Does the Torah Legislate Affirmative Action for Orphans?

The Torah repeatedly mandates care for orphans (along with widows and the poor), most notably by creating a special tithe to be given them and by commanding “You shall not afflict any widow or orphan” (Exodus 22:22). The Talmud understands the latter injunction as endowing orphans with special legal privileges. But do these apply to anyone whose parents have died, or only to children? What about orphaned children with inherited wealth, or indigent adult orphans? Searching rabbinic literature, Gil Student concludes that only those under the age of twenty, who are not yet able to fend for themselves, qualify—and there are, he writes, important lessons here: