Kommentar zu Dewarim 15:11

על כן means מפני כן BECAUSE OF THIS.

FOR THE POOR SHALL NEVER CEASE OUT OF THE LAND. Commentators³⁰²Reference is to Ibn Ezra and others. have said that the meaning thereof is that the poor shall never cease out of the Land at any of all times, for there will always be poor in the Land, for it was apparent before Him that they will not do [to make possible] what he said to them, But there shall be no needy among you,³⁰³Above, Verse 4. if only thou diligently hearken unto the voice of the Eternal thy G-d to observe to do all this commandment.³⁰⁴Verse 5. But it is not correct in my opinion, for the Torah may allude to what will be but it would not explicitly prophesy about them [the Israelites] that they will not fulfill the Torah, nor would he have commanded them [to observe the commandments while foretelling] that they would always transgress them. Forbid it! It is only by way of warning that he mentions [their transgressions].
The correct interpretation is that he says that it is impossible for the poor to cease so that none should ever exist. He [Moses] mentioned this because, having assured them that there would be no needy if they observe all the commandments³⁰⁵Verse 6. he said: “But I know that not all generations forever will observe all the commandments in which case there would be no need to charge you concerning the poor, for perhaps, at some time, there will exist poor and so I command you about him if he will be found.” He states out of the Land [for the poor shall never cease ‘out of the Land’] in order to allude to the entire habitation [anywhere on earth], for the promise that there would not be needy among us applies in the Land which the Eternal our G-d giveth us for an inheritance³⁰³Above, Verse 4. if we will fulfill there all the commandments. And now he said that it is possible that, at some period or at some place where you will have settled, there be found a poor man among you. For the meaning of the expression in thy Land³⁰⁵Verse 6. [If there be among you a needy man … ‘in thy Land’] is like in all your habitations³⁰⁶Exodus 12:20. — within the Land of Israel and outside of the Land.

כי לא יחדל אביון מקרב הארץ, for it is basically unrealistic to assume that society is 100 per cent righteous, deserving, something which even Psalms 7,20 considered as an impossibility in this life.

כי לא יחדל אביון מקרב הארץ, “for destitute people will not cease to exist within the land.” Nachmanides writes that some commentators (notably Ibn Ezra, whom he does not name in this context) write that Moses means that there never will be a time when no one is destitute in the land of Israel, seeing that Moses in his prophetic vision foresaw that the Jewish people would never observe Torah law in their entirety, without exception, so that the presence of a destitute person would be unimaginable. The law not to dun creditors at the end of the seventh year of the shemittah cycle therefore envisages such situations. Nachmanides finds this approach difficult, as it is not the custom of the Torah to engage in the kind of prophesy that accuses the Jewish people ahead of time of disloyalty to G’d without qualifying such a prophesy with a conditional phrase such as “if in the course of time, etc.” introducing such a prophecy. It is uncharacteristic for the Torah to legislate one of the basic commandments as something to be applicable to people who have been labeled beforehand by the Torah as deliberate sinners. He therefore prefers to explain our verse as follows: seeing that in spite of the blessings that accrue to you when you do observe the laws of the Torah, and the resultant affluence in the land it is practically impossible that sometime in the future there will be not be an instance of a destitute person, unable to repay his loan on time, one must not dun such a fellow Jew at the end of the shemittah year to repay his loan, but must forgive it. The reason Moses adds the words: בקרב הארץ, is to include not only the narrowly defined borders of the seven Canaanite tribes, but to include other regions in which the Jews are settled at the time in question. This somehow expands what Moses had defined in verse 7 as specifically “your land that Hashem gives you.” Now he envisages the possibility of exile and wants us to practice the law of remitting overdue debts even in exile, where the whole shemittah legislation does not apply, seeing we have no land to practice it on, and even if we did, the land is not a “holy land.”

For this reason. I.e., the term על כן does not mean, “since,” as in, “Since (כי על כן) I did not give her to Shailoh my son (Bereishis 38:26),” and, “Since (כי על כן) I did not allow you to touch her (ibid. 20:6).” For in those verses, the expression על כן is connected to the word כי — and every instance of כי על כן in Scripture means, “since,” as Rashi explains in Parshas Vayeirah (ibid. 18:5). But here the expression על כן means, “For this reason,” because it is written without the word כי.

