DEUT801 If God indeed wants much of our earned money to go to the poor, why did He not arrange it so that these people would have money to begin with? Why have poor people at all? It would be a much better world, with much less hardship. The evil Turnusrufus asks this very question (Bava Batra 10a). The answer is that God wants us to be His agents in the world. Part of the mission of man is to continue the creation begun by God (see the chapters "Shabbat" and "Meaning of Brit Milah" for a fuller discussion of this theme). Rabbi Akivah answered this same question in the Midrash (Midrash, Tanchuma, Tazria 5) that this is the reason why there are no bread trees, even though every culture uses bread and it would have been logical for God to have created bread trees. God wants man to struggle and be creative, going through the arduous eleven-step process from plowing to baking. That is part of man's mission, to be creative in the world and complete the Creation God began. Additionally, man is charged with improving the world, as it says "to perfect the world" (second paragraph of Aleinu prayer, found at the completion of every service). Part of this perfection occurs when man tries to even the economic scales a bit by giving tzedakah. Thus, one of the strangest Torah verses [this verse] now makes sense. God says that there will always remain poor people in the world and therefore man should open up his hands and give. If poverty will always exist, what good is it to try and give to the poor--it won't help? However, we can now understand that God is saying because there will always be this condition of world poverty, your mission to improve it will also continue.