Daf Ditty Eruvin 51: Poverty

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 There are four types of charity givers.
He who wishes to give, but that others should not give: his eye is evil to that
which belongs to others;
He who wishes that others should give, but that he himself should not give: his
eye is evil towards that which is his own;
He who desires that he himself should give, and that others should give: he is a
pious man;
He who desires that he himself should not give and that others too should not
give: he is a wicked man.

Ethics of the Fathers 5:13

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Mishnah

And this is the meaning of that which the Sages said: The pauper establishes an eiruv with his
feet, i.e., one who does not have the bread required to establish an eiruv may walk anywhere within
his Shabbat limit and declare: This is my residence, and his Shabbat limit is measured from that
location.

Rabbi Meir said: We have this leniency in effect only for a pauper, who does not have food for
two meals. However, one who has bread may only establish residence with bread. Rabbi Yehuda
says: This leniency is in effect for both a pauper and a wealthy person.

The Sages said that one establishes an eiruv with bread only in order to be lenient with the
wealthy person, so that he need not exert himself and go out and establish an eiruv with his
feet. Instead, he can appoint an agent to place bread for him in that location. This, however, does
not negate the option of personally going to that location in order to establish residence without
bread.

Gemara

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We learned in the mishna: And this is the meaning of that which the Sages said: A pauper can
establish an eiruv with his feet, i.e., one who does not have the bread required to establish an
eiruv may walk anywhere within his Shabbat limit and acquire residence.

We have this leniency in effect only for a pauper, who does not have food for two meals.
However, one who has bread may only establish residence with bread. Rabbi Yehuda says: This
leniency is in effect for both a pauper and a wealthy person.

R’ Meir holds that the leniency of the Mishnah can only be utilized by an ‫עני‬. R’ Yehuda holds
that even an ‫ עשיר‬can take advantage of the leniency.

The ‫ גמרא‬records a ‫ אמוראים מחלוקת‬about which leniency the ‫ תנאים‬disagree: First, for the purposes
of this discussion - ‫ עני‬- refers to a traveler who does NOT have enough food to leave at the ‫שביתה‬
‫מקום‬. ‫ עשיר‬- refers to a person at home, where even a poor person has ‫ סעודות שתי מזון‬- two meals
worth of food to leave at the . .‫מקום שביתה‬

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The baraita continues. Rabbi Yehuda said: There was an incident involving the members of
the household of the Memel family and members of the household of Guryon family in the
village of Aroma, who were distributing dried figs and raisins to the paupers in years of
famine, and the paupers of the village of Siḥin and the paupers of the village of Ḥananya
would come to the edge of the Shabbat limit at nightfall, which was also within the Shabbat limit
of Aroma, and then go home.

The following day they would rise early and go to receive their figs and raisins. Apparently, one
can establish an eiruv by foot, if he says: My residence is in my present location.

Rav Avrohom Adler writes:1

The Mishna had stated: This is that which the Rabbis have said: a poor man may make his eiruv
with his feet. Rabbi Meir said: We can apply this law only to a poor man etc. [R’ Yehudah said:
This can be applied for a rich man as well.]2

Rav Nachman said: They differ only where he said, [“Let my Shabbos residence be] in my place,”
since Rabbi Meir holds that the essence of an eiruv is bread (and not by his personal presence),
and that, therefore, it is only for a poor man (one who was travelling on a journey and had no bread
with him) that the Rabbis ruled leniently, but not for a rich man (who must make an eiruv using
bread)..

However, Rabbi Yehudah holds that the essence of an eiruv is with his feet (being present at the
eiruv location), irrespective of whether one is poor or rich; but where he arranged the eiruv by
declaring, “Let my Shabbos residence be by the landmark in that place,” all agree that only a poor
man is allowed such an eiruv, but not a rich man.

And who was it that taught (the statement in the Mishna): This is that which the Rabbis have said:
[a poor man may make his eiruv with his feet]? It is Rabbi Meir. And what case does he refer to?
It is to the case where he does not know of any landmark (to designate as his Shabbos residence),
or if he is not familiar with the laws (and designates his residence at his current location).

And who was it that taught (the statement in the Mishna): The Rabbis’ enactment that an eiruv is
to be prepared with bread having the only purpose of making it easier (for the rich man)? It is
Rabbi Yehudah.

1
http://dafnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Eiruvin_51.pdf
2
It is unclear from the Mishna if the argument is regarding a case of eiruv, where the traveler designated his residence at a landmark,
or if it is referring to a case where he designated his residence in his place.

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Rav Chisda, however, said: They differ only where he said, [“Let my Shabbos residence be] by
the landmark in that place,” for Rabbi Meir maintains that the Rabbis ruled leniently only for the
poor, but not for the rich, while Rabbi Yehudah holds that they ruled leniently for both the poor
and the rich man; but where he declared,

[“Let my Shabbos residence be] in my place,” all agree that they ruled leniently for both the poor
and the rich man, since the essence of an eiruv is with his feet (being present at the eiruv location).

And who was it that taught (the statement in the Mishna): This is that which the Rabbis have said:
[a poor man may make his eiruv with his feet]? It is Rabbi Meir.

