Комментарий к Шмот 23:6

אבינך — from the root אבה “to long for”, “to desire” — one who is poverty-stricken and longs for all the good things which he lacks.

לא תטה משפט אביונך בריבו, an example of being lenient with one category of person and harsh with another. When litigants are facing you, you must not take account of any differences in their social standing. Not only this, if one of the litigants is standing during the proceedings whereas the other one is seated, this is already a form of inadmissible discrimination.

לא תטה משפט אביונך, "Do not subvert the right of your needy, etc." Perhaps the emphasis is on the ending "your" in the word אביונך. We have learned in Baba Metzia 71 that the poor of your family take precedence in their claim to handouts over the unrelated poor of your city, whereas the local poor take precedence over the poor from other cities. The Torah warns here that we must not pervert this rule when setting out to do charity. "Your own needy" must always be the first on your list of charities.

(Exodus 23:6) "You shall not incline the judgment of your needy one in his quarrel": What is the intent of this? From (Ibid. 3) "You shall not honor a poor man in his quarrel," I would know only of a poor man. Whence do I derive (the same for) a needy pauper? (i.e., one who fell from his estate of wealth and now is in dire need [of almost everything])? From "You shall not incline the judgment of your needy one." Abba Channan says in the name of R. Eliezer: Scripture (here) speaks of an evildoer. Do not say: Since he is an evildoer I will incline the judgment against him. This is the intent of "You shall not incline the judgment of your needy one in his quarrel" — one who is "needy" in mitzvoth.

V. 6. V. 4 u. 5 haben gleichsam in Parenthese die Pflicht des Wohlwollens und der Hilfsbereitschaft dem sozialen, außergerichtlichen Verkehre überwiesen, dem Gerichte aber strenge Gerechtigkeit reserviert. V. 6 setzt die in V. 3 abgebrochenen gerichtlichen Vorschriften fort. Jeruschalmi, Pea IV. Ende, wird dieser Satz dahin verstanden: In seinem Rechtsstreite sollst du das Recht deines Armen nicht zu seinen Gunsten neigen, wohl aber außergerichtlich, wo der Anspruch des Armen auf irgend ein Objekt zweifelhaft ist, z. B. ob eine Ähre לקט, eine Garbe שכחה ist usw., auch aus bloßem Zweifel dasselbe dem Armen zukommen lassen, ספק לקט לקט ספק שכחה שכחה. Dem entspricht auch der Ausdruck אביונך, es ist dein Armer, er liegt als Armer dir zur Fürsorge ob, und als אביון fühlt er sich in seinem Wollen von dem Willen der Begüterten abhängig, muss also umsomehr auf die fürsorgende Vertretung der Gesamtheit rechnen, gleichwohl בריבו, wenn er im Rechtsstreite vor dir steht, darfst du noch um kein Haarbreit das Recht zu seinen Gunsten neigen.

לא תטה משפט אביונך בריבו; “do not subvert the rights of your destitute people in their disputes.” The Torah means not to rule in his favour when in fact he is in the wrong. This warning of the Torah is addressed to the judge or judges of the court dealing with his dispute, even though the Torah did not spell this out specifically. We find another example of such implied meanings in Deuteronomy 15,20, where the Torah writes: לפני ה' אלוקיך תאכלנו “you are to eat it in the presence of the Lord your G-d,” (i.e. on the sacred precincts of the Temple compound) an instruction that can only be fulfilled by a firstborn who is also a priest at the same time, seeing that non priests are forbidden in that compound. The Torah has warned earlier in verse 3 of our chapter that the judges must not rule in favour of the poor out of sympathy for them. Here it warns that the judges must also not rule against the poor (for fear of angering the rich).