DEUT725 While the Torah and the later Jewish tradition provide a number of rationales for helping the poor, the ultimate one is that God commands us to do so. This becomes clear, for example, in the following passage. Here the Torah tells us clearly that we should not expect to accomplish the utilitarian purpose of ridding the world of poverty, which might be one of the aims we have in mind in giving charity, “for the poor will never disappear from the earth.” Nevertheless, we must help the poor in response to God's command: (Deuteronomy 15: 7-8, 11). God owns the earth. As Owner, God can, like all human owners, decide how to apportion God's property. We human beings own property only vis-a-vis other human beings but not vis-à-vis God. Therefore, when God determines that some of the earth's goods that happen to be in our hands must be transferred to the poor, God has full moral and legal authority to make that demand (to say nothing of the power to enforce it), and we must obey.