2. For some observations on the needs of the formerly wealthy poor in the late antique Christian context, see, e.g., Brown, Peter, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002), 59–60Google Scholar; in Islamic law, see, e.g., Mattson, Ingrid, “Status-Based Definitions of Need in Early Islamic Zakat and Maintenance Laws,” in Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts, ed. Bonner, Michael, Ener, Mine, and Singer, Amy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 31–51Google Scholar; and for medieval Egyptian Jewry, see Cohen, Mark R., Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 36–41, 67–70Google Scholar.

3. See Brown, Poverty and Leadership, 59–60.

4. Mattson, “Status-Based Definitions of Need,” 31–32 n. 1 and passim. Particularly telling is Mattson's description on p. 42 of the shift from Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i's view of alms as intended “to lessen the gap between rich and poor in a local community” (eighth and ninth centuries CE) to that of later legal scholars, who viewed alms as intended “to alleviate individual needs—needs that are calculated according to the rank and status of individuals.”

5. The fourth through the seventh century time frame takes in not only the amoraic periods in both the Land of Israel and Babylonia but also the period of postamoraic redaction of the Bavli (redacted ca. 600 CE).

6. For discussions of the role that literary context can play in the proper interpretation of discrete rabbinic stories and traditions, see, e.g., Gray, Alyssa, “The Power Conferred by Distance from Power: Redaction and Meaning in b. A. Z. 10a–11a,” in Creation and Composition: The Contribution of the Bavli Redactors (Stammaim) to the Aggadah, ed. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 30–33Google Scholar and passim; and Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 11–15Google Scholar.

7. Brown, Poverty and Leadership, 60.

8. This well-known story, in its various versions, will be analyzed in more detail later.

9. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt, 39.

10. See also ibid., 37 n. 1 (fell from his wealth).

11. Cohen, in his study of the Geniza evidence, implicitly sees these two groups as related yet distinct in medieval Egypt, and he argues that what he terms “the ‘good family’ motif in the Geniza” demonstrates how poverty blurs the distinction between the underclass and those who previously ranked above them socially. See ibid., 67.

12. Yarad m'nikhasav: Y. Pe'ah 8:9, 21b (= Y. Shekalim 5:5, 49b); Y. Horayot 3:6, 48a; Bereshit Rabbah 71:6 (ed. Theodor-Albeck, 2:830); Vayikra Rabbah 5:4 (ed. Margoliot, 1:111); Vayikra Rabbah 34:1 (ed. Margoliot, 2:773); and Eikhah Rabbah 3:6 (Vilna ed., 100).

Yardu M'nikhseihem: M. Bava’ Kamma’ 8:6; Y. Nedarim 9:2, 41c; Bereshit Rabbah 71:6 (ed. Theodor-Albeck, 2:830); Eikhah Rabbah 3:6 (Vilna ed., 100); B. Bava’ Kamma’ 86a (mishnah quote), 90b (mishnah quote), 91a (mishnah quote); and B. ‘Avodah Zarah 5a (= Bereshit Rabbah 71:6). Throughout this essay, all Yerushalmi references are to Talmud Yerushalmi According to Ms. Or. 4720 (Scal. 3) of the Leiden University Library with Restorations and Corrections (Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2001).

13. See Y. Pe'ah 1:1, 15b.

14. ’Itnaḥat min nikhsoi is found at Y. Pe'ah 8:8, 21a and Y. Ketubot 11:3, 34b. For more on the Bavli's tendency to replace Palestinian terminology in its source texts with its own, see, e.g., Gray, Alyssa M., “A Bavli Sugya and Its Two Yerushalmi Parallels: Issues of Literary Relationship and Redaction,” in How Should Rabbinic Literature Be Read in the Modern World? ed. Kraus, Matthew (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2006), 35–77, esp. 64–72Google Scholar; and Friedman, Shamma, “Ha-baraitot ba-Talmud ha-Bavli ve-yaḥasan le-makbiloteihen dhe-b'Tosefta,” in ’Aṭarah le-Ḥayim: meḥkarim ba-sifrut ha-Talmudit veha-rabanit li-khevod Profesor Ḥayim Zalman Dimitrovski, ed. Boyarin, Daniel et al. . (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2000), 163–201Google Scholar.

