<?
    include "includes/header.php";
    include "includes/leftnav.php";
?>
        <td valign="top" style="margin-bottom: 10px;">
        	<div style="margin: 5px; margin-top: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
            	<span style="font-size: 17px; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><center>
                    Rationalizations for Poverty
                </center></span>
                <!--Body-->
                
                <strong>Texts from Our Tradition:</strong> <br /><br />

                The following story is told in Bava Batra 10a:<br /><br />
                
                Attempting to discredit Rabbinic tradition Roman Governor Turnus Rufus challenges R. Akiba with the following difficulty: <br />
                If God loves the poor, then why does he not make them rich? Akiba replies that God allows the poor to remain in a state of poverty in order to provide the rich with the opportunity to acquire merit by helping the poor.  <br /><br />
                
                
                <strong>Guiding Thoughts:</strong><br /><br />
                
                1.Turnus Rufus suggests that poverty is a divine punishment. <br />
                R. Akiva argues that God does not cause poverty, but only maintains it. Is this differentiation important?<br /><br />
                
                2. God depends on the rich to help the poor: How does this succeed in our society? How does it fail?<br />
                
                3. If the poor suffer for the sake of helping the rich gain merit, is poverty an opportunity to lead other to do mitzvot? <br />
                
                4.  In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag writes, "So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering" (p. 102) In light of this idea, how do we understand our relationship with the poor? What could a rebuttal to either Turnus Rufus or Akiva's statement through the lens of Sontag's statement.

                
                <!--/Body-->
            </div>
        </td>
   </tr>
                
<? include "includes/footer.php"; ?>