Richard S. Rheins

cry to the Lord against you and you will incur guilt (Deut. 24:14-15).

You shall not defraud your fellow. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer(peulat sakhir) shall not remain with you until morning(Lev. 19:13).

To live up to the demands of these mitzvot it is first necessary to determine who qualifies as one of the sakhir ani, the working poor. Speaking volumes about their familiarity with the harsh realities of the lives of most manual laborers, the rabbis acknowledged that nearly all farm workers qualify as working poor.” That a farm worker would qualify as poor clearly demonstrates the rabbinic awareness that even though someone had a job and some assets he still may require assistance and protections in order to survive. For example: Mishnah Peah 8.8 designates that any person possessing less than two hundred zuz is poor. Two hundred zuz was determined to be the amount of money in liquid assets that would be sufficient to support a person for a full year, from one harvest to the next."

Whoever possesses two hundred zuz may not collect

gleanings, forgotten sheaves, peah, or the poor

person’s tithe. If he possesses two hundred[zuz] less

one dinar, even if one thousand[other householders]

give him[one dinar each] all at the same time, he may

collect[charity designated for the poor]."'[If he

possesses two hundred zuz that he cannot freely use because the money serves as] collateral for a creditor

or for his wife’s marriage contract, he may collect[the

charity designated for the poor]. They may not

compel him to sell his house or the tools[of his trade

in order that he might acquire through this sale the

two hundred zuz)."?