Alyssa M. Gray - Charity in Rabbinic Judaism: Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness

Studying the many ideas about how giving charity atones for sin and other rewards in late antique rabbinic literature, this volume contains many, varied, and even conflicting ideas, as the multiplicity must be recognized and allowed expression.

Topics include the significance of the rabbis use of the biblical word tzedaqah as charity, the coexistence of the idea that God is the ultimate recipient of tzedaqah along with rabbinic ambivalence about that idea, redemptive almsgiving, and the reward for charity of retention or increase in wealth. Rabbinic literatures preference for teshuvah (repentance) over tzedeqah to atone for sin is also closely examined. Throughout, close attention is paid to chronological differences in these ideas, and to differences between the rabbinic compilations of the land of Israel and the Babylonian Talmud. The book extensively analyzes the various ways the Babylonian Talmud especially tends to put limits on the divine element in charity while privileging its human, this-worldly dimensions. This tendency also characterizes the Babylonian Talmuds treatment of other topics. The book briefly surveys some post-Talmudic developments.

As the study fills a gap in existing scholarship on charity and the rabbis, it is an invaluable resource for scholars and clergy interested in charity within comparative religion, history, and religion.

Alyssa M. Gray is the Emily S. and Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman Chair in Rabbinics and Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature at HUC-JIR in New York. She is the author of A Talmud in Exile: The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah (2005) and numerous shorter studies on wealth, poverty, and charity in rabbinic literature and on the formation of the Babylonian Talmud.

Routledge Jewish Studies Series
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Jewish Studies, which are interpreted to cover the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, culture, politics, philosophy, theology, religion, as they relate to Jewish affairs. The remit includes texts which have as their primary focus issues, ideas, personalities and events of relevance to Jews, Jewish life and the concepts which have characterised Jewish culture both in the past and today. The series is interested in receiving appropriate scripts or proposals.

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Charity in Rabbinic Judaism
Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness
Alyssa M. Gray

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Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness

First published 2019
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2019 Alyssa M. Gray

The right of Alyssa M. Gray to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gray, Alyssa M., author.
Title: Charity in rabbinic Judaism: atonement, rewards, and righteousness/Alyssa M. Gray.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY: Routledge, July 2019. | Series: Routledge Jewish studies series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019009029| ISBN 9781138599963 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429471162 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429895906 (epub) | ISBN 9780429895890 (mobipocket)
Subjects: LCSH: CharityReligious aspectsJudaism. | Rabbinical literatureHistory and criticism.
Classification: LCC BJ1286.C5 G73 2019 | DDC 296.3/677dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009029

ISBN: 978-1-138-59996-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-47116-2 (ebk)

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It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge the many colleagues, friends, and students who have helped me refine my thinking and hone my arguments and perspectives during the years this book has been in the making. I gratefully acknowledge Professors Yaacov Lev and Miriam Frenkel, who invited me in 2009 to present Certainty and Skepticism: Approaches to Redemptive Almsgiving in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity at the Reunion of the Charity and Piety Group of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A revised version of that paper became the presentation Redemptive Almsgiving and the Rabbis of Late Antiquity at that years Society for Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, and an article of that title two years later in the Jewish Studies Quarterly. Subsequent invitations and colleagues who have broadened my horizons and enriched my thinking about the topic of this book include the conference A History of Jewish Giving at the Center for Jewish History in New York City (2012); an invitation from Professor Leonard J. Greenspoon to present on wealth and the rabbis at the 2013 Klutznick-Harris Symposium on Wealth and Poverty in Jewish Tradition; an invitation from Professor Gary A. Anderson to be a panelist discussing his book Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition at the 2013 Society for Biblical Literature Annual Meeting; and an invitation from Professor Michael L. Satlow in 2015 to participate in a lively two-day workshop entitled Jewish Attitudes Toward Wealth and Poverty at Brown University. Special thanks are due to Professor Krista N. Dalton, who in 2016 organized and invited me to contribute to a superb Charity Forum in the on-line publication www.ancientjewreview.com, of which she is a co-editor. An invitation to present at a 2017 regional conference of the Jewish Law Association in New York City prompted me to think more clearly about the Talmud Bavlis distinct perspectives on the working and non-working poor. Im also indebted to Professor Aaron Amit, whose invitation to me to present at a Bar-Ilan University conference in 2018 caused me to think more carefully about the different perspectives on charity in the Bavlis literary layers. I am especially pleased that in 2009 I made the acquaintance of Professor Judah Galinsky, with whom I have interacted in scholarly venues and over email in the years since, and who is a rigorous, fair, generous, and learned interlocutor.