And what case does he refer to? It is to the case where he was traveling on the road and it was
(quickly) becoming dark for him (and he knew of a landmark, and said, “Let my Shabbos residence
be at its trunk,” concerning which it was ruled that the man acquires that place though he was not
at the time standing on it; according to R’ Meir, this applies only to a poor man).

Rabbi Yehudah related: It once happened that the people of Beis Memel and Beis Goryon in Aroma
distributed dried figs and raisins to the poor in a time of famine, and the poor men of the village
of Sheechin and the village of Chananyah (villages that were just within four thousand amos from
Aroma and that could, therefore, be joined to it by an eiruv prepared on the boundary between the
two Shabbos limits that intervened between them) used to come and wait at their Shabbos limit
until dark (thus acquiring a Shabbos residence within both limits), and on the following day, they
got up early and proceeded to their destination.

[Now the poor men in question, having come from their own homes, were presumably in
possession of some bread that sufficed for the two meals prescribed for an eiruv. They were, in
consequence, subject, as far as the preparation of an eiruv is concerned, to the same restrictions as
those imposed upon a rich man.

Yet it was not by a deposit of bread, but by their personal attendance at the place they desired to
designate as their Shabbos residence that their eiruv was effected.

Thus, it follows that the ruling in practice is in agreement with Rav Nachman’s interpretation of
R’ Yehudah’s view - that a person’s presence at the very location he wishes to acquire as his
Shabbos residence is the essence of an eiruv.]

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Steinzaltz (OBM) writes:

The Mishna (49b) taught that a traveler can announce that he is establishing his place for Shabbat
at a certain tree that is within 2,000 amot to the city. This allows him to reach his home in the city
even after Shabbat has begun.

According to the Mishna, this ruling is based on the principle that "a poor man can establish an
eiruv with his feet," meaning that he does not need to place food for two meals as an eiruv if he
establishes his place based on his physical presence there.

On this ruling, the Mishna brings a disagreement between Rabbi Meir, who limits it to a poor
person - but a rich person would need to make his eiruv with food - and Rabbi Yehuda, who says
that both rich and poor people can establish their eiruv by walking to the spot.

According to Rabbi Yehuda, making an eiruv by using food is a leniency shown to the rich person,
to save him the trouble of having to walk to the place of the eiruv before Shabbat.

The argument between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda is analyzed by the Gemara on our daf. The
Rashba explains that the use of the terms "rich" and "poor" is not to be understood literally.

The traveler in the Mishna is considered "poor" because he is on the road and likely does not have
access to two meals worth of food. Anyone sitting at home would be considered "rich" as far as
the case of the Mishna is concerned. This explanation is essential in order to explain a case brought
in the Gemara by Rabbi Yehuda to prove his position.

Rabbi Yehuda said: There was an incident involving members of the household of the Memel
family and members of the household of the Guryon family in the village of Aroma, who were
distributing dried figs and raisins to the paupers in years of famine, and the paupers of the
village of Sihin and the paupers of the village of Hananya would come to the edge of the Shabbat
limit at nightfall, which was also within the Shabbat limit of Aroma, and then go home. The
following day they would rise early and go to receive their figs and raisins. Apparently, one can
establish an eiruv by foot, if he says: My residence is in my present location.

The poor who lived in the neighboring villages of Sihin and Hananya would walk to the edge of
the tehum in the late afternoon on Friday, so that they would be able to walk to Aroma on Shabbat
morning.

If we are to understand that the "poor" person under discussion was literally poor, this case would
prove nothing – even Rabbi Meir agrees that poor people do not need to use food to establish their
eiruv.

Apparently, the poor people of Shihin and Hananya who were coming from their homes were not
considered poor, since they had some food at home, so their establishing their tehum by their
physical presence supports Rabbi Yehuda's position that even the "rich" can establish the eiruv in
that way.

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Sue Parker Gerson writes:3

The Mishnah on Eruvin 49 that discusses this possibility notes two situations — one in which a
person is traveling and can’t get home before Shabbat and one in which a person is impoverished
and has no permanent home. In the latter case, the mishnah declares that the poor person may
establish an eruv “with his feet” — that is, merely by standing in a specific location, and not as is
typically done, by placing food there.

Our daf, we come to a lovely story describing how this might play out in actuality.

Rabbi Yehuda said: There was an incident involving the members of the household of the Memel
family and members of the household of Guryon family in the village of Aroma, who were
distributing dried figs and raisins to the paupers in years of famine, and the paupers of the
village of Siḥin and the paupers of the village of Ḥananya would come to the edge of the Shabbat
limit at nightfall, which was also within the Shabbat limit of Aroma, and then go home. The
following day they would rise early and go to receive their figs and raisins. Apparently, one can
establish an eruv by foot, if he says: My residence is in my present location.

The presumably homeless paupers of these two villages in the Galilee learned that food was
available from benefactors in an adjacent town. But there was a problem – it was too far away.
The solution? On Friday they would walk 2,000 cubits to the edge of the Shabbat boundary,
establish a new eruv there with their feet, and then go back to where they started. This had the
effect of extending the distance they could walk on Shabbat to 4,000 cubits, enabling them to walk
to the Memels and the Guryons and benefit from their generosity.