15. B. Gittin 38b.

16. The term appears in three forms. The singular ‘ani ben tovim appears at T. Pe'ah 4:10 (ed. Lieberman, 58); Y. Pe'ah 8:8, 21a; Mekhilta d'Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai 23:3 (ed. Epstein-Melamed, 214–15); and Sifrei Devarim 116 (ed. Finkelstein, 174–75). The plural ‘aniyyim b'nei tovim appears at M. Shekalim 5:6 and T. Shekalim 2:16 (ed. Lieberman, 211). The simple form ben tovim appears at Y. Pe'ah 8:9, 21b (= Y. Shekalim 5:5, 49b); Mekhilta d'Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai 23:3 (ed. Epstein-Melamed, 214–15); Sifrei Devarim 38 (ed. Finkelstein, 74; two occurrences); and Vayikra Rabbah 34:1 (ed. Margoliot, 2:773). The singular ‘ani ben tovim also appears twice in Palestinian stories in the Bavli (B. Ketubot 67b) and once in a halakhic context (B. Ketubot 66a).

17. Y. Pe'ah 8:9, 21b (= Y. Shekalim 5:5, 49b = Vayikra Rabbah 34:1 [ed. Margoliot, 2:773]).

18. See T. Bava’ Kamma’ 9:12 (ed. Lieberman, 45); Y. Berakhot 4:1, 7d (= Y. Ta‘anit 4:1, 67d); and Sifra Kedoshim, per. 4 (ed. Weiss). R. Yonah is represented as using ben gedolim together with ben tovim at Vayikra Rabbah 34:1 (ed. Margoliot, 2:773), although not in the Yerushalmi parallel.

19. The story is found at T. Pe'ah 4:10 (ed. Lieberman, 58); Sifrei Devarim 116 (ed. Finkelstein, 175); and on Y. Pe'ah 8:8, 21a.

20. This point has potentially great significance for the study of poverty generally in the Land of Israel and Babylonia. To the extent that certain Palestinian terms and concepts are not employed in Babylonia, or are given different meanings, we can track differences in the rabbinic communities’ attitudes toward poverty and its amelioration.

21. Literally, “first Tanna,” the term used for the anonymous speaker in a tannaitic text.

22. It is interesting that in the case of M. Bava’ Kamma’ 8:6, as in B. Ketubot 66a, discussion of a formerly wealthy person or ‘ani ben tovim comes in the context of discussing damage awards for public humiliation. This suggests that such persons were likely to endure public humiliation on account of their loss in status; the nature of this humiliation and whether it was more a subjective feeling than an objective fact remain matters of speculation.

23. For a very recent attempt to argue that the rabbis put forward an “antisectarian,” ethnic understanding of Jewish identity, with an emphasis on God's love for Israel's ancestors, see Himmelfarb, Martha, A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 174–85Google Scholar.

24. See Finkelstein's comments to line 1 (74).

25. M. Shekalim 5:6.

26. T. Shekalim 2:16 (ed. Lieberman, 211).

27. I have altered the JPS translation in order to highlight the repetition in the verse of the root “ḥ-s-r.”

28. See the references in note 19 herein.

29. This contravenes M. Sanhedrin 1:1.

30. For prohibitions against raising small cattle in the Land of Israel, see, e.g., M. Bava’ Kamma’ 7:7; M. Demai 2:3; T. Shevi'it 3:13 (ed. Lieberman, 177); and T. Bikkurim 2:16 (ed. Lieberman, 293), which say that those who raise small cattle will never see a sign of blessing.

31. Vayikra Rabbah 34:13 (ed. Margoliot, 2:800). Later in the Bavli (B. Gittin 38b), Rabbah also holds that the loss of wealth in general is the result of specific sins. He says that for three things, householders lose their wealth (naḥti . . . m'nikhseihon): because they set their slaves free, because they survey their fields on the Sabbath to see what work needs to be done there, and because they hold their Sabbath meals during the time when study is taking place.

