ABSTRACT
The Hebrew Bible gives the poor a clear edge over the rich. The Bible reverses the generally low status of the poor in the ancient world by associating poverty with holiness. The Book of Deuteronomy groups the widow and orphan, the most vulnerable, with the Levites, the elite spiritual leaders of the people: through them all God is sanctified. The biblical emphasis on charity was adapted by the early Judaeo-Christians to Christianity and, later, by Islam, which follows the Judaeo-Christian tradition in its view of charity as a divine imperative. The Bible-based notion of superiority of the poor man over the rich man is affirmed also in Yiddish schnorrer jokes, which Freud was fond of telling, in Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. A schnorrer is a species of beggar, and in one of the best-known schnorrer jokes, set in pre-1914 Paris, a schnorrer tries countless times to see Baron Rothschild.
