Abstract
Giving to the poor has a dual effect; it assists the needy individual and has the potential to create social solidarity for the community. If not properly monitored, the destitute in any social structure can pose a potential threat to the solidarity and weaken the stability of the group. Stability in a society is maintained at the expense of the individual in favor of the group. In the case of the pauper, it is the emphasis on the individual poor person that is the focus and thus the social threat. For rabbinic Judaism, while there is always the possibility for personal generosity, Scripture makes supporting the poor an obligation rather than a gift out of one’s kindness. Thus, the poor do not simply request their support but aggressively demand it. The redactors of the Mishnah in organizing their ideal Temple- or agricultural-based society were cognizant of these dangers and formulated a system of laws that would thwart the threat. While Mishnah’s discussion of the poor is apparent throughout its six orders, an entire tractate, Peah, is devoted to “presents for the poor.” This essay will examine how Mishnah perceived the status and role of the destitute in its world. I will explore Mishnah’s stance toward the poor and the means Mishnah redactors instituted to guarantee their position while assuring the solidarity of the society. To achieve this goal, in addition to analyzing the Mishnah text and any other tannaic sources that compliment Mishnah, I will apply different socio-anthropological theory that can shed light upon the understanding of the destitute in the world of the Mishnah. Therefore, what this paper will be seeking is (1) the reconstruction of major aspects of the sociology and culture of the early rabbinic movement itself and (2) the better understanding of the sociology and culture of the “world” defined by and in Mishnah’s substance, even if that world does not mirror any contemporary, historical Palestinian Jewish world.
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Notes
- 1.
In this essay, I interchangeably use the terms poor, needy, pauper, and destitute. I define the term poor below.
- 2.
See Gregg E. Gardner, The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism (n.p.: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 3–4, who discusses the relationship between social solidarity and the poor.
- 3.
I thank my son and daughter-in-law, Gilad and Noa, for this information.
- 4.
See Mary Douglas, Cultural Bias (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1979), who discusses this issue within her grid-group theory.
- 5.
Georg Simmel, Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2009), 245.
- 6.
Mishnah, the first redacted rabbinic document at approximately at the end of the third century.
- 7.
I cannot classify the poor as a group for they lack interaction, a component necessary to be identified as a group. I thank Professor Nissan Rubin for this clarification.
- 8.
Simmel, Sociology, 440.
- 9.
Ibid., 412.
- 10.
Scholarly works that deal with poverty in the Tannaitic period include: Leonard J. Greenspoon, “The Bible, the Economy, and the Poor.” Journal of Religion and Society Supplement, no. 10 (2014), 147–63; Gregg E. Gardner, The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Gardner, “Charity Wounds: Gifts to the Poor in Early Rabbinic Judaism” in The Gift in Antiquity, M. L. Satlow, ed. (n.p.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 173–88; Gardner, “Concerning Poverty: Mishnah Peah, Tosefta Peah, and the Reimagination of Society in Late Antiquity” in Envisioning Judaism: Studies in Honor of Peter Schafer on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, R. S. Boustan, K. Herrmann, R. Leicht, A. Y. Reed, and G. Veltri, eds. (n.p.: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 205–216; Gardner, “Who Is Rich? The Poor in Early Rabbinic Judaism.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 104, no. 4 (Fall 2014), 515–36; Gardner, Organized Charity (and see his footnote 1 for an extended bibliography on this topic); Rodger Brooks, “Support for the Poor in the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: Tractate Peah.” Brown Judaic Studies 43 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983); Alyssa M. Gray, “The Formerly Wealthy Poor: From Empathy to Ambivalence in Rabbinic Literature in Late Antiquity.” AJSR 33, no. 1 (2009), 101–33; Gray, “Redemptive Almsgiving and the Rabbis of Late Antiquity.” JSQ 18, no. 2 (2011), 144–84; Frank M. Loewenberg, “On the Development of Philanthropic Institutions in Ancient Judaism: Provisions for Poor Travelers.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 23, no. 3 (Fall 1994), 193–207; Jacob Neusner, ed. The Law of Agriculture in Mishnah and the Tosefta. (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2005); Shmuel Safrai and Ze’ev Safrai, Mishnat Eretz Israel: Tractate Pe’ah (Zeraim 2) – with Historical and Sociological Commentary (Jerusalem: Lifshitz College, 2012), Hebrew; Frederick B. Bird, “A Comparative Study of the Work of Charity in Christianity and Judaism.” The Journal of Religious Ethics 10, no. 1 (Spring 1982), 144–69; Tzvi Novick, “Charity and Reciprocity: Structures of Benevolence in Rabbinic Literature.” HTR 105, no. 1 (2012), 33–52; Yael Wilfand, Poverty, Charity and the Image of the Poor in Rabbinic Texts from the Land of Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014).