32. The Vienna and Erfurt manuscripts of the Tosefta, as well as the editio princeps, all clearly indicate that the poor person is to “sell them” and “use” others (mokhran; mishtamesh). Y. Pe'ah 8:8, 21a presents a version of 4:11 that reads notnin (we give)—that is, if the formerly wealthy poor person was accustomed to gold utensils, we give him silver ones, and so on. The Yerushalmi's version of 4:11 was likely influenced by the presence of notnin in 4:10. Interestingly, Lieberman did not comment on this variation in Tosefta ki-Feshutah (Order Zeraim, Part I) (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1955), 186, lines 38–40. The Bavli's version of T. Pe'ah 4:11 on B. Ketubot 68a reads mishtamesh (he must use), which is similar to T. Pe'ah 4:11, except for the missing mokhran. I will discuss this further later.

33. Y. Pe'ah 5:6, 19a. See Mordecai Margulies's proposed emendation of the Yerushalmi sugya at Vayikra Rabbah 34:13 (ed. Margoliot, 2:800 n. 2).

34. See Ginzberg, Louis, ed., Seridei ha-Yerushalmi min ha-henizah asher be-Miẓrayim ḥelek alef: Guf ha-Yerushalmi asher nimẓa be-ha-genizah ‘im shinuyei nusḥaot shel ha-hoẓa'ah ha-rishonah (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1909; repr., Jerusalem: Makor, 1974), 40Google Scholar, in which Proverbs 22:28 is rendered as al taseg gevul ‘olim, with the yod indicating that the word is to be read ‘olim, not ‘olam.

35. The Yerushalmi uses the familiar terms ḥad amar (one said) and ḥaranah amar (the other one said); presumably, the Yerushalmi redactors were unsure which sage held which opinion. The same structure appears in the Bavli as ḥad amar and ḥad amar.

36. This point about the euphemism for the blind is anonymous in the Yerushalmi but attributed to R. Yiẓḥak in Vayikra Rabbah. Margulies proposes emending the Yerushalmi to include the name R. Yiẓḥak; see note 33 herein.

37. Y. Pe'ah 8:9, 21b (= Y. Shekalim 5:5, 49b). See also Vayikra Rabbah 34:1 (ed. Margoliot, 2: 773). In Vayikra Rabbah, the point of R. Yonah's ruse is made clear: The formerly wealthy person is “embarrassed to take [ẓedakah],” and thus a ruse is necessary. This detail is missing from the Yerushalmi.

38. Y. Ketubot 11:3, 34b.

39. Bereshit Rabbah 71:6 (ed. Theodor-Albeck 2: 829–30); see also Y. Nedarim 9:2, 41c (attribution is to R. Simon in the name of R. Yehoshua b. Levi); Eikhah Rabbah 3:6 (Vilna ed., 100) (attribution is to R. Shmuel).

40. The Bavli makes this midrash explicit on B. Nedarim 64b, where R. Shimon b. Yoḥai points out that everywhere in the Torah where people are said to be niẓim (arguing), or niẓavim (standing up—presumably for purposes of taking a stand), the reference is only to Dathan and Abiram.

41. B. Nedarim 64b; see also B. ‘Avodah Zarah 5a.

42. Y. Horayot 3:6, 48a (=Vayikra Rabbah 5:4 [ed. Margoliot, 1:110–13]). My rendering of “Ḥolat Antioch” as “Antioch on the Orontes” follows Visotzky, Burton, Golden Bells and Pomegranates: Studies in Midrash Leviticus Rabbah (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 124Google Scholar.

43. For more on the Palestinian rabbinic interest in obtaining support from nonrabbis, see Kalmin, Richard, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity (New York: Routledge, 1999), 29–33Google Scholar.

44. Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership, 60.

45. Ibid., 60, 133 n. 64.

46. Quoted in Brown, Poverty and Leadership, 60.

47. The halakhah opens with the curious story of the students of R. Yehudah Ha-Nasi’, who schemed to deny ma‘aser ‘ani to one of their colleagues. I am beginning with the second story, about the Antbila family in Jerusalem.

48. 2 Samuel 24:18–25.

