Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness

Alyssa M. Gray

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429895906
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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 literature's 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 Talmud's 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.

1 Introduction

Rabbis, charity, tzedaqah

Overview and methodology

In classical rabbinic and medieval Judaism (and the modern varieties of Judaism that have evolved from them), charity, frequently referred to as “tzedaqah,” is not simply the “right” thing to do, as many moderns would have it; it is a divine commandment (mitzvah) with clear biblical roots, the performance of which is divinely rewarded.¹ Deuteronomy 15:7–8 expresses the commandment in language that has an extensive interpretive afterlife in rabbinic literature: do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman … open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs. Another aspect of a divine element in charity is vocally and robustly on display to this day three days a year, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in the synagogue services of all contemporary varieties of Judaism: the climax of the stirring medieval Unetaneh Tokef liturgical poem that “teshuvah (repentance), tefillah (prayer), and tzedaqah (recently rendered ‘righteous giving’) ma’avirin et ro’a ha-gezerah (cause the “evil decree” to pass away).”² On the other 362 days of the year, however, charity’s rewards and its role in nullifying an “evil decree” are at best interesting, albeit mostly irrelevant features of most contemporary practicing (individual) Jews’ charity. This is not to say that there is no contemporary Jewish interest in the linkage of caring for the needy and the divine. A growing number of rabbis, scholars, activists, and Jewish religious and communal organizations emphasize a religious imperative to engage in the work of caring for the needy and/or “repairing the world” (“tikkun olam”), some drawing learnedly and with sophistication on the literary sources of Judaism.³ But there is a clear difference between ancient and medieval notions of tzedaqah and the contemporary emphasis on a divine imperative to engage in acts that improve the lives of the impoverished (and the world). The ancient and medieval notions—that charity to the poor is a “gift” to God, redemptive almsgiving,⁴ charity as stocking a donor’s heavenly treasury of merits, and rescue from death and grant of long life as charity’s reward—describe an intricate and intimate divine–human encounter triangulating God, the donor, and the recipient. The contemporary activist emphasis on a divine imperative is much less (if at all) about such a triangulated divine– human encounter and more about a divine expectation that we human beings ourselves set about the business of righting our own fractured and frequently unjust relationships and social and political frameworks.

Scholarly interest in ancient and medieval ideas about charity’s role in atoning for sin and its rewards is on the upswing, catalyzed in large part by the important studies of Peter Brown and Gary A. Anderson. Anderson identifies the origins and outlines of a biblical theology of charity in the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha, while Brown details the elaboration, spread, and institutionalization of religious ideas about charity within late antique Christian circles. Among scholars of Judaism, Judah Galinsky and Elisheva Baumgarten describe the imbrication of Jewish religious ideas about charity and charitable praxis in medieval Spain, northern France, Germany, and central Europe, while Madeline Kochen comprehensively explores the legal implications of the notion of charity as a gift to God in late antique and medieval legal sources. Eliezer Segal and Moshe Hallamish examine the influence of mystical, notably Zoharic, influences on medieval Jewish charitable praxis.⁵

Scholars of charity in late antique rabbinic literature have touched on charity’s rewards and role in atonement, but these and related notions have not yet received a comprehensive treatment, which is the goal of this book.⁶ This seminal period in the development of Judaism deserves close attention; it follows the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple period and coexists in part with the growth of varieties of late antique Christianity. Specifically, this book will concentrate on religious ideas about charity’s rewards and role in atoning for sin found in the literatures of the third–sixth century CE amoraim in the land of Israel and Babylonia: Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, Pesiqta deRav Kahana, Lamentations Rabbah, and the Jerusalem (“Yerushalmi”) and Babylonian (“Bavli”) Talmuds. These late antique religious ideas about charity’s role in atoning for sin, its rewards, and how it functions as a concrete expression of a donor’s righteousness form the literary, spiritual, and intellectual core of many medieval Jewish developments in charitable theory and praxis and leave threads and traces in Jewish liturgy and practice to this day.