- 11.
See “Mine Darkei Shalom: The Promotion of Harmonious Relationships in the Mishnah’s Social Order.” Studies in Judaism, Humanities and the Social Sciences (2017), in which I discuss my methodological approach to the analysis of Mishnah. I have included Tosefta only when it compliments Mishnah, not when it adds new material. I will discuss Tosefta at the conclusion of this work.
- 12.
Palestinian society during the period of Mishnah was primarily agricultural. For a discussion of the agricultural society in the time of Mishnah, see Gardner, Organized Charity, 42–63.
- 13.
Seth Schwartz, “Political, Social and Economic Life in the Land of Israel 66-c.235,” in The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, S. T. Katz, ed. 23–52. Vol. 4 of The Cambridge History of Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 44–45, questions the Mishnah’s refection of the social-economic reality of the period. He argues that charity as well as the agricultural gifts to the poor was not a certainty.
- 14.
See Gardner, Organized Charity, 21–25. Gardner (p. 24) continues to explain, “They were not intended as works of historiography or as a trove of data on every day social life in Roman Palestine. Rather they are meant as legal and theological discourses that focus only the aspects of life that are pertinent to the discussion at hand. They also exhibit literary qualities, indicating that these traditions have been heavily reworked.” Or as argued by J. D. Cohen, “Judaea Legal Tradition and the Halakha of the Mishnah,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, C. E. Fonrobert and M. S. Jaffe, eds., 121–43 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 127, “The Mishnah’s voice is prescriptive not descriptive. It prescribes how things ought to be done, it does not describe how things are actually done.”
- 15.
See Cohen, “Judaea Legal Tradition…” (ibid.), for a discussion of Mishnah’s dependency upon Scripture.
- 16.
Evyon is used once in Mishnah while discussing presents to the poor on Purim (matanot leevyonim), a term borrowed from Megillat Esther.
- 17.
In his Mishnah Torah, Maimonides terms the section dealing with the agricultural gifts to the poor as matanot aniyim.
- 18.
Lewis A. Coser, “The Sociology of Poverty: To the Memory of Georg Simmel.” Social Problems 13, no. 2 (Autumn 1965), 140–141.
- 19.
Simmel, Sociology, 442.
- 20.
Translation of Mishnah throughout this essay is adapted from Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988).
- 21.
Charitable institutions, especially the kuppah, were shaped by the Greco-Roman civic culture as they stand alongside other institutions in the urban landscape. See Gardner, Organized Charity, 32.
- 22.
Gardner, Organized Charity, 62, describes these two forms of charity as follows: “The tamhui aims to provide the poor with basic physiological necessities. The kuppah, by contrast, is concerned with semiotic poverty and its social ramifications as it aims to restore the poor to their previous standing in society by providing them with objects (and the status that they projected) that they had lost. The tamhui saves the poor from biological death, while the kuppah saves the poor from a social death.”
- 23.
The traditional Mishnah commentators explain tools (kelim) to refer to the fine household utensils, which he uses on Shabbat and festivals. See Pinchas Kehati, Mishnah with a Commentary by Rabbi Pinchas Kehati, Vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, 1994), 120.
- 24.
Mishnah’s definition of poor is different from Scripture. Scripture includes in the classification poor individuals who are legally or socially disadvantaged. For example, in Dt. 24:19–24, widows, orphans, and resident aliens are entitled to collect the various poor-offerings without regard to the sum of money they possess. For Mishnah, it is a purely economic definition of a poor person and does identify a specific class of persons. (See Neusner, The Law of Agriculture, 781.)
- 25.
Scholars researching this historical period argue that poverty in late antiquity was largely determined by access to land. Mishnah chooses rather to determine this status by purely monetary standards since, as I will discuss below, land offered other purposes for the rabbinic society. See Robin Osborne, “Introduction: Roman Poverty in Context,” in Poverty in the Roman World, M. Atkins and Robin Osborne, eds. 1–20 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); and Neville Morely, “The Poor in the City of Rome,” in Poverty in the Roman World, M. Atkins and R. Osborne, eds. 21–39 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
- 26.
For the local poor, Mishnah considers the needs of the individual on a yearly basis. If he has the means in liquid assets for two meals a day for the year, he is not considered poor; if he does not, he falls into the category of a poor individual and is eligible to collect poor-offerings. Mishnah also seems to focus on an individual, not a family or husband and wife.
