The rabbis saw poverty as an unparalleled tragedy. In the Midrash (Exodus Rabbah 31:14) we read: "Nothing in the universe is worse than poverty; it is the most terrible of sufferings. A person oppressed by poverty is like someone who carries on his shoulders the weight of the whole world's sufferings. If all the pain and all the suffering of this world were placed on one scale and poverty on the other, the balance would tilt towards poverty."
— Nilton Bonder, The Kabbalah of Money