Mishpatim
If (Im) you lend My people
money, the poor man with you, you shall not behave towards him as a
creditor. You shall not charge him
interest.
If the
Lord gave you enough wealth so that you are able to lend to the poor…the poor
are like the stranger, the orphan and the widow. God calls the poor My
people because the pious do not seek to acquire wealth in this world…
Ibn Ezra
(11th Century)
Rabbi Yishmael said, every “im” (if) in
the Torah indicates choice except three, “if you shall make me an altar of
stones” (Deut. 27:10), “if you offer an offering of first-fruits,” (Lev. 2:14),
and “if you lend money.”
Rashi (11th
Century)
We are
commanded to lend the poor man to alleviate his suffering…This duty is prior to
that of giving charity, since the suffering of the one who is reduced to the
humiliation of openly begging is not to be compared with the suffering of the
one who is too proud to do so but waits for a helping hand.
Maimonides
(12th Century)
If
lending the poor is an obligation and not a matter of choice then why does the
Torah use the word “if?” It is to cover
the following contingencies: If you are dealing with a rogue who never pays
his debts or one who has plenty of money but pretends to be poor; or one who
has no money but has food. But he would
rather do business and keep his food, or one who has an unsavory lifestyle, in
such a case better to give him the food and not lend or give money…”If” you
lend money; if you know that he will not repay you even when he has the money, you
are not obliged to lend him.
Sefer Hasidim
(14th Century)
The
Torah did not wish the Jew to fulfill this command as if he were merely
carrying out the decree of the king…he should carry it out in a spirit of
goodwill as a matter of choice, not necessity…He has not entered into the full
spirit of the precept of lending the needy if he does it as if under duress –
solely because God has commanded it…Therefore we are to fulfill this command as
if it were a matter of choice.
Maharal (17th
Century)
If you lend
My people money…must be taken as a conditional
sentence reflecting a situation of choice.
If you so wish to lend your fellow-Jew money, then this is how you have
to go about it. But there is no
necessity compelling you.
Malbim (19th
Century)
The battle is not between the
doing of evil and the doing of good, the choice of one of them constituting the
moral problem. After all, good remains
good and it has to be preferred; evil is evil and we are to avoid it. The struggle is between the good and evil
impulse, between altruism and egoism, between the acceptance of responsibility
and the shirking of it…Jewish law lays down rules of priority, instructs man as
to which obligation is to be preferred.
Nechama Leibowitz
(10th Century)