Lecture on Poverty: "Will the Poor Always be With Us?"
Fall 2005; SWK 250
When the word "poor" reaches the tip of the tongue among most Americans, other than perhaps social workers and social scientists, the most likely association with any written discussion of the term is likely to be with the Biblical references to poverty in Deuteronomy 15:4 and 10-11. According to my childhood Bible, the Revised Standard Edition, these verses read:
4. “But there will be no poor among you (for the Lord will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess)….
5. if only you will obey the voice of the Lord your God…..[Warning not to fail to open your hand and lend to him sufficient for his need without thinking about any impending 7th year during which as had been said in 15:1, “you shall grant a release”]…..
10. You have give to him freely, and your hear shall not be grudging when you give to him….
11.For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land.”
Note this distinction between the needy and the poor, in your land. What is the meaning of this distinction? And what of this apparent contradiction between 4.’s hopeful message that there will be no poor among you and that of 11 that the “the poor will never cease out of the land.”
Commentary on this translation is found in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, namely that 4 and 11 may be interpreted as follows: “If God’s will were fully obeyed, there would be no poverty (v. 3-5); but that until that time comes the poor will never cease.”
The Jerusalem Bible, a new Christian translation in 1966, in its 1973 revision, has these verses this way:
4. “There must, then, be no poor among you. For Yahweh will grant you his blessing….”
11. Of course, there will never cease to be poor people in the country…Always be open handed with your brother, and with anyone in your country who is in need and poor.”
In this translation, one must be both in need and poor, rather than two populations of say the poor and the vulnerable non-poor. But, importantly, the must, in conjunction with the present tense be is a command about what must be in the present, not merely a prediction about some future state of affairs.
For a Jewish interpretation, in the Jewish Publication Society translation of 1973, now included in the Conservative movements' Etz Hayim, published in 2001 by The Rabbinical Assembly:
4. There shall be no needy among you – since the Lord your God will bless you in the land the that Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion ---
5. if only you heed the Lord your God and take care to keep all this Instruction that I enjoin you today.
11. 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 kinsman in your land.
Here the use of shall might be interpreted as a prediction of some future event rather than a command for what must… be. But more likely it is synonymous with must…be, the shall being a command rather than a prediction. True, the use of kinsman clearly seems to imply a more restrictive, less universal instruction, to give only to kin within the country. This is consistent with the obligation of Jews to attend to poverty amongst their own community first and foremost. But that instruction, order to be followed, resulted historically in mechanisms for the relief of poverty within the Jewish community which extended to the larger community as well. The account of Thomas Cahill in his The G ift of the Jews shows that even in the classical era communities of Diaspora Jews throughout the Mediterranean were engaged in helping both their own poor and the poor of other faiths and ethnicities, something which continues to this day. Cahill has written an excellent series of books that make a major contribution to interfaith dialogue, including his recent book Pope John XXIII, and his series of other books including How the Irish Saved Modern Civilization, Desire of the everlasting hills : T he world before and after Jesus, and Sailing the wine-dark sea: W hy the Greeks matter.
The commentary associated with the above translation in the Rabbinical Assembly book, points out, “Therefore, you must build the solution to poverty into the social structure, and not rely upon people’s generosity. A poor person need never be embarrassed to accept help, because giving tz’dakah is an obligation, not charity resulting from kindheartedness. At the same time, the Sages also tell us, 'Better to flay carcasses in the marketplace than to depend upon public assistance because you feel the available work is beneath your dignity (BT Pes. 113a).'”
This commentary, based upon the Talmud as well as modern commentary, resolves the tension between 4 and 11 by arguing that one must create a social structure which maximizes the degree to which the promise of 4 is met. But is 4 a promise or a command?
4. There shall be no needy among you. (my emphasis)
Again, is that a command or a prediction of some future as implied by “will bless” (my emphasis)? As can be seen, another translation is that this is meant as must, or as a command. Actually, 5. makes clear that this is promised if "only you heed the Lord your God and take care to keep all this Instruction." And that Instruction includes care for the poor. Thus it places in our human hands the goal of maximizing the promise of 4.
