How is charity conceptualized in early Judaism? How do classical rabbinic texts of the Roman era motivate giving to the poor? This lecture will examine the conceptualization of charity in early rabbinic literature – legal and exegetical writings from the second-third centuries C.E. that form the foundations of all subsequent Jewish ethical and legal thought. In particular, we will focus on how these texts motivate giving through the promise of financial recompense in the afterlife – motivations and ideas that also resonate in early Christian writings. More broadly, this paper will demonstrate how wealth influenced the shape, texture, and direction of what would become rabbinic Judaism’s foundational laws on poverty relief.

Lecture will be given by Gregg E. Gardner, Ph.D. who is associate Professor and the Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and religious Studies at the University of British Columbia. He holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University and has held fellowships at Harvard and Brown. He teaches and researches on Judaism in late antiquity and classical rabbinic literature, and has published extensively on the topics of poverty and charity.