Devarim 15:7-11
Open Your Hand
Five verses in Re’eh that make giving a law, including a law against the calculation that talks you out of it.
For children, teens and adults
Seven verses earlier this same chapter promises that there will be no poor among you at all. Here it states flatly that the poor will never cease from the land. Both sentences are in Devarim 15, a few lines apart. So which is true, and why would the Torah build its law on the gloomier one? Because the law is written for the world as it is. And it goes after a very specific excuse: the seventh year is coming, all debts are about to be wiped, so lending now means losing the money. That is not a wicked thought. It is a correct financial calculation, and the Torah forbids it anyway.
כִּי־יִהְיֶה בְךָ אֶבְיוֹן מֵאַחַד אַחֶיךָ בְּאַחַד שְׁעָרֶיךָ בְּאַרְצְךָ אֲשֶׁר־ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ לֹא תְאַמֵּץ אֶת־לְבָבְךָ וְלֹא תִקְפֹּץ אֶת־יָדְךָ מֵאָחִיךָ הָאֶבְיוֹן׃
Devarim 15:7
Ki yihyeh vecha evyon me'achad achecha be'achad she'arecha be'artzecha asher Hashem Elokecha noten lach, lo te'ametz et levavcha velo tikpotz et yadcha me'achicha ha'evyon.
If there is a needy person among you, one of your brothers, in one of your towns in the land that Hashem your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and do not shut your hand against your needy brother.