49. See also the parallels at Sifrei Devarim 303 (ed. Finkelstein, 321) and T. Pe'ah 4:11 (ed. Lieberman, 58). The Yerushalmi's version is closer to that of the Sifrei, particularly the shared reference to “600 kikarim,” as opposed to T. Pe'ah 4:11's “300 shiklei zahav.” Yet, like the Tosefta, the Yerushalmi contextualizes this story together with a tannaitic tradition about requiring a needy person to sell expensive personal items and make do with less expensive ones.

50. In the Bavli, Rav Naḥman identifies Aravnah as a ger toshav (B. ‘Avodah Zarah 24b).

51. Aaron Panken pointed out to me another such possible rabbinic echo in M. Arakhin 9:3–4. Per M. Arakhin 9:4, buyers of houses in walled cities would hide at the time of the first anniversary of the sale so that they could not be found by sellers who wished to redeem their homes. Hillel the Elder was said to have enacted an escrow arrangement whereby the sellers did not have to interact directly with the buyers in order to redeem. By making it easier for sellers to redeem, Hillel was privileging the earlier inhabitants of the walled city, similar to what the sages did in the case of the Antbila family. We would add that Hillel's enactment is possibly also another tannaitic expression of empathy for formerly wealthy sellers who may have been compelled to sell. See Panken, Aaron D., The Rhetoric of Innovation: Self-Conscious Legal Change in Rabbinic Literature (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005), 22–24Google Scholar.

52. See the tannaitic citations for these stories in note 19 herein.

53. Note the likely role of orality in the different usage of the root ẓ-p-r in the Tosefta and Yerushalmi. In the former, the Galilean generosity to the elder was said to have taken place b’Ẓippuri, in Sepphoris. In the Yerushalmi, the precise locus of the generosity is not identified, but the elder was said to have received a litra’ of b'sar ẓippurim, or poultry, each day.

54. See P'nei Moshe, s.vv. “v'efshar ken” and “ela.”

55. Y. Pe'ah 8:8, 21b (= Y. Shekalim 5:5, 49b = Vayikra Rabbah 34:1 [ed. Margoliot, 2:773]). For an implicit medieval critique of R. Yonah's policy, see the thirteenth-century Sefer Hasidim siman 1034 (ed. Margaliot, 1038–39). The latter's implicit critique is that not every ruse will work psychologically for each individual; for some, it is better to maintain the fiction that the gift is actually a loan to be repaid.

56. R. Mana's point is that the formerly wealthy poor must accept these lower-grade utensils, even if the utensils are for direct use (such as in eating and drinking) and not merely for use as tools or for decorative purposes.

57. My translation of paragraph 3 follows P'nei Moshe to Y. Pe'ah 8:7, s.v. “kan b'gufo v'kan b'she-eino gufo.”

58. Y. Pe'ah 8:8, 21a.

59. The term used is zakhin leih—literally, “they acquired merit through him.” This is a standard Palestinian term for providing ẓedakah.

60. See P'nei Moshe to Y. Pe'ah 8:7, s.v. “min ’ilein d'nasyutah.”

61. For the beginning of economic troubles in the Roman Empire in the second century, see Sperber, Daniel, Roman Palestine: 200–400 Money and Prices (2nd ed. with supp.; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991), 85Google Scholar; and Oertel, F., “The Economic Life of the Empire,” in The Cambridge Ancient History (London: Cambridge University Press, 1939), 12:260Google Scholar. For the dire situation in the second half of the third century and into the fourth, see Oertel, 12:261, 266; Sperber, Daniel, “Aspects of Agrarian Life in Roman Palestine I: Agricultural Decline in Palestine during the Later Principate,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.8 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1977): 408, 414–15Google Scholar, 428, 436; idem, “Trends in Third Century Palestinian Agriculture,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 15, no. 3 (1972): 243; and idem, “Drought, Famine and Pestilence in Amoraic Palestine,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17, no. 3 (1974): 272, 287, and 289. See also Hamel, Gildas, Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine, First Three Centuries C.E. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar. Ze'ev Safrai concludes his monumental study of the economy of Roman Palestine with the observation that “[t]he contemporary traditions would seem to indicate that the period under discussion [from the destruction of the Second Temple until the mid-fourth century CE] was one of dire economic straits . . . [t]here are many Tannaitic and Amoraic sources which mention economic difficulties.” See Safrai, Ze'ev, The Economy of Roman Palestine (New York: Routledge, 1994), 457CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hayim Lapin recently pointed out that a comprehensive study of the history of the economy of Roman Palestine has not yet appeared; such a study would be most helpful in this context. See Lapin, Hayim, Economy, Geography, and Provincial History in Later Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 141Google Scholar. For a study of the economic decline in the later Roman Empire from the perspective of a scholar studying the church fathers, see Gordon, Barry, The Economic Problem in Biblical and Patristic Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gordon points out that “[t]he progressive deterioration of the regional economies of the Empire forms a consistent background to the economic thought of the later Fathers” (92).