The Gemara’s attention to the realities of poverty is notable here. Being able to call anyplace home
– even a tree trunk – meant that the poor could feel confident that they were observing Shabbat
while getting needed sustenance.

This sensitivity is reminiscent of a passage we encountered earlier in Tractate Eruvin, which

discussed the permissibility of overstepping the Shabbat limit in order to relieve oneself in privacy.
In that case, Rabba told us that human dignity is so important that it can even supersede a negative
commandment.

Treating the poor with dignity surely includes taking into consideration not only their bodily needs,
but their spiritual need to observe Shabbat. By making sure that paupers could avoid feeling “less
than” even as they were begging, the Gemara raises an important issue for consideration: How do
we ensure that our communities are accessible to those without means?

One way is to meet the basic needs of our impoverished brothers and sisters in a respectful manner.
While only God can make a tree, feeding the poor is up to us — and we should fulfill this mitzvah
in a way that allows the recipient to feel as dignified and included as possible.

3
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/eruvin-51/

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Jewish Attitudes Toward Poverty

R. Jill Jacobs writes:4

The overarching Jewish attitude toward the poor is best summed up by a single word of the biblical
text: achikha (your brother). With this word, the Torah insists on the dignity of the poor, and it
commands us to resist any temptation to view the poor as somehow different from ourselves.

The concept of human dignity is well-ingrained in Judaism. The book of Genesis describes human
beings as created “b’tzelem elokim” in the image of God (1:26).

"You shall not lift up the face of the poor man": Do not say: He is a poor man and since I and
this rich man are obliged to sustain him, I shall vindicate him in judgment, so that he can
support himself honorably.
Sifra Ked 2:4

At least one early Rabbi considers one of the verses expressing this idea to be the most important
verse in the Torah (Sifra K’doshim 2:4). The insistence that human beings are creations in the
divine image implies that any insult to an individual, by extension, is an affront to God. In
reminding us that the poor person is our sibling, the Torah emphasizes that, like us, this person is
a manifestation of the divine image and should be treated as such.

In addition to challenging us to see the poor person as a member of our family, the word achikha
also disabuses us of any pretense that we are somehow inherently different from the poor.

Those of us who do not live in dire poverty often protect ourselves from any sense of vulnerability
by finding ways to differentiate ourselves from the poor: they must be poor because they don’t
work hard, because they drink or take drugs, because they come from dysfunctional families, and
so forth.

Seeing each poor person as our sibling cuts through any attempts to separate ourselves from him
or her.

4
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-attitudes-toward-poverty/ and There Shall Be No Needy, published by Jewish
Lights Publishing.

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Three Reasons for Good Deeds

In a riff on the Deuteronomy 15 passage, Don Isaac Abravanel, a 15th-century Spanish

commentator, identifies three primary reasons for giving tzedakah:

1. to express mercy on the poor;

2. to recognize the poor person as your relative;

3. to commit to sustaining your community.

With this list, Abravanel proposes a three-pronged approach to interacting with the poor.

First, you may care for the poor out of pity. The word “mercy” suggests a stance toward the poor
in which you give out of a sense of generosity, and not out of a belief that the poor person deserves
the gift. Similarly, when Jews pray for divine mercy, the liturgy reflects the hope that God will
have mercy even though we have done nothing to deserve God’s beneficence. In the words of the
High Holiday liturgy, “Avinu Malkenu (our father, our king), have mercy on us and answer us,
even though we have done no good deeds.”

Second, Abravanel asks us to recognize the poor as members of our own family, insofar as all
people are descendants of a common ancestor. Like the concept of achikha, this demand forces us
to see each poor person as an individual human being worthy of dignity and respect.

Rather than view a poor person as an anonymous and undeserving beggar, we are asked to regard
this person as a child of “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” As such, this person, though imperfect, is
deserving of what the talmudic Rabbis call z’chut avot (the merit of the ancestors), the ancestral
connection that guarantees God’s mercy.

With the reference to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Abravanel seems to be speaking primarily of
responsibility to the Jewish community; we can, however, expand his words to include all
descendants of these three forefathers–this would certainly include all Christians and Muslims, but
we might more generally say that we cannot be sure anymore who is descended from Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and thus should extend the definition of achikha to all of humanity.

Third, in Abravanel’s formulation, we should consider the care of the poor as a means of building
the community as a whole. In the most utilitarian formulation of this idea, we might say that
contributing to the education of the poor helps to guarantee a better educated and therefore more
productive society; that helping the poor to buy property increases the number of homeowners in
a given place and therefore raises the value of all housing stock; or that job training and small
business loans for the poor increase the economic viability of an entire community.

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Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught a parable: Men were on a ship. One of them took a drill and
started drilling underneath him. The others said to him: What are sitting and doing?! He replied:
What do you care. Is this not underneath my area that I am drilling?! They said to him: But the
water will rise and flood us all on this ship.
Lev Rabba 4:6

A rabbinic story tells about a group of people traveling in a boat. One passenger takes out a drill
and begins drilling a hole under his seat. The other passengers, quite understandably, complain
that this action may cause the boat to sink. “Why should this bother you?” this man responds, I am
only drilling under my own seat.” The others retort, “But the water will rise up and flood the ship
for all of us!”