- 27.
Tosefta Peah 4:8 provides further details regarding the amount of food that must be given to the transient poor. Jacob Neusner, ed. The Law of Agriculture, 775, explains that Tosefta sets the stage for the distinction between strangers and the local poor with whom they are acquainted. The former may be freeloaders, so they only receive food; the latter receives clothing as well. See Neusner’s footnote 30 for Lieberman’s understanding of this Tosefta. See also Yael Wilfand, Poverty, Charity and the Image of the Poor in Rabbinic Texts from the Land of Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014), 121–147, who discusses the definition of the poor in Tannaitic documents.
- 28.
See my discussion later.
- 29.
George Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, Selected Writings. Donald N. Levine, ed. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1971), 144.
- 30.
Bjorn Hvinden, “Poverty, Exclusion and Agency,” Research in Community 5, no. 1 (1995), 15.
- 31.
Simmel, Sociology, 409–442.
- 32.
Sociology, 435.
- 33.
See Hvinden, “Poverty, Exclusion and Agency,” for a discussion of Simmel’s approach to poverty and the poor man’s place in society.
- 34.
Alyssa Gray, “Redemptive Almsgiving,” 153–154, argues: (1) In Mishnah, there is no relationship between the rabbis and the poor. The rabbis did not even consider organized charity to be part of their activities. (2) In Mishnah, there is no empathy toward the poor except for the previous rich poor. When discussing this issue, she writes (p. 154), “This all suggests that Tannaim did not necessarily conceive of such organized charitable activities as ‘rabbinic’ activities, notwithstanding the presence of charity legislation in Tannaitic literature…. Tannaitic redemptive almsgiving ‘disappeared’ the poor because while charity for the poor was a Tannaitic value, it was not necessarily a value requiring the full active participation of rabbis and their contact with the chronically poor.” See footnote 53 of Gray’s essay. Gray has overlooked the various mishnayot I have cited in my essay. The rabbis of Mishnah clearly express empathy toward all the poor. Furthermore, I believe she is not focusing upon the structure of Mishnah, which is primarily a code of laws, and parables have little place. Mishnah purports rabbinical authority whether explicit or implicit; thus, all periscopes unless stated otherwise are of rabbinic concern. This authority is a foremost concern for the redactors of this rabbinic code.
- 35.
See also Brooks, “Support for the Poor,” 17–40; Alan A. Peck, “The Priestly Gift in Mishnah: A Study of Tractate Terumot,” Brown Judaic Studies 20 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 1–28.
- 36.
Martin S. Jaffee, “Mishnah’s Theology of Tithing: A Study in Tractate Maaserot,” Brown Judaic Studies 19 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 4–8.
- 37.
See Jaffee, “Mishnah’s Theology of Tithing,” 4–6, for a discussion on Ma’aserot and Peck, “The Priestly Gift,” 1–7, for a discussion on terumot.
- 38.
Kehati, Mishnah with a Commentary vol. 1, 67, explains “the verse in Proverbs ‘Do not remove the ancient [olam] landmark (limits).’ The Sages comment: do not read ‘ancient’ [olam], but rather ‘those coming up [olom].’ … This is a euphemistic reference to those who have come down (i.e., who have lost their property); the verse warns do not violate the rights of the poor and not deprive them of their dues.”
- 39.
Approximately 200 years after Mishnah, the Jerusalem Talmud (YT) (4:1) introduced the phrase gezel hashevet, stealing from the tribe, the tribe being Levi to whom the Priests and Levites belonged. I suggest that this concept was introduced in the YT for similar reasons as the redactors of the Mishnah’s gezel aniyim. That is to say, being many years after the destruction of the Temple, there was less conviction by the Jews to observe matanot kehuna. Thus, the rabbis added a legally binding requirement classifying it as stealing. (See also Safrai, Tractate Pe’ah, 192.)
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Gardner, Organized Charity, 125, suggests that since all the Tannaim were considered well off, they showed empathy toward the needy.
- 42.
Different commentators offer various explanations to Mishnah. Their commentary is based upon a variety of different rabbinical sources. I choose to follow the text standing alone without the influence of other rabbinical sources.
- 43.
For a discussion on these types of trees and the agricultural fears and concerns of Mishnah, see Safrai, Tractate Pe’ah, 145–151.
- 44.
Brooks, “Support for the Poor,” 73
- 45.
Kehati, Mishnah with a Commentary, 39.
- 46.
Safrai, Tractate Pe’ah.
- 47.