62. Although the redactions of these literatures may have extended through the third and even into the fourth century, the texts reflect the tannaitic world of their formation more clearly than the amoraic world of their redaction(s). For dates, see Strack, H. L. and Stemberger, Günter, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, trans. Bockmuehl, Markus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 255Google Scholar (Mekhilta dated to second half of the third century), 259 (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Shimon b. Yoḥai dated to fourth century), 263 (Sifra dated to second half of the third century), and 270 (Sifrei Devarim dated to the late third century). Recent scholarship complicates the dating of the Tosefta: Does it precede or follow the Mishnah? See, e.g., Goldberg, Abraham, “The Tosefta—Companion to the Mishna,” in The Literature of the Sages: First Part: Oral Tora, Halakha, Mishna, Tosefta, Talmud, External Tractates, ed. Safrai, Shmuel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 283–84Google Scholar (220–230 CE); Hauptman, Judith, Rereading the Mishnah: A New Approach to Ancient Jewish Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 1–24Google Scholar and passim (in a number of cases, Tosefta can be shown to be prior to Mishnah).

63. Sperber, Money and Prices, 178.

64. Y. Nedarim 9:4, 41c. To the best of my knowledge, general statements like that of R. Ze'ora’ do not appear in tannaitic compilations, suggesting that such statements are not simply rhetorical clichés found throughout rabbinic literature. Moreover, to the extent that such observations about the ubiquity of poverty are made in the context of discussions focusing on other issues (as is the case with R. Ze‘ora’), the observations may be more confidently interpreted as reflecting widely held rabbinic perceptions of the realities of their society than as clichés—why deliberately introduce a cliché into a discussion in which it arguably does not belong? Nevertheless, the question of whether and to what extent the rabbis deploy the poor and poverty as rhetorical devices must be kept in mind and deserves study.

65. Elsewhere, the Yerushalmi sensibly attributes to “the rabbis” the notion that “no community is entirely rich nor entirely impoverished” (Y. Gittin 3:7, 45a).

66. See, e.g., Bereshit Rabbah 76:6 (ed. Theodor-Albeck, 2:903–904); Y. Shevi‘it 4:3, 35b (the combined impoverishing effects of onerous taxation and observance of the cessation from agricultural labor during the sabbatical year).

67. Bereshit Rabbah 20:9 (ed. Theodor-Albeck, 1:192–93).

68. See Urbach, E. E., “Megamot datiyot v'hevratiyot b'torat ha-ẓedakah shel hazal,” Ẓion 16 (1951): 10 n. 63Google Scholar.

69. See Burton Visotzky, Golden Bells and Pomegranates, 121–22.

70. Sperber, Money and Prices, 178.

71. Vayikra Rabbah 34:4 (ed. Margoliot, 2:777–78), and parallels cited in 778 n. 2.

72. Vayikra Rabbah 34:9 (ed. Margoliot, 2:792). Margulies (correctly, in my view) sees this version of R. Naḥman's tradition as more original; see 778 n. 2.

73. For more on the Palestinian metaphor of the waterwheel, see Visotzky, Golden Bells and Pomegranates, 133. This notion is also found on B. Shabbat 151b, attributed to a Palestinian source (d'vei R. Yishm‘a’el).

74. See, e.g., Cohen, Shaye J. D., “The Rabbi in Second-Century Jewish Society,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, ed. Horbury, William, Davies, W. D., and Sturdy, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 3:930Google Scholar.

75. Ibid., 931.

76. Ibid., 941.

77. The mamzer, born of a prohibited sexual union, has no status within the people Israel according to rabbinic law.

78. The rabbis understood the netinim to be descendants of the biblical Gibeonites, who were appointed by Joshua to be and “drawers of water” (Joshua 9:27).

