Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Academy

Portion, BaHar [In the Mount (Leviticus 25:1-Leviticus 26:2)]: “If a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him.” RASHI interprets, do not let him decline and fall, and it will be difficult to raise him. Rather, strengthen him from the time when his hand weakens. What is this like? Like a load on the donkey. While it is on the donkey, one grabs it and helps it stand. If it falls to the ground, five will not raise it to its feet.

It is written in Midrash Rabbah, “Happy is he who makes the poor wise; in the day of affliction, the Lord will save him.” There are five interpretations here: 1) Aba Bar Yirmiah said in the name of Rabbi Meir: “It is the one who crowns the good inclination over the evil inclination.” 2) Isi said, “It is one who gives a penny to a poor.” 3) Rabbi Yochanan said, “One who buries a ‘dead Mitzva [commandment].’” 4) Our great sages say: “It is one who runs away from the kingship.” 5) Rav Huna said, “It is one who visits the sick.”

We should understand the following:

1) Why is everyone straying from the literal? It is written “poor,” and they interpret the words as “crowning the good inclination over the evil inclination” and “burying the ‘dead Mitzva,’” and “running away from kingship,” and “visiting the sick.”

2) What is the connection to “If a countryman of yours becomes poor”?

First, we must know whom the verse calls “poor.”

There is a verse in Ecclesiastes (9): “There was a small city with few men in it, and a great king came to it, surrounded it … and found in it a poor and wise man. But the wisdom of the poor man is despised and his words are not heeded.” RASHI, in the name of Midrash Agadah: “A small city is the body. ‘Few men’ are man’s organs. ‘A great king’ is the evil inclination, whose organs all feel it.”

It follows that the meager and the poor and indigent is called “the good inclination.” Since his words are not heeded, the verse, “Happy is he who makes the poor wise; in the day of affliction, the Lord will save him,” is said in this regard.

It is also said there in the Midrash, “More than the landlord does for the poor, the poor does for the landlord, for so said Rut to Naomi, ‘The name of the man with whom I did today is Boaz.’ It is not written ‘he did,’ but rather ‘I did.’ She said to her, ‘I did many good deeds with him today for the penny he had given me.’”

Now we can understand the above Midrash [treatise]: Since a poor man is called “the good inclination,” for this reason, Aba Bar Yirmiah said in the name of Rabbi Meir, “It is the one who crowns the good inclination over the evil inclination,” and Isi comes to interpret how and with what we can crown the good inclination over the evil inclination.

He said, “It is by giving a penny to a poor,” through the power of charity, as our sages said, “Charity saves from death.”

Rabbi Yochanan came and interpreted that through it, he will be rewarded with burying a “dead Mitzva” [someone who died but no one sees to his proper burial], meaning the evil inclination, for “The wicked in their lives are called ‘dead,’” and we are commanded to bury the evil inclination.

Our great sages interpret this further: By this he saves himself from the kingship, meaning from the great king called “evil inclination.”

Rav Huna interprets further, that by this he can come to visit the sick, since the soul is regarded as sick, as it is written, “for I am lovesick” (Song of Songs 2). In other words, the good inclination has love for the Creator to the point of sickness, except the evil inclination does not let one feel it. Yet, everyone is rewarded by giving a penny to the poor, since the merit of charity is so great.