See Brooks, “Support for the Poor,” 92.
- 48.
Fields, such as two-year crops or when the field owner seeks to soften the earth for easier plowing, require irrigation immediately after the harvest. I want to thank my son Noam for his expert insights into these issues.
- 49.
See Safrai, Tractate Pe’ah, 182–184, for a discussion on this issue.
- 50.
Tosefta, following its literary pattern, tends to favor the farmer over the poor. See Tosefta Peah 2:16.
- 51.
Brooks, “Support for the Poor,” 189, footnote 30.
- 52.
Kehati, Mishnah with a Commentary vol. 1, 56–58, goes to great lengths to demonstrate that in the case of leket we go beyond the letter of the law in favor of the poor. Safrai, in Tractate Pe’ah, (51), follows this same line of thought and writes that it is not based upon the standard laws of doubt, but it expresses the Tanaaic approach to upsurge matanot aniyim.
- 53.
Brooks, “Support for the Poor,” 128.
- 54.
Ibid., 129.
- 55.
Pinchas Kehati, Mishnah with a Commentary by Rabbi Pinchas Kehati, Vol. 21 (Jerusalem: Department of Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, 1996), 38, notes that these two countries do not refer to the Ammon and Moab that were conquered by Sihon and subsequently by Israel, since the territory is part of the Land of Israel called Transjordan where the laws of the Sabbatical year apply by rabbinic decree.
- 56.
Since ma’aser sheni required a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the rabbis’ understanding of the difficulty possibly allowed this to influence their decision.
- 57.
See Jacob Neusner, Torah From the Sages: Pirke Avot (Chappaqua: Rossel Books, 1983), 3–8, who discusses the history of Tractate M Abot.
- 58.
See Zev Safrai, Mishnat Eretz Israel: Tractate Avot (Neziqin 7). (n.p.: Mishnat Eretz Israel Project, 2013), 58.
- 59.
Loewenberg, “Provisions for Poor Travelers,” 200.
- 60.
See my discussion of Mishnah Yadayim.
- 61.
Gardner, “Charity Wounds,” 181.
- 62.
See Gardner, Organized Charity, 18–19, for a discussion on the relevance of the history of this Mishnah.
- 63.
Ibid., 35.
- 64.
Tosefta states that such chambers existed for the benefit of the formerly wealthy poor in every city. Mishnah does not elaborate on this topic since its concern is not organized charity but primarily agricultural gifts.
- 65.
Shmuel Safrai and Zev Safrai, Mishnat Eretz Israel: Tractate Skalim (Jerusalem: E.M. Lipshitz Publishing House College, 2009), 189, discuss this point.
- 66.
Also, see Gardner, Organized Charity.
- 67.
Tosefta, on the other hand, devotes considerable attention to the topic of organized charity. Gardner discusses this at length throughout his book. I will discuss this at the conclusion of this essay.
- 68.
Safrai, Tractate Skalim, 191, traces the historical development of this phenomenon. He explains that the fall of rich from their positions was common at the end of the Second Temple period.
- 69.
See Gray, “The Formerly Wealthy Poor,” 105–109, who discusses this issue at length.
- 70.
The concept that all Jews are children of the patriarchs is also found in Mishnah Berakhot 1:2 and Shabbat 14:4. Other Tannaitic documents such as Tosefta and Sifrei differentiate between class status and class differentiation, but I believe Mishnah presents great equality between wealthy and poor as well as formerly wealthy poor and poor persons.
- 71.
Gray, “The Formerly Wealthy Poor,” 106.
- 72.
It should be pointed out that R. Aqiba was a charity administrator possibly including responsibilities for social welfare. See Gray, “The Formerly Wealthy Poor,” 122, and footnote 88.
- 73.
See her footnote 61 for a bibliographical list that discusses the economy of this period in Roman Palestine.
- 74.
While Mishnah clearly differentiates between classes of Jews that were based upon birth as well as intellectual and spiritual attainments (see Mishnah Horayot 3:8), the poor is not one of these classes.
- 75.
Michael Hellinger, “Quppat Ha-tzedakah ve-haaniyim ha-machzarim al ha-petachim,” Shematin 174 (2009), 93–100 [Hebrew].
- 76.
This approach is emphasized in Tosefta 4:8.
- 77.
See Gardner, Organized Charity, 169–175, who discusses the theme of those who are imposters acting as poor persons.
- 78.
Safrai, Tractate Pe’ah, 194–195.
- 79.
Brooks, “Support for the Poor,” 97.
- 80.
Tosefta 5:6 and 7 expand on what is and is not considered forgotten.