This interpretation is born out by earlier Jewish translations, such as that done in 1917 and used in earlier Conservative prayer books. That 1917 translation was very much influenced by active consideration of the King James version of the Christian Bible, thus drawing upon its reliance upon the Latin Vulgate and that translation's reliance in turn upon the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Torah. (An interesting book by a Christian scholar with strong Jewish endorsement is the recent Whose Bible Is It?, which discusses the history of the many Biblical translations.)
The 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation is in the Hertz Pentateuch and Haftorahs, 2nd Edition, 1964:
4. Howbeit there shall be no needy among you - for the Lord will surely bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it
5. if only thou diligently hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all this commandment which I command thee this day.” …..
11. For the poor will never cease out of the land…..
Note that this uses the non-emphasized word only, as does the Revised Standard version. Thus this is not some future utopia but one might be granted by merely following the commandments. The defeatist position is that this might not happen until all in the land do so, but what if one realizes that this is unlikely and nevertheless seeks majority support for the kind of social structural provisions to ensure that within the land (within one country) that at the very least those commandments having to do with aid to the poor and/or needy are in fact in place? In which case, yes, there might still be newly needy and poor which might arise in the land. That might never cease to be the case, since as we know the poor are not some static population but a population created by any number of natural disasters, family dissolutions, illnesses, follies, sins, crimes, economic downturns, etc.!
But perhaps one additional translation can shed light on the subject: the Orthodox Jewish translation found in the Stone Edition of the Humash:
4. However, may there be no destitute among you; rather Hashem, will surely bless you in the Land that Hashem, your God, will give you as an inheritance, to possess it,
5. only if you will hearken to the voice of Hashem, your God, to observe, to perform this entire commandment that I command you today.
11. For destitute people will not cease to exist within the Land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall surely open your hand to your brother, to your poor, and to your destitute in your land.'
The interpretation provided in the Stone Edition is:
"Although I command you with regard to the release of debts – which implies that there will always be needy people – this does not mean that there will always be needy people who depend on the generosity of others – this does not mean that poverty and indebtedness are unavoidable. In ideal circumstances, God’s blessing will eliminate poverty and the need for loans (Ibn Ezra). This promise of complete blessing is conditioned on the observance of the commandments (v. 5), for if the nation does not keep the Torah, there will indeed be poverty, as verse 11 states for destitute people will not cease to exist (Rashi)."
It goes on in commentary on 11 to point out, that the content of 11 is “an additional incentive to give charity or extend loans. Poverty is a constant phenomenon and today’s magnate can be tomorrow’s pauper. The charity one dispenses today may well be returned to him in the future if his fortunes are reversed (Ralbag). In this verse, the Torah deals with the reality that Israel would seldom scale the heights of universal righteousness that will lead to the eradification of poverty envisioned in verse 4 (Ramban)."
Here, there is a clear distinction, a clear obligation to help all your brothers, albeit implicitly kinsmen as is made clear in 12’s reference that one’s brother is Hebrew, but still there is an ethical and moral commandment to help one’s brother, one’s poor, and one’s destitute and these are seen as separate populations. Substitute needy for destitute as in the other translations and one has less of a equation of the poor and needy. For clearly there are needy who are not poor; the elderly perhaps in a fine house but still needing help; the disabled, the grieving, etc.. And of course there are the poor of spirit as well as the poor of income and possessions. And there are the poor of income but with possessions not easily or properly disposed of, which is the very reason that unemployment insurance, for instance, and S.S. disability do not have means tests.
As the commentary makes clear, the meaning of the notion that the poor will always be with us is not that there is this class of the poor who can’t be helped out of poverty, in fact the very purpose of these verses is to say that one can and should help them out of poverty. Rather the point of this commentary is the same as that in Mark Rank’s article, "The likelihood of poverty across the American adult life span," (Social Work v. 44, #3, May 1999). His point is that that there will always be circumstances which will cause those who are not poor to fall into poverty, and poverty must be looked at in terms of the risks over the life course. That is a very, very important point. Once one understands that, it becomes a personal and societal obligation to build anti-poverty measures, both preventive measures, and ameliorative measures, into the very social structure of society. There the debates stemming from the biblical traditions and those of modern social science begin to converge.