V. 11. ׳כי לא יחדל אביון וגו. Es heißt nicht מקרבך oder מקרב ארצך, sondern מקרב הארץ: von der Erde. Es liegt ganz im Laufe der natürlichen Entwicklung der irdischen Dinge, dass — sich selbst überlassen — die größte Vermögensverschiedenheit, Not und Überfluss, Armut und Reichtum neben einander erscheinen. Schon die Ungleichheit geistiger Begabung hat eine solche Ungleichheit zu natürlicher Folge, und zwei von Haus aus völlig gleich begüterte Söhne, von denen der eine nur ein Kind, der andere eine zahlreiche Familie zu versorgen hat, werden schon einen bedeutenden Vermögensunterschied darstellen, und treten dem letzteren nun noch Krankheiten und sonstiges Missgeschick in den Weg, so wird schon in der zweiten Generation bittere Not neben reicher Opulenz sich herausstellen. Diese überall auf Erden natürlich sich ergebenden Notstände sollst du aber בארצך, in deinem Lande nicht aufkommen lassen. בארצך, in "deinem" Lande, in dem Lande des göttlichen Gesetzes und der an die Erfüllung desselben sich knüpfenden besonderen göttlichen Leitung, da soll eben das Gesetz den Ausgleich dieser natürlich gegebenen Ungleichheiten bewirken, da soll jeder ärmere Bruder in dem reicheren Verwandten seinen "Bruder" finden, da gehört jeder Arme und Dürftige "Dir", der Gesamtheit an, und so gewiß אין צבור מת ואין צבור עני, die Gesamtheit nicht stirbt und nicht verarmt, so gewiss soll unter einer pflichtbewussten jüdischen Gesamtheit Armut und Dürftigkeit nur vorübergehend den einzelnen treffen und unter der Agide des göttlichen Beistandes in ein menschenwürdiges beglücktes Sein auf Erden umwandelt werden. So wird auch wohl im ספרי das מקרב הארץ aufgefasst: כי לא יחדל האביון מקרב הארץ ולהלן הוא אומר כי לא יהיה בך אביון כיצד יתקיימו שני כתובים הללו בזמן שאתם עושים רצונו של מקום אביונים באחרים ובזמן שאין אתם עושים רצונו של מקום אביונים בכם (vergl. Verse 4 u. 5).

כי לא יחדל אביון, “for there will not cease to be destitute people.” This sounds like a contradiction to what the Torah had promised in verse 4, where it stated that there would not be destitute people in our land. The promise in verse 4 had been linked to a condition. i.e. that the entire population observes the sh’mittah and yovel legislation. The critical word there had been the word כי. In our verse here this word occurs again but here it means: “maybe, possibly.” In our paragraph the word כי occurs no fewer than four times. It has a different meaning each time. We have a conditional word כי in כי יהיה בך אביון, “if there should be among you a destitute person;” we have a word כי meaning “but,” in כי פתוח תפתח, “but you shall definitively open your hand;” we have the word כי meaning “because of” in בגלל הדבר הזה, “for the sake of this matter G-d will bless you;” and we have the word כי meaning “so that not,” in כי לא יחדל אביון “if perchance your actions were not charitable enough to prevent the existence of destitute people among you.”

לאמר suggests: I give you good advice for your own benefit (Sifrei Devarim 118:2).

ולאביונך בארצך, “and to your destitute in your land.” The word בארצך, “in your land,” is problematic seeing that supporting the needy is not a commandment dependent on residence in the land of Israel. The same question can be raised against the phrasing of verse 7, where Moses mentions the law as applying “in one of your gates, in your land, etc.” Perhaps the intention in both instances is to teach that as long as the poor in the land of Israel and the poor in the Diaspora both appeal for help, the poor in the land of Israel are to be given precedence.

I am counselling you for your own good. Otherwise, why is the word, “saying,” needed? For no form of the word דיבור (spoke) is mentioned beforehand so that the word, “saying,” should follow it.

