[Avodah] It is not the poor that need the rich, but the rich that need the poor

[Professor L. Levine via Avodah]

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Parashas Bo discusses the bringing of the Korban Pesach, and its implications for the building of the Jewish nation. Rav Hirsch writes (in part) the following about Pesukim 12:3 - 6  which are


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Man's right to independence, equality, freedom, and private property;
ties of blood kinship and free choice, which gather people together
and separate them into separate households - this is the foundation
of the state built by G-d.

Now, this right is a dividing element, placing individuals and households
firmly on their own feet and securing them against intrusion from
the outside. What, then, is the binding element that, in the Jewish state,
should bind one household to another, so that the individual families
will join to form one society? Is it to be - as in other state-building
systems - considerations of necessity, of mutual need, of weakness,
that should wrench the individual from selfish isolation and suggest to
him that his concern for his own welfare should make him concerned
about his neighbor's welfare also?

To be sure, the Divine system of state-building is also based on
mutual need, but it is a need springing from abundance, a need to do
one's duty:

?????-??????? ????????- such is the law that is to build the Jewish
state.   It is not the poor that need the rich, but the rich that need the
poor. Let him whose own household is too small to take in the blessings
God has bestowed upon him seek out his neighbor, so that his neighbor
may supply him with additional souls to benefit from his abundance
and thus help him fulfill his duty. God can provide for the poor without
the help of the rich. But without the poor, the rich cannot fulfill their
life's purpose. In the Jewish state, it is not considerations of persona
need, but a sense of duty, Mitzvah, that should join one household to another,
uniting the individual entities into one national community. Only
such a society, secured by Mishpat and united by Tzedakah, will give rise to a
formal national structure that will become

????? ?????-?????????? (v. 6).





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