- 81.
Gardner, Organized Charity, 49–53, offers a more detailed discussion on foods and clothes of the poor. He also includes the information from Tosefta.
- 82.
See Loewenberg, “Provisions for Poor Travelers,” for complete discussion and description of “provisions for poor travelers.”
- 83.
See Safrai, Tractate Pe’ah, 185–186, who offers a more elaborate description of travelers during the time of Mishnah. See also Gardner, Organized Charity, 100, who explains, “It was dangerous to be a stranger or traveler in the ancient world, as they were easy to prey for bandits along the roads, would be exposed to inclement weather, and might not be able to procure sufficient food.”
- 84.
Tosefta 4:8 elaborates on the details of this Mishnah. See Brooks, “Support for the Poor,” 146–151, and Safra, Tractate Pe’ah, 273–274.
- 85.
Loewenberg, “Provisions for Poor Travelers,” 201.
- 86.
This is implied in the passage in Leviticus 25:3 that states that the land should rest on the seventh year.
- 87.
Tosefta in Gittin 5 offers an autonomous statement that the poor Gentiles are supported along with the Jew. I believe this to be a separate statement independent of the agenda of the redactor of Mishnah with its own agenda.
- 88.
See Simcha Fishbane, “Mine Darkei Shalom: The Promotion of Harmonious Relationships in the Mishnah’s Social Order.” Studies in Judaism, Humanities and the Social Sciences, 2017.
- 89.
Mary Douglas, “No Free Gifts.” Foreword to The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, by Marcel Mauss, vii–xviii (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1990).
- 90.
Gregg E. Gardner, “Who Is Rich? The Poor in Early Rabbinic Judaism,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 104, no. 4 (Fall 2014), 529.
- 91.
Gardner, Organized Charity, 31.
- 92.
Simmel, Sociology, 412.
- 93.
Simmel, ibid., 411, discusses the challenge for society dealing with poor that believe they deserve the community’s charity.
- 94.
This might not be its only primary message that it seeks to convey.
- 95.
See Peck, The Priestly Gift, 3.
- 96.
Neusner, The Law of Agriculture, 4.
- 97.
There has been a large body of literature dealing with this topic. For a summary and bibliography, see Gardner, Organized Charity, 43–44.
- 98.
For a discussion on the relationship between Mishnah and Tosefta, see Joshua Kulp, “Organisational Patterns in the Mishnah in Light of their Toseftan Parallels,” Journal of Jewish Studies LVIII, no. 1 (Spring 2007), 52–78, who also examines the views of Abraham Goldberg, “The Tosefta: Companion to the Mishnah,” The Literature of the Sages, Shmuel Safrai, ed., (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 283–302; Judith Hauptman, “Mishnah as a Response to Tosefta,” The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature, Shaye J. D. Cohen, ed. (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000); Shamma Friedman, “The Primacy of Tosefta to Mishnah in Synoptic Parallels,” Introducing Tosefta: Textual, Intratextual and Intertextual Studies, Harry Fox and Tirzah Meacham, eds. (Hoboken: Ktav Publishing House, 1999), 99–121; and Jacob Neusner’s scattered writing on Tosefta.
- 99.
The text of Tosefta suggests that it is more concerned with third-century halakhic reality than Mishnah. The case of the poor in Tosefta is one example of this argument. Gardner’s research (Organized Charity, 32) substantiates this claim when he writes: “Moreover, charity institutions (especially the kuppah) are shaped by Greco-Roman civic culture, as they stand alongside other institutions in the urban landscape.” I want to thank Professor Jack Lightstone for this insight.
- 100.
Simmel offers this hypothesis (Sociology, 412); also see Hvinden, “Poverty, Exclusion and Agency,” 16.
- 101.
Gray, “Redemptive Almsgiving.”
- 102.
See Simmel, Sociology, 238, for a further discussion on giving to the poor.
- 103.
Simmel, Sociology, 440.
- 104.
Simmel (ibid., 416) adds, “…since the descent of an individual in social standing does harm to the stability of society as a whole, which still seems to outweigh in social importance the material advantage to the individual gain by extortion. Thus the duty to support does not contain a right of the poor to make a claim on their prosperous relatives; it is nothing other than the support duty obliging the state, which it passed on to the relatives and which required no corresponding claim at all on part of the poor.” This might be true for organized charity or almsgiving but not a religious obligation such as matanot aniyim.
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Fishbane, S. (2020). Dignity or Debasement: The Destitute in the World of Mishnah. In: Exploring Mishnah's World(s). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53571-1_2
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