The moral of this story is clear: one person’s destructive action may literally drown the entire
community. But we might add that the inverse is also true: a single positive change may transform
an entire community. Thus, the alleviation of poverty, even in the smallest detail, may help the
community as a whole to flourish.

Rather than consider the poor person a drain on our resources, we may regard a gift to this person
as an investment in the future of the community. With monetary assistance, today’s beggar may
be tomorrow’s community leader and himself or herself a giver of tzedakah.

The Paradox of Poverty

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Every seventh year you shall practice remission of debts. This shall be the nature of the remission:
every creditor shall remit the due that he claims from his fellow; he shall not dun his fellow or
kinsman, for the remission proclaimed is of the LORD. You may dun the foreigner; but you must
remit whatever is due you from your kinsmen. There shall be no needy among you—since the
LORD your God will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary
portion— if only you heed the LORD your God and take care to keep all this

A striking feature of the Deuteronomy passage is the apparent contradiction between verse four,
“There shall be no needy among you,” and verse eleven, “For the poor will never cease from the
land.” We expect the omnipotent God of the Torah to keep promises; we are therefore surprised
to hear the Torah promise to eradicate poverty and then, almost in the same breath, admit that this
promise will never be fulfilled.

Noting the conditional nature of the promise to eradicate poverty “if you diligently listen to the
voice of Adonai your God,” most traditional commentators understand the passage as a prediction
that the Jewish people will never fully obey the commandments.

While holding out a utopian promise of the reward for full allegiance to the mitzvot
(commandments), God, according to these commentators, simultaneously prepares for the
inevitability of the people’s disobedience.

If we accept that God’s promise in this passage relies on a condition that humans can never meet,
we encounter at least two problems. First, such an interpretation contradicts a basic principle of
rabbinic exegesis–the idea that every word of the Torah has a purpose.

Second, this suggestion raises an even more fundamental theological problem. If human beings
are to hold ourselves responsible for observing the commandments of the Torah, we need to believe
that God, at least, believes that we are capable of following these commandments. It would seem
a betrayal of trust for the Torah to set out expectations that God already knows we will not fulfill.

Many commentators thus seek an alternative resolution of the apparent contradiction between the
assurance that “there shall be no needy among you” and the warning that “the poor will never
cease from your land.” Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban) writes:

“For the poor will never cease from the land” [means] it is impossible that the poor will
permanently disappear. [Moses] mentions this because, having assured them that there would be
no needy if they observed all of the commandments, he goes on to say, “I know that not every
generation, forever, will observe all of the commandments to the point that there is no longer any
need for commandments concerning the poor. For perhaps, at certain times, there will be needy,
and therefore, I am commanding you for the case in which they are present. And the text says, “in
your land,” to refer to the entire area of habitation, for the promise that there will not be poor
among you applies “in the land which God is giving you as an inheritance,” as long as you fulfill
all of the commandments there; then, it says that it is possible that, in some period or place in
which you have settled, there may be a poor person among you. For the meaning of “in your land”
refers to all of your settlements–in the land of Israel and outside of the land of Israel. And the

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meaning of “the poor person in your land” is that this phrase refers both to your brethren and to
all of the poor of your land. (Ramban’s commentary to Deut. 15 )

With this explanation, Ramban portrays the biblical text as optimistic but realistic. According to
his reading of this passage, the Jewish people will generally observe the commandments, but will
not always do so perfectly. Even if one generation succeeds in temporarily eradicating poverty,
the possibility remains that poverty will resurface in another generation. Thus, the Torah
anticipates a perfected world, but it plans for an imperfect one.

What is the Best Approach?

A common debate among those involved in antipoverty work concerns the relative value of direct
service addressing immediate needs and of advocacy or organizing addressing the need for
systemic change. Advocates for direct service argue that the hungry need to be led today and that
the homeless need somewhere to sleep tonight. Those who prefer organizing or advocacy point
out that soup kitchens and shelters will never make hunger and homelessness disappear, whereas
structural change might wipe out these problems.

The Deuteronomic response to this debate is a refusal to take sides, or better, an insistence on both.
Rather than advocate exclusively either for long-term systemic change or for short-term response
to need, this passage articulates a vision that balances the pursuit of lull economic justice with
attention to immediate concerns. In this reading, the text in question becomes a charge to work for
the structural changes that will eventually bring about the end of poverty while also meeting the
pressing needs of those around us.

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Alyssa Gray writes:5

Rabbinic literature of the amoraic period (third–fifth centuries CE) is full of references to poverty
and the poor. Focusing on the ubiquitous ani (poor), whose poverty is likely to be chronic,
Palestinian compilations (the Palestinian Talmud, Genesis and Leviticus Rabbah, Pesikta deRav
Kahana) and the Babylonian Talmud enable us to reconstruct elements of their daily lives.

The Palestinian view is that poverty is not an immutable status, and that charity to the poor earns
donors a redemptive reward (notably forgiveness of sin).

