Rabbi Ze’eira said: Even the conversation of the residents of the Land of Israel is Torah. How so? A person says to another: ‘Gain through me, be exalted through me, gain for yourself through me.’14This is what the poor would say to the wealthy when asking for charity. The very manner in which they asked indicated a clear understanding of the benefit of charity for the giver.
Rabbi Ḥagai said: ‘Consider me, look at me.’15This is what the poor might say to the wealthy when asking for charity. Consider what I was and look at what I am, as Rabbi Ḥagai said in the name of Rabbi Yitzḥak: It is written: “That wealth was lost in an ill-fated matter” (Ecclesiastes 5:13), because he responded to that poor man in an ill-fated manner, and said to him: ‘Do you not go and toil and eat?
Look at your thighs, look at your legs, look at your belly, look that you are corpulent.’ The Holy One blessed be He says to him: ‘Is it not enough for you that you did not give him anything of yours, but regarding what I gave him, you are introducing an evil eye for him?’ Therefore, “he begets a son and he has nothing in his hand” (Ecclesiastes 5:13), from everything that he had.16The wealthy individual who was unkind to the poor lost his wealth. Those currently wealthy would do well to consider his former status in comparison to his current situation.