Why God Chose Poverty as Israel's Good Portion

The poor of Israel, who has been impoverished of his possessions: to what may the matter be compared? To a king of flesh and blood who decreed concerning his son that he should not enter his banquet, and the king knew of his son that he was hungry and thirsty. And the king said, "Happy is he who will bring my son into his house and give him a piece of bread and a pitcher of water that he may eat and drink, for all that I have indeed belongs to my son," as it is said, "He who is gracious to the poor lends to the LORD, and his good deed He will repay him" (Proverbs 19:17). And if a wicked man, a son of a poor man, a son of a needy man, a son of a destitute man, comes and repents, he is called righteous and it goes ill with him; and if he does not repent, he is called wicked and it goes ill with him. And if a person should say, "If all of them are worthy, what then?"—say to him, of them it is said, "The poor and the needy seek water, and there is none" (Isaiah 41:17), and it says, "And the humble shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the needy among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel" (Isaiah 29:19), and it says, "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction" (Isaiah 48:10). This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, went over all the traits in the world and found no trait good for Israel except poverty; for out of their poverty Israel fears the LORD. For if they have no bread to eat, no garment to wear, and no oil to anoint themselves, they seek mercy from the One who brings all existence into being. For through poverty they fear the LORD; and charity comes only out of poverty; and acts of lovingkindness come only out of poverty; and a person is God-fearing only out of poverty; and a person learns words of Torah only out of poverty, as it is said, "He raises up the poor man from the dust" (I Samuel 2:8)—it does not say "He raises up the rich man from the dust"—"for the pillars of the earth are the LORD's" (I Samuel 2:8). And "pillars" means nothing but Torah scholars, as it is said, "And everyone who was in distress gathered themselves to him" (I Samuel 22:2). Every day angels of destruction go forth before the Holy One, blessed be He, to destroy the whole world entirely; and were it not for the synagogues and study houses in which Torah scholars sit and engage in words of Torah, they would destroy the whole world immediately, as it is said, "Why, when I came, was there no one? When I called, was there none to answer?" (Isaiah 50:2). Go and learn from the way of the world: does a person plant a vineyard except in order that he may eat grapes from it or drink wine from it? Or perhaps to fill it with weeds? And if it became filled with weeds, he says to his servants, "Go and set it on fire," until a hundred or two hundred vines remain in it; then he says to his servants, "Go and tend the vineyard, dig it, hoe it, and water it with water for the sake of the vines, since the weeds have already been burned." So too all the righteous, when they stand in the world, are like the vines that stand within the vineyard, and the whole world leans upon them; therefore it is said, "For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and He has set the world upon them" (I Samuel 2:8).