The Babylonian Talmud portrays poverty as a “stickier” identity and contact with the poor as
negative. This Talmud implicitly discourages direct contact between donors and the poor; donors
can earn a redemptive reward by giving to a rabbinically administered communal charitable fund.

These scholars are the successors of the mostly Palestinian "tannaim" ("repeaters" of tradition) of
the first century through shortly before the mid-third century. This essay will survey mainly
amoraic literature, notably the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds (early fifth and seventh
centuries, respectively) and the fourth to fifth centuries of Palestinian collections of midrashim
(rabbinic exegesis and homily) of Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, and Pesikta de-Rav Kahana.
In these compilations we may distinguish four categories of poor people:

(1) wealthy people who have fallen into poverty,

(2) people whose poverty is explicitly or implicitly described as having some larger religious or
cultural significance, or who are described metaphorically as "poor" whether or not they are
materially deprived (most likely rabbis or "holy men"),

(3) some, but not all, orphans and widows,

(4) people explicitly identified by Hebrew or Aramaic words for "poor" (and who are not explicitly
identified as members of one of the other categories).

The rabbis were diverse in not only the sources of their income but also the extent of their wealth.
At the top end of the scale are those few who are depicted as particularly wealthy. The Tosefta
portrays R. Eleazar b. R. Zadok as rich enough to purchase a synagogue in Jerusalem. (Tos Meg
2:17) R. Akiva—whose image would be recrafted in later rabbinic texts as one who was poor in
his youth—exchanges valuable silver coins for even more valuable gold coins with Rabban
Gamaliel and R. Joshua.

Gamliel is said to have owned slaves, who symbolized their master’s prestige. The texts in which
Gamaliel and his slave Tabi appear together, moreover, are authored from the perspective of the

5
Charity in Rabbinic Judaism: Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness 2019, London and New York: Routledge

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master—not that of the slave or a disinterested third party.6 Gamaliel’s landholdings afforded him
banquets as lavish as any symposium in the Roman world—guests relaxed on furniture while being
served food prepared with exotic spices.7 Landownership, wealth, and status were closely
intertwined in the ancient world and Gamaliel stood at the pinnacle, as he possessed unmatched
amounts of all three, a rabbi-of-leisure if ever there was one.

Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi was also legendary for his wealth, though these depictions are only found in
later, amoraic texts.8

Who Is Rich? The Poor in Early Rabbinic Judaism

6
On Gamaliel and Tabi, see mBer 2.7; mSuk 2.1; mPes 7.2; tPes 2.15. See also tMK 2.16
7
tBes 2.13–14, 2.16–17; SifreDt 38; on spices as a luxury, see t‘AZ 4.1.
8
Lee I. Levine, ‘‘Tekufato shel rabbi yehudah ha-nasi,’’ in Eretz Israel from the Destruction of the Second Temple to the Muslim
Conquest, ed. Z. Baras and Y. Tsafrir (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1982), 1:100–102.

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Greg Gardner writes:9

Not all rabbis, however, were necessarily wealthy. Indeed, early rabbinic texts include perspectives
of those who were smallholders, who cultivated their plots with their own hands. Although an
occupation does not determine the extent of one’s holdings, the incomes of craftsmen and
merchants tended to be modest. ( mKid 4.14.)

The Mekhilta uses the term tekhakhim to indicate men of ‘‘medium wealth, of some means.’’10
Here, individuals who live at middling economic levels are distinguished from the affluent on one
hand and the poor on the other.11 The inclusion of middle-income individuals within the rabbinic
movement had heretofore been highlighted only in later, amoraic texts. But the Mekilta passage
suggests that the binary of ‘‘rich and poor,’’ so frequently mentioned in tannaitic texts, needs to
be nuanced.12

The implications of the existence of middle-income individuals within the early rabbinic
movement are seen in tannaitic instructions on the treatment of the poor.

The texts explore ways for those who are neither wealthy nor poor enough to receive support to
fulfill certain religious obligations.

We see this, for example, in the laws of the poor man’s tithe. After separating the heave offering
for the priests and the first tithe for the Levites, one-tenth of the remainder (the ‘‘second tithe’’)
was reserved for the poor in the third and sixth years of every seven-year sabbatical cycle. The
laws of the poor man’s tithe derive from a few verses in Deuteronomy (14.28–29, 26.12–14),
which the rabbis expand in mPe’ah 8.5–6. mPe’ah 8.5, delineates the minimum amount that should

