12 Walter Jacob way, to take it. Everyone was obligated to give and should also give small amounts when a poor person appeared at the door.

The Mishnah tried to deal separately with the special circumstance of the fallen rich who had sunk to the level of poverty. They were not to be shamed, and some effort was made to sustain the m at their former level. This demonstrated concern for the psychology of the poor, a thought important in the Talmud Jerushalmi and in the later Code literature.

This Mishnah defined poverty as possessing less than 200 zuzim in money or property. The detailed discussions indicated that the details of this eligibility test had been well worked out. If these funds were pledged to a creditor, for example, or represented a wife’s marriage contract, the man was eligible. The poor person was not compelled to sell his house or his clothing; if he received an expensive gift of pottery after he had been accepted as poor, he remained eligible. He was also not considered poor if he had 50 zuzim in working capital.(Peah 8:8 and 9). These sums dealt with a single individual, not a family unit. This legislation had no foundation of any kind in the Bible although it was followed by a number of general moral injunctions from Scripture.

Although this section of the Mishnah began with the harvest legislation, it defined poverty and set the broad standards for welfare which were to endure through the centuries. It dealt with itinerants and local poor. This revolutionary system was presented as if it had always existed and became the foundation of all future poor relief. This followed the pattern of so much else in the Mishnah — even the opening section that dealt with the time for reading the shmah without any stipulation that the shmah had to be read nor any statement of how the service was constructed. We may speculate about dating this revolutionary approach, but the texts provide no hints.