What is the American Dream?
The term was first used by the historian James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book, The Epic of America. This is how he describes it: The American Dream is
that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.
…It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
He complained that although society tends to measure a person’s achievement of the American Dream by economic success, it was originally about quality and spiritual values. He warned that “in our struggle to ‘make a living'” we were neglecting “to live”.
It seems to me that we often conflate the idea of the American Dream with the idea of meritocracy. Under American meritocracy, the goal is to be “the best.” The most educated, most committed, most accomplished, most disciplined. These people are rewarded with success, which we measure by income and wealth.
The corollary is that someone who does not have income and wealth must not be someone of merit. They must be deficient in some way. It must be their fault.
Maybe some of you are familiar with the HR practice of “Up or Out.” I understand it is quite common in Silicon Valley. A worker is given a certain amount of time to prove themself, and is then either promoted or laid off. Fortunately, this is not practiced in the rabbinic world.
Such extreme focus on merit produces some pretty rigid social hierarchies. In a recent article, David Brooks writes about one of the major self-perpetuating measures—education—which has become one of the real dividing lines in society. He writes:
We built an entire social order that sorts and excludes people on the basis of the quality that we possess most: academic achievement. Highly educated parents go to elite schools, marry each other, work at high-paying professional jobs and pour enormous resources into our children, who get into the same elite schools, marry each other and pass their exclusive class privileges down from generation to generation.
While the American Dream, as an ideal, offers anyone with a strong work ethic the prospect of rising to a higher social class, the reality is often quite different. If the American Dream were a reality than we would see high levels of social mobility. Social mobility refers to the likelihood that a child born into a poor family will be able to rise into a higher economic level.
A 2020 report by the World Economic Forum measured social mobility by country. It used an index that measured education, access to technology, healthcare, social protection and employment opportunities. It found that the countries with the greatest levels of social mobility were in Europe, primarily the Nordic countries. The United States was 27th, second to last among the G7 nations.
This is an issue that appears prominently in this morning’s Torah portion, Re’eh. In the first half of chapter fifteen, Moses offers some instructions and pronouncements to the Israelites regarding the obligation to care for the poor. In so doing, he offers some pretty contradictory messages about the presence of poverty within the community. First, he says:
Efes ki lo yihyeh l’kha evyon— There need not be any poor among you—since the Lord your God will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion—
Deuteronomy 15:4
In other words, God has not only the capacity, but also the willingness, to bless us sufficiently so that we can eradicate poverty. A few verses later, Moses acknowledges that this might be too lofty an ideal.
ki yihyeh v’kha evyon—If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your brothers in any of your settlements in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin. Rather, you must open your hand and lend whatever is sufficient to meet the need.
Deuteronomy 15:7-8
A few verses after that Moses just gives up.
ki lo yeḥdal l’kha evyon—For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to your poor and needy brother in your land. (15:11)
Deuteronomy 15:11
In just a few verses, we descend from the possibility of eradicating poverty, to being commanded to respond to poverty if it appears, to resignation to the fact that poverty will never be eliminated.
Within these pronouncements, Re’eh offers three policy statements. Three mitzvot incumbent on the Israelite.
The first is to cancel all debts every seven years. Universal debt forgiveness.
The second is to offer loans to the needy among you—”whatever is sufficient to meet the need”—with a warning not to hold back out of knowledge that the loan will be cancelled if still unpaid in the seventh year.
The third commandment refers to someone who has become enslaved due to their inability to pay back their debt. That person must also be freed in the seventh year. Furthermore, the owner is prohibited from sending the freed slave away empty-handed. They have to be paid.
These three commandments are essentially a form of economic redistribution of resources from the rich to the poor. It would take the form of the rich helping out the poor financially when the poor fall upon hard times, and then offering loan forgiveness so that people do not suffocate under a mountain of debt that they can never dig themselves out of. (Some of that may sound familiar.)
While there are similarities here to mitzvot appearing in other parts of the Torah, Deuteronomy adds some unique points. In Exodus, the warning is against oppressing the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger. If we do, God will hear their cry and punish us.
Deuteronomy takes it a step further. Now, failure to actively help will result in God’s curse or, conversely, God’s blessing. Not offering the loan, failing to free the debt-slave, or refusal to cancel the debt, is the moral equivalent of oppressing them – from God’s vantage point.
In Exodus, the debt slave merely goes free in the seventh year. In Deuteronomy, the owner has to pay him. He cannot be sent away empty-handed.
The passage ends with a familiar refrain:
Bear in mind that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I enjoin this commandment upon you today.
Deuteronomy 15:15
God made sure that the Israelites went free from slavery in Egypt with vast wealth, taken from their former masters. This reminder, as the punctuation to the warning against not letting the freed debt slave leave empty handed, is not merely a command for compassion and empathy. It contains a veiled threat. The slave owner is in the same relative position as the Egyptians. When the Israelites left Egypt, they took all sorts of treasures from their former masters, at God’s direction. The warning here is that if the owner fails to provide for the freed slave, God will again take the situation in hand.
This system operates under the assumption that neutrality regarding the poor is insufficient. Simply leaving them alone is a recipe for a return to the former state of poverty and inequality. To break the cycle requires an additional step on the part of those at the upper end of the socioeconomic system.
It is easy to take the position that as long as I am leaving my neighbor alone, not actively doing anything to hold them back, then my responsibilities have been met. Another person’s success or failure in life is up to them, and really has no bearing on my own situation.
But Deuteronomy introduces the idea that failure to take pro-active steps to help the poor is the equivalent of oppressing them. It offers a model for breaking the cycle of poverty.
But this is a bitter pill to swallow. We do not like to be forced to part with our hard-earned possessions to pay for what we often see as somebody else’s mistakes.
So Deuteronomy goes beyond the financial obligations. It also legislates an attitude. Over and over, it uses the word achikha – your brother – to refer to your fellow Israelite who has not been so fortunate. To be clear, in this text, there is a definite distinction between the obligations one has to fellow Israelites and obligations to non-Israelite residents. Regarding the unfortunate Israelite, the Torah says, you have to see this person as your brother.
This focus on achikha, the theme of brotherhood, reappears throughout Deuteronomy. In chapter one, Moses instructs the judges to “hear between your brothers and rule justly between a man and his brother or between his foreigner.” (1:16) In next week’s portion, as Moses addresses the Israelites about the future monarchy, he tells them that they are to select someone from among their brothers to be the King. (17:15) And the King is warned against acting haughtily towards his brothers. (17:20)
Deuteronomy calls out positions in society which could lend themselves to unequal social divisions: the wealthy, the judges, and the king (i.e. the politicians), and knocks them off their pedestals. They must relate to the those people upon whom they would be most inclined to look down as brothers.
This goes way beyond a mere economic obligation. It is mandating social relations. There must be mixing between classes. There must be true social mobility. Looking at it through a contemporary lens, the American Dream must not be just a myth.
And it is clear in these texts that God takes the side of the poor over the rich. We are blessed—or cursed—to the extent that we do not ignore the poor and suffering. So when Moses says—
There need not be any poor among you—since the Lord your God will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion—
Moses is giving us a challenge. But which comes first. Does God bless us in the land so that there will be no poverty? Or, will the land be blessed only if, or when, we eradicate poverty?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rabbi Shai Held, The Heart of Torah, Volume 2, pp. 230-234.
David Brooks, “What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?”, New York Times, August 2, 2023
Rebyehoshua 