9
T H E J EWISH Q UARTERLY R EVIEW, Vol. 104, No. 4 (Fall 2014) 515–536
10
Mekhilta, Amalek 4; H. S. Horovitz and I. A. Rabin, eds., Mechilta d’Rabbi Ismael (2d., 1931; repr. Jerusalem, 1997), 201. For
the development of the term, see Ludwig Kohler et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden, 1994),
s.v. tokh; Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London,
1903), 1668.
11
That some rabbis are part of a provincial middle strata is also suggested in passing by Schwartz, Were the Jews a Mediterranean
Society, 142. Ben Zion Rosenfeld and Haim Perlmutter, in ‘‘Landowners in Roman Palestine, 100–300 C.E.: A Distinct Social
Group,’’ Journal of Ancient Judaism 2 (2011): 327–52, employ a maximalist approach to rabbinic texts (see esp. pp. 335–36) to
argue for the existence of ‘‘an extensive population of middling individuals in Jewish society in Roman Palestine in the first to
third centuries C.E.’’ (p. 327).
12
For the binary of ‘‘rich and poor,’’ see, for example, mBB 10.7, mKet 6.6, mNeg 14.11, m‘Eruv 4.9. One way to harmonize the
problem is to suggest that the rabbis had an expansive view that ‘‘rich’’ includes those with middling incomes. ‘‘Rich’’ and ‘‘poor’’
function largely as legal categories. The reality behind this seemingly simple binary, however, is rather complex. A similar
conclusion on the meaning of these terms is reached by Rosenfeld and Perlmutter, ‘‘Landowners in Roman Palestine,’’ 327–52.
To be sure, the language of ‘‘rich’’ and ‘‘poor’’ could be a useful rhetorical tool, as it allowed the authors and redactors to position
themselves at different points along the spectrum according to the point that they wish to make at any particular moment. As I will
show, in mPe’ah 8.5 and tPe’ah 4.17 the tannaim align themselves with those of middling means to demonstrate how they can
fulfill certain religious obligations. Similarly, the rhetoric of rich/poor would also be used by later Christian writers, albeit for
different purposes. Following pagan writers, Christian writers employed this rhetoric in part as a means to invoke pity and guilt in
order to excite generosity and giving through the charitable institutions controlled by the bishops; see Cam Grey, Constructing
Communities in the Late Roman Countryside (Cambridge, 2011), 10–13, 128–29. Using ‘‘the poor’’ to raise money for charitable
institutions that the authors themselves claimed to control would only emerge in the rabbinic tradition in the amoraic age.

19
be left for the poor. The subsequent pericope addresses instances in which the householder cannot
meet these minimum requirements:

If he had but little, he should set it before them while they divide it among themselves.

(mPe’ah 8.6)

When a householder lacks sufficient produce to satisfy the minimum amount of provisions to be
given to poor individuals, he is instructed to allow the poor to divide it equally among themselves.
This enables the householder to fulfill the commandment as well as avoid favoritism, maintaining
the principle of fairness that is characteristic of rabbinic laws on support for the poor.

Likewise, the tannaim put forward a way for those of middling economic levels to fulfill the
obligation to give charity:

Among the tannaim were the wealthy and individuals of modest means— not one tanna, however,
is depicted in tannaitic compilations as poor.13 While some Hellenistic Jewish and Roman writers
self-identify as poor, the tannaim do not.14

Rather, the economic attributes of early rabbinic identity, as we will see, are circumscribed and
defined in opposition to what they are not. They are pointedly not poor. The poor are portrayed as
an undifferentiated mass characterized solely by their failure to reach certain thresholds.
Instructive is mPe’ah 8.8–9, the locus classicus of tannaitic discussions of the poor and poverty:

13
Cohen, ‘‘The Rabbi in Second-Century Jewish Society,’’ 931–32; Gray, ‘‘Formerly Wealthy Poor,’’ 122; cf. Bu¨ chler, Political
and the Social Leaders, 66–78, whose conclusion that the tannaim were mostly poor is based on their portrayal in later, post-
tannaitic compilations such as the Talmuds.
14
for example, those designating themselves or their audience as poor in the Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91–105) and in the Dead
Sea Scrolls (e.g., Hymns of Thanksgiving, 4QInstruction). On these texts, see Samuel L. Adams, ‘‘Poverty and Otherness in Second
Temple Instructions,’’ in The ‘‘Other’’ in Second Temple Judaism: Essays in Honor of John J. Collins, ed. D. C. Harlow et al.
(Grand Rapids, Mich., 2011), 189–203;

20
This passage is the foundation of approaches to the poor and poverty in subsequent Jewish texts,
from the Middle Ages through the modern era15.

He who has two hundred zuz [ denar] may not take gleanings, forgotten things, or pe’ah or the
poor man’s tithe.

[If] he had two hundred less one denar, even if they [later] give him a thousand [denars] at
once, he may take [gleanings, forgotten things, pe’ah, and the poor man’s tithe]. [If] they were
pledged in his wife’s marriage contract or to a creditor, he may take [gleanings, pe’ah, and the
poor man’s tithe].

They may not obligate him to sell his dwelling or the tools of his trade. (mPe’ah 8.8)

He who has fifty zuz, [and] he takes and gives [i.e., deals, transacts] with them, he may not take
[gleanings, forgotten things, pe’ah, and the poor man’s tithe].

And he who does not need to take but does take will not die of old age until he is in need of
[support from other] men. And he who needs to take but does not take will not die of old age
until he supports others from that which is his. On this it is written: Blessed is he [who trusts in
the Lord, whose trust is the Lord] (Jer 17.7). (mPe’ah 8.9)

15
Michael Hellinger, ‘‘The Emerging Definition of the Poverty Line in Jewish Law,’’ Jewish Law Association Studies 14 (2004):
127–39.

21
The overarching principle of these passages is that one may collect gleanings, forgotten things,
pe’ah, or the poor man’s tithe if their annual income falls below a certain threshold amount, 200
zuz or denar—an amount understood in rabbinic texts as that needed to acquire basic necessities
for one year.

