99. It is written, “Happy is he who minds the poor; in the day of adversity, the Lord will save him.” It is also written, “Or let him take hold of My strength, that he may make peace with Me; and he shall make peace with Me.” “Poor” means a person who has nothing of his own, and he does not ask for a penny from anyone, he is humble, does not show his distress to any person.
At his time of distress, he makes a strife upward and says, “Am I more sinful than all the people in the world? One person has great wealth, a house filled with gold and silver, and I have nothing; I have no bread to eat or clothes to wear.” So he goes and complains until he sins before the Creator.
For this reason, the Creator said that any person who grips His strength and gives him charity will make peace with Me, and he will make peace with Me since he will no longer quarrel with Me.
100. Any person who is poor and sins with quarreling with the Creator, the Creator does not regard this for him as a sin since he is not in full mind. How do we know this? From Job. When the Creator said to Satan, “From where do you come? Have you noticed My servant Job?” Satan said to the Creator, “Is there a person in the world whose master gives him silver and gold, and children, and all the abundance in the world, who will be bad?”
101. The Creator said to him, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand; only against him do not stretch out your hand.” He placed him in his hands, and he killed his children, and he had nothing left. Afterwards, Satan returned and said, “But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh,” until the Creator said to him, “Behold, he is in your hand; but preserve his soul.”
102. At that time, Job went out of his mind and said, “Does it please You to oppress?” meaning is this oppression that You do to me good? My father and mother made for me the body, and You bonded with them in partnership and placed in me a Nefesh and Neshama [both words are translated as soul]. The Nefesh is Yours. You said, ‘But preserve his soul,’ and the body that my father and mother made for me, You said, ‘Do with it whatever you wish.’ Is this oppression that You are doing to me good?”
103. “Happy is he who minds the poor.” “Poor” is one who dies without sons. At the time of his passing from the world, when his soul departs from him, the verse “Hand to hand will not be cleaned from evil” is written about him. That is, because he did not leave a son, there is no one to clean his evil. If he has a son left in the world, if a person takes hold of him and teaches him Torah, it is written about him, “will make peace for me,” as well as “In the day of adversity, the Lord will save him.”