Chazal warned us further and said that “Be the first to “give peace” (to extent a greeting) to every man!”, and they also said about Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakai that he used to be the first to greet every man even a Non-Jew in the marketplace. A special obligation lies upon the rich people and the wise men to greet every person first and especially downtrodden paupers so that they will not suspect that in their arrogance they are disgusted by these poor people and consider them worthless. It occurs many times that a poor person will greet a wealthy man in an embarrassed way and with a quiet voice to the extent that his voice can hardly be heard and the wealthy man is so preoccupied with his thoughts about his investments that he does not even answer, or he answers quietly and the poor people suspect him and speak badly about him.
It follows that it is good and correct to greet each and every person first with a smiley face and inquire about the welfare of each and every man and especially a poor man and this is considered a great and good deed as it makes the hearts of downtrodden people rejoice.