UNTO THY BROTHER, UNTO THY POOR, AND UNTO THY NEEDY IN THY LAND. The meaning thereof is as if he said: “to your poor brother, and to all the needy in your Land.” For because the commandment is addressed to Israel he mentions thy brother, and he joins in explanation “your brother and all the needy in your Land,” to command concerning the whole of Israel. And its homiletic interpretation is as follows:³⁰⁷Sifre, R’eih 116. “This teaches that [in giving charity] precedence be given to those nearer” [to you so that the poor of your own city or land have priority over the poor of distant places].
He mentions that there is also a release for a [Hebrew] servant in his seventh year,³⁰⁸Verse 12. for that release [of a servant] is also like the release [of loans in the Sabbatical year] mentioned³⁰⁹Above, Verse 1. [and hence the proximity of the subjects], all of them being to remember the days of old,³¹⁰Further, 32:7. as I have hinted in its place.³¹¹Exodus 21:2 Vol. II, p. 341, Note 23 Also, ibid., p. 349. There it is alluded that the expression and he shall be thy bondman forever³¹²Verse 17. is to be taken in its plain sense. Now he repeated this commandment in order to explain in it the outfitting of the emancipated servant.³¹³Verses 13-14.

So gewiss aber der hilfsbedürftigen Armut unter dem Regime des jüdischen Gesetzes Hilfe und Beistand gesichert ist, so gewiss jüdische Zedaka den Zedaka bedürftigen Empfänger nicht schändet, ja im Geiste dieses Gesetzes den Arbeitsunfähigen, Verdienstlosen, der aus missverstandenem Ehrgeiz sich und den Seinen das Leben verkürzt, um nicht zu der ihm gebührenden Zedaka seine Zuflucht zu nehmen, schwere Verantwortung trifft — כל מי שצריך ליטול ואינו נוטל הרי זה שופך דמים (Jeruschalmi Pea, Ende) — so legt eben der Geist dieses Gesetzes einen sehr hohen Wert auf die Bewahrung der Selbständigkeit, die sich lieber auf das Allernotwendigste beschränkt, jede, auch die in den Augen der gedankenlosen Welt "niedrigste" Arbeit ergreift, um nur nicht Spenden der Menschenwohltätigkeit in Anspruch zu nehmen. Es gibt keinen Kreis, in welchem sich redlich und selbständig ernährende Arbeit so hoch in Ehren steht, als dies in dem altjüdischen Kreise der Fall war. Unsere größten geistigen Heroen, deren Licht uns noch leuchtet und zu denen ihre Zeit und alle Zeiten verehrungsvoll hinanblickten und blicken, ein Hillel, ein R. Jehoschua, ein R. Chanina und R. Oschaja, ein R. Scheschet, ein R. Huna, lebten in den beschränktesten Verhältnissen und nährten sich als Holzhauer, Schmiede, Schuhmacher, Lastträger, Wasserschöpfer und lehrten durch ihr Beispiel die Maxime: עשה שבתך חול ואל תצטרך לבריות, lebe am Schabbat nicht besser, als am Wochentage und mache dich nicht der Menschenhilfe bedürftig (Peßachim 113 a). פשוט נבילתא בשוק ושקיל אגרא ולא תימא כהנא אנא וגברא רבה אנא וסניא בי מלתא: Tagelöhnere mit Fellabziehen auf öffentlicher Straße und sage nicht, ich bin ein Kohen, bin ein Gelehrter, das schickt sich nicht für mich (daselbst; siehe רשב׳׳ם B. B. 110 a). Wer, heißt es in der Mischna Ende Pea: wer Zedaka nicht nötig hat und sie doch nimmt, geht nicht aus der Welt, ohne wirklich der Menschenwohltätigkeit aus Not anheimzufallen. Wer aber Zedaka nehmen dürfte und sie nicht nimmt, der scheidet nicht im Alter, ohne andere mit eigenem Vermögen wohltätig ernährt zu haben. כל מי שאינו צריך ליטול ונוטל אינו נפטר מן העולם עד שיצטרך לבריות וכל מי שצריך ליטול ואינו נוטל אינו מת מן הזקנה עד שיפרנס אחרים משלו ועליו הכתוב אומר ברוך הגבר אשר יבטח כד׳ והיה ד׳ מבטחו.

לאחיך, “to your brother, who takes precedence over your unrelated neighbour.

לאחיך לעניך [THOU SHALT SURELY OPEN THINE HAND] UNTO THY BROTHER, TO THY POOR — open thine hand to thy brother, to which brother? To the poor one.

לענייך, “to the poor in your town,” who take precedence over the poor in neighbouring towns.

לעניך written with one Jod denotes one poor man, but ענייך with two Jods denotes two (or many) poor, i.e. it is a plural form.

לאביוניך בארצך, “to the destitute in your country,” who take precedence over the destitute people in another country. (Ibn Ezra)