Thoughts On Poverty

Someone wrote, "The GRA [Vilna Gaon] says in KOL HATOR [The Voice of the Turtledove] an intresting sentence mashiach ben yosef is raised up to his stature through poverty!"
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I'd be interested to learn what Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon means by this and how poverty raises Mashiach Ben Yosef to his stature. Any thoughts?

Champions of the poor, who are born into poverty, typically end up becoming martyrs that few seek to follow and genuinely emulate. The sects that arise out of such "cults of personality" rarely stay true to the virtues of the presumed "founder".

It's been my experience that poverty does one of three things for the individual:

1. Poverty motivates one to claw their way out of it or, at the very least, it motivates one to lash out at the "world". Doing either usually leads one to give the reins over to their Yetzer HaRa -- a recipe for disaster on many levels, IMO.

2. Poverty can break one's hope of ever escaping it and doom one to an existence of servitude, which typically condemns one's offspring to perpetuate the cycle of poverty begets poverty.

3. Poverty can drive one to suicide.

Overcome it. Live with it. Or escape it. Is there another option?

Any which way you cut it, poverty is a cruel task-master and a crippling mistress. May we see the end of economic disparity, speedily in our day!