EXOD34 The Torah holds the scales equally balanced between rich and poor, employer and employed; but it is clear that the heart of the Lawgiver was with the oppressed labourer. Did he not himself leave a royal palace in order to go out and relieve his people from their burdens? [this verse] No less than seventy times does the word 'ani (poor man) occur in the Bible (with evyon "needy man") a close second with sixty-one)--an indication that the needs of the poor were uppermost in the mind of the Lawgiver. No Socialist ever denounced more trenchantly than did our prophets the evils of their times, thundering against the grinding of the poor in the violence and immorality committed by the rich. [See especially Amos ii. 6-16 et passim; Is. iii. 14-15; Jer. xxii. 13ff; Job xxiv. 2-11] In education, the children of the poor would be given first consideration, for from them would scholarship emerge. [Ned. 81a] Even the Messiah, according to one Rabbi, [Exodus R. xxii] will be found among the ragged poor. When God was asked by Israel: "Who are Thy people?" The answer they received was "The poor".