The poor’s eligibility for these entitlements does not change if they later receive additional income
(even 1,000 zuz) that would elevate them above the 200–zuz threshold. The 200 zuz must also be
readily available, liquid, and free from liens or other commitments, such as assets pledged in a
marriage contract or as collateral to a creditor. One cannot be compelled to sell his dwelling or the
tools he needs for earning a living in order to reach the 200–zuz minimum. If one has only 50 zuz,
but ‘‘gives and takes’’ with it—uses it, that is, for trade or commercial purposes—then he is
probably not truly in need.

The literary context of these passages is significant, as they constitute the final pericopae of
mPe’ah, a tractate devoted to the expansion of biblical laws on agricultural entitlements for aliens,
orphans, widows, and the poor (as Lev 19.9–10; Lev 23.22; Dt 24.19–21). Stated only briefly in
the Hebrew Bible, mPe’ah (as well as its parallels in tPe’ah 1.1–4.7) amplifies these laws,
concluding with the above-quoted discussions on who is eligible to receive these entitlements.

These laws divide all parties into two categories: those who allocate God’s share of the produce
and those eligible to collect it. Indeed, mPe’ah 8.8–9 defines the poor solely for the sake of
identifying to whom these entitlements should be allocated. They are objectified as mere vessels
through which householders fulfill religious obligations that require the participation of the poor.

These tannaitic texts reflect the perspectives of benefactors, not beneficiaries. In this respect,
tannaitic literature is typical of most discussions of poverty from the ancient world, as they reflect
what the nonpoor perceive the poor’s interests and needs to be. While some Jewish texts from the
Second Temple period explicitly reflect the interests of authors and target an audience, which
struggles economically, the poor characters who sometimes appear in early rabbinic texts are stock
figures. The literature does not preserve the actual voices or perspectives of the poor.

It follows that the poor in early rabbinic literature are understood as others, in the sense that they
are non-rabbis. The rabbinic interest in discussing the poor and poverty relief may be a product of
their general preoccupation to flesh out the Hebrew Bible’s own interest in the poor. The rabbis’
interests in the poor may also be related to the importance of land to daily life in Roman Palestine,
as laws on support for the poor are an integral part of the religious laws associated with the land
and its use. These tannaitic discourses may also have been prompted by the special empathy that
the tannaim held for poor individuals.

The rabbinic authors and redactors conflate various categories of needy individuals and
dependents and present them as an undifferentiated mass defined solely by their failure to reach a
minimum income level.16

16
Another possible reason for understanding the poor as an undifferentiated mass is that it enabled the tannaim to cope with the
problem of poverty that may have seemed as too massive and overwhelming to comprehend. The tannaim were surely familiar

22
Indeed, in this sense, the tannaim follow the sapiential tradition (especially Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
and the Wisdom of Ben Sira) which expresses sympathy and pity for the poor—from the
perspective of those who are not. In early rabbinic literature, the poor can be identified as ‘‘internal
others’’ or non-rabbinic Jews—as opposed to ‘‘external others’’ who are gentiles. Such internal
others serve as boundary markers against those whom the rabbis define themselves and shape their
collective identity. Likewise, the poor demarcate the limits of rabbinic economic diversity. A few
tannaim are very wealthy and many are well off or middling, but to be poor is incompatible with
being a tanna. The texts focus more on the benefactors’ obligations than the beneficiaries’ rights
or needs. Likewise, in late antique Christian writings, the poor are often presented and defined as
a passive and anonymous group, as the recipients of gifts and the objects of protection.17

For the rabbis, the poor serve instrumental purposes. They constitute the individuals to whom one
must leave pe’ah, gleanings, forgotten things, and the poor man’s tithe, and give charity: those
through whom one fulfills certain religious obligations.18

The rabbis did not seek to erase economic inequalities. The existence of the poor was necessary in
order to properly fulfill certain religious obligations.19 Thus, it was of utmost importance to keep
the poor alive but, as Sifre Dt 116 instructs, ‘‘you are not commanded to make him rich.’’20

The rabbis’ approach, rather, is profitably likened to John Rawls’s ‘‘difference principle,’’ which
accepts income inequalities so long as the least advantaged are made better off than they would be
otherwise.21

with the sentiment in Dt 15.11 that there will always be some in need (cf. Matt. 26.11). To be sure, the sense that poverty was
everywhere would become more acute in amoraic texts, which, as Gray and Goodman have noted, are the earliest rabbinic texts
that reflect the third-century economic crisis; see Goodman, State and Society, 60; Gray, ‘‘Formerly Wealthy Poor,’’ 118, n. 62.
17
Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (Hanover, N.H., 2002), 14.
18
On the poor as instruments who enable the well off to discharge their religious obligations, see Satlow, ‘‘Fruit and the Fruit of
Fruit,’’ 250–58. Likewise, the poor enable the rich to achieve merit; see Gary A. Anderson, Sin: A History (New Haven, Conn.,
2009), 151.
19
On the Mishnah’s preservation of economic inequalities, see also Calvin Goldscheider, ‘‘Inequality, Stratification, and Exclusion
in the Mishnah: An Exploratory Social Science Analysis,’’ in Gazing on the Deep: Ancient Near Eastern and Other Studies in
Honor of Tsvi Abusch, ed. J. Stackert et al. (Bethesda, Md., 2011), 565–83.
20
Ephraim Urbach, ‘‘Political and Social Tendencies in Talmudic Concepts of Charity’’ (Hebrew), Zion 16 (1951): 18
21
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 65–73, §13.

