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Birkeland
