SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA
Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 253.1 ff). The party may retain his home, essential household goods and clothing. However, if the| household goods are made of gold or silver, they are to be sold and replaced with ordinary ones. The assets must be accessible so a person with property in another place(as for example frozen bank acounts in another land) may qualify for assistance as he/she has no assets in his current domicile(See Bet Yosef to above quoting Isaac of Vienna).
This approach of the Talmud and codes is appropriate when sufficient public assistance is available; it demands the depletion of assets and guarantees a safety net. We should note that the tradition indicated that we are not obliged to provide luxuries for the poor (M. Ket 6.8; 67b; Yad Hil. Matnat Aniyim 7.3), yet if the individual was once wealthy we should provide some luxuries as this will|
make poverty more bearable(Yad Hil. Matnat Aniyim 7.3; Shulhan Arukh and Tur Yoreh Deah 250.1). We must remember that this legislation dealt with poverty in general and not with our specific problem of the aged who have not been poor, but who may be thrust into poverty because of the inadequacy of the pension welfare system or due to the high costs of providing elderly and nursing care.
We must also be concerned about the psychological implications. The expectations of exhausting one’s resources entirely provide a devastating psychological blow to the aged individual. The aged individual, independent and middle class to this point, will now become destitute and helpless. This person sees himself herself as a ward of the state or completely dependent upon children even for the most minor luxuries. This may well lead t depression and an early death. Furthermore, the children see the
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