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Jim Goldberg: Rich and Poor22

I first came across prints from Jim Goldberg‘s Rich and Poor at Pier 24, the photography ego-
seum in San Francisco. Of course, there is something ironic about seeing photographs that center
on a society’s wealth disparity and its effects in a huge space that was financed by a very wealthy
investment banker. This doesn’t mean I want to single out Andy Pilara and/or the space he created
for and around his massive collection of photographs. After all, to a fairly large extent the world
of art photography is built on, well, exactly this: very wealthy people buying pieces of paper, onto
(or into) which photographs have been fixed, for a lot of money. And even if we were to ignore
the world of galleries and collectors, to expand our view – the contemporary art photography scene
essentially is based on a luxury position. Nobody needs photographs to survive. You need housing
and food, but you don’t need photographs (or paintings or sculpture or ballet etc.).

I don’t mean to denigrate what artists do. Beyond the very basic needs everybody has, art does
serve very important purposes. That said, I find it extremely important to keep in mind that even
though these purposes are important, we’re still dealing with a luxury here. The moment you lose
touch of this basic fact you might be in trouble. It’s a bit like worrying too much about “First
World problems.” This term itself is problematic, because it pretends that problems people might

22
https://cphmag.com/rich-and-poor/

24
suffer from in the Second or Third World are absent from the First. But the reality is they’re not.
There are a lot of people in the First World that have Third World problems.

And this brings us back to Rich and Poor. The book’s idea is incredibly simple. Much like all
incredibly simple ideas, its realization took many years (1977-85). The photographs were taken in
San Francisco, a city that has recently been undergoing massive changes, given the influx of
enormous amounts of tech money, resulting in all kinds of extremely ugly effects. Much like the
island of Manhattan, San Francisco has become a place where it has become very hard, if not
impossible, to live if you’re not making quite a bit of money. Add to that the recent discussions in
the United States about the general wealth disparity – whether it’s in the form of talk of the 1% or
in terms of Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century , and it would seem that Rich
and Poor is being reissued at just about the right time.
Elsewhere on this site, I wrote about Jim Goldberg and the Struggle of Photographic Storytelling,
which can serve as a companion piece for this one. Rich and Poor relies on a simple strategy:
having photographed his various subjects, Goldberg returned to them and had them write
comments/captions on the prints. Here’s one:

“Now I see a way out to a decent future. I’m tired of this shit, Drugs and pimping and all that stuff.
Maybe now I have the courage to do something — anything. I don’t know, we will see. Jim Thanks.
[signed:] Harold Graham (P.S.) I love you”

(in these transcriptions, I try to be as close to the original spelling and grammar as possible)

Or: “My Face Shows the intensity of a pained women I’ve been mugged and beaten. I didn’t ask
for this mess. This makes me look like a Bum – I AM not. I am a fantastic Dorothy, A popular
personality The nicest person in the hotel [signed:] Dorothy R 3-16-83”

Or: “I Like TO BE ATTRACTIVE AND Distant. I Love The games, intrigue, AND MYSTERY OF
being A WOMAN. TRUE Feminity is A great deal OF Power. I AM VERY Vain — I WISH I WAS
THINNER. [signed:] Shannon”

Or: “This picture does not reflect my personality. I am not an empty person. I have a lot of feelings
and stand up for what I think. [signed:] OJ”

So there are all these photographs and comments by poor people and rich people, and on the
surface, it would appear that we all share the same aspirations. And we do. The only difference
being that some people’s insecurities and problems are, well, First World insecurities and
problems, whereas other people have to worry about Third World problems – such as: how to get

25
by? – while living in the same First World. Well, no, while we might share the physical space, the
actual spaces we live in are quite different. This reissue of book comes with an accordion booklet,
which shows, Ed Ruscha style, two strips of road, one for the rich, one for the poor.

“My Friend Jim the cameraman came and show me a mirror of my self” a man named Charles
Johnson added to his picture. He is not the only one to mention the photographer, someone who
would look out for all these people, whether rich or poor, to go back and bring back a photograph.
To engage. Photography works best (or maybe most fully) when it engages, when the photographer
possesses a large degree of empathy.

It is, after all, easy to go out into the world, make some pictures, print them and then to sell them
to the select few who have the money to be able to afford them. But I don’t think you can do that
so easily if the amount of empathy you bring to your work is as large as Jim Goldberg’s. It’s a
struggle – not just a photographic one, but also (mostly) one as a human being.

And we better become aware of that struggle, because if we don’t, these photographs – along with
their text – will become merely just another artifact in some ego-seum or one of the many books
in our collections.

Rich and Poor (2014 reissue); photographs by Jim Goldberg; 222

pages plus accordion booklet; Steidl; 2014

26