We have been taught that Rabbi Eleazar ha-Kappar said: A man should always beseech Gods mercy concerning the state of poverty, for if he does not come into it, his son may; and if his son does not come into it, his son's son may...so taught sages in the school of Rabbi Ishmael, that poverty is a wheel that goes around and around the world.

"Rob not the impoverished because he is impoverished" (Proverbs 22:22). Our masters said: What is Scripture talking about? If he is impoverished, how can he be robbed? Scripture must be speaking here of gifts to the poor one is obligated by Torah to give...The Holy One thus admonishes that one is not to rob the poor of the gifts due him. It is not enough for the rich man that he lives in comfort while the poor man is in distress; must he also rob the poor of what the Holy One has allotted to him?

Poverty is like death.

When Rabbi Joshua ben Levi went to Rome, he entered a palace in which he saw marble pillars covered with wrappings to keep them from cracking during the heat and from freezing during the cold. Then, when he went to the marketplace, he saw a poor man wrapped only in a reed mat to protect him from the heat and the cold-

The torments of poverty deprive a man of his good sense and of the capacity to acknowledge his Creator.

"All the days of the poor are evil" (Proverbs 15:15). Ben Sira added: Not only the days, but the nights also. For lower than all roofs is a poor man's roof. And his vineyard is on the mountain's least fertile summit. The rain from other roofs pours down on his roof. The soil from his vineyard washes down to other vineyards.