My identification of the various threads of charity ideas in these compilations and my study of the relevant texts in their literary contexts led me in an unanticipated direction. I came to realize that the various threads cannot really be disentangled; I had to follow their intertwining, noting where one thread breaks off and (sometimes) suddenly reappears, how ideas that initially appear distinct sometimes come together in unexpected ways. As an example, the early rabbis of the Mishnah, Tosefta, and so-called “tannaitic midrashim,” known as the “tannaim” (second– third centuries ce, Palestine) understand “redemptive almsgiving” to mean that charity redeems one from the burden of one’s sins; that is, charity atones for sin. In an entirely separate context they teach that, in general, sin is punished by a loss of wealth. The later Palestinian “amoraim” (third–fourth centuries ce) do not perpetuate as robustly the notion that charity atones for sin, but they do teach a form of pre-emptive charity that can be religiously efficacious for a donor fated to lose his money anyway on account of sin. That unavoidable, fated loss can be “redeemed” (as it were) by the donor’s pre-emptive giving of the money as tzedaqah. The amoraim thus bring together two theological threads that the tannaim had left separate, thereby creating something new. Tannaim also teach the atoning power of “teshuvah,” but keep this particular thread separate from charity, notwithstanding that redemptive almsgiving would seem naturally to be a notion that brings them together. Later, Palestinian amoraim do indeed bring teshuvah and charity closer together to some extent, as does the later Bavli (seventh century ce), which for the first time clearly brings teshuvah, tzedaqah, and tefillah (“prayer”) together with Rosh Hashanah, considered by the rabbis to be the “day of judgment.”

This book’s study of these late antique rabbinic charity ideas is also informed methodologically by the view that the literary contexts in which they are now found and the twists and turns in how they are represented and reworked must not be ignored. For example, we can discern the presence in classical rabbinic literature of the notion that charity is a gift made by the donor to God. But the fact that this notion is found in the literature does not necessarily mean that it was widespread and uncontested in late antique Jewish societies (or even only among the circles of rabbis and their disciples in Palestine and Babylonia). The presence of a given religious idea within a rabbinic compilation can mean one or more of a few things: the idea is present in the compilation because it was widely held among rabbis within the rabbinic culture that produced the compilation; the idea had some currency and so is mentioned, but was not widely held by the rabbis; or the idea was widely held both within and without rabbinic circles. The path from “text” to “context” in assessing the widespread appeal of a given charity idea is a difficult one to traverse, perhaps in some cases even impossible. At the end of the day what we have are the rabbinic compilations themselves; careful attention must therefore be paid to which ideas are present in which compilations and how these ideas are presented, reworked, criticized, and changed. Naturally account must be taken of the textual, intellectual, and dialectical differences between the rabbinic cultures of the land of Israel and Babylonia, and of patterns of difference between generations of amoraim.⁷ In sum, this book’s interest is not simply in the presence of religious ideas about charity in the late antique rabbinic compilations, but in discerning the dynamic changes, the discontinuities, we see in the presentation and transmission of those ideas. The complexity, changes, and discontinuities visible in these compilations rule out the possibility of charting chronological developments of charity ideas with precision. In seeking to chart these changes and discontinuities, Michel Foucault’s notion of “problematizations” will be of some assistance: the point is not simply to note the presence in a corpus of a given theme, but to note when it is treated as a “problem” requiring resolution.⁸ “Problematizing” late antique rabbinic charity ideas requires that we study the literary evidence of questions and doubts raised about these ideas, the supersession of some of these ideas by others, and new interpretations or applications given later to older ideas found in earlier compilations.

This book’s methodology in reading the Talmud Bavli

The Bavli itself is an enduringly mysterious body of literature that famously poses particular challenges to the researcher, especially, but not exclusively, the social historian. While discrete amoraic generations can be demonstrated to display commonalities that distinguish them from others, scholars debate whether these commonalities reflect historical reality or are the inventions of the Bavli redactors.⁹ At times, these redactors intervene in earlier sources in ways that complicate a fa...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments and credit
• Abbreviations and a note about editions
• 1 Introduction: rabbis, charity, tzedaqah
• 2 God as the true recipient of tzedaqah
• 3 Redemptive almsgiving and charity’s rewards in the land of Israel
• 4 Redemptive almsgiving and charity’s rewards in the Talmud Bavli
• 5 Tzedaqah and teshuvah: partially overlapping magisteria
• 6 Charity and beyond: the Talmud Bavli’s limitations on a divine role in human affairs
• 7 Select post-Talmudic developments
• 8 Conclusion: righteous before God
• Index