79. The ger is understood in the context of M. Horayot 3:8 to be the convert (ger ẓedek); the rationale for his placement on the list is that he came into the holiness of Israel at a later point in his life, while the netinim were raised among the people Israel.

80. Cohen, “The Rabbi in Second-Century Jewish Society,” 3:941–42, 950.

81. See Kimelman, Reuven, “Ha-Oligarkiyah ha-kohanit ve-talmidei ḥaḥamim be-tekufat ha-Talmud,” Ẓion 48:2 (1983): 135, 143Google Scholar.

82. See Kimelman, “Ha-Oligarkiyah,” 142.

83. See Tosefta ki-Feshutah (Order Nashim, Part VIII) (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1973), 761–62, lines 44–64. Yet Lieberman did note that the Bavli describes R. Ele‘azar b. Azaryah's wealth in more extravagant terms than we find elsewhere, and that indications of his wealth are missing from “the early literature of the land of Israel.”

84. Y. Shevi'it 4:2, 35b.

85. Y. Sotah 9:15, 24c.

86. See also Cohen, “The Rabbi in Second-Century Jewish Society,” 3:936: “In sum, tannaitic documents nowhere imply that any second-century rabbi was poor.”

87. Shaye J. D. Cohen makes the same point. See Cohen, “The Rabbi in Second-Century Jewish Society,”:935.

88. Y. Pe'ah 8:7, 21a; Y. Pe'ah 4:9, 18c = Y. Ma'aser Sheni 5:9, 56c. See, e.g., Levine, Lee, The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine (Jerusalem: Yad Itzḥak ben Zvi, 1989), 162–67Google Scholar; Hezser, Catherine, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 270–73Google Scholar; Burton Visotzky, Golden Bells and Pomegranates, 127.

89. Y. Pe'ah 8:9, 21b.

90. Y. Berakhot 5:1, 8d.

91. Vayikra Rabbah 5:4 (ed. Margoliot, 1:110–13); Y. Horayot 3:6, 48a; and Y. Pesaḥim 4:8, 31b–c. See, e.g., Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity, 29–33.

92. Urbach, “Megamot datiyot,” 16–27; and Levine, The Rabbinic Class, 166–67.

93. Y. Pe'ah 4:9, 18c; and Y. Bikkurim 3:3, 65d.

94. Vayikra Rabbah 30:1 (ed. Margoliot, 2:688–90).

95. B. Ta‘anit 21a.

96. The issue of whether and how literary dependency between rabbinic compilations can be demonstrated is complex. See, e.g., Friedman, Shamma, “Uncovering Literary Dependencies in the Talmudic Corpus,” in The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature, ed. Cohen, Shaye J. D. (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000), 35–57Google Scholar; Judith Hauptman, Rereading Mishnah, passim; Alyssa Gray, A Talmud in Exile, 1–8, 22–29 and passim; and idem, “A Bavli Sugya and Its Two Yerushalmi Parallels,” in Kraus, How Should Rabbinic Literature Be Read.

97. See Mark Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 39 (hyperbole); and Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership, 60 (surreal).

98. It is interesting that on B. Ta‘anit 21a (the story of Naḥum Ish Gam Zu), the Bavli similarly makes the facts of the parallel Yerushalmi story (Y. Pe'ah 8:9, 21b) more extreme. Aaron Panken points out another example: In M. Yoma 2:2 the story is told of two overzealous priests who rushed forward to perform a Temple service, one of whom broke his leg. In the more dramatic Bavli parallel (B. Yoma 23a), one priest took a knife and drove it into the other's heart. See Panken, The Rhetoric of Innovation, 15–17.

99. What accounts for this phenomenon? More research is needed to answer this question; ultimately, the answer might lie in external cultural factors in Babylonia.

100. Y. Pe'ah 8:9, 21b.

101. Nehemiah Ish Shiḥin's story is adduced as an illustration of R. Yonah's midrash on Psalms 41:1: The psalm reads ’ashrei maskil el dal (Happy is he who is thoughtful of the wretched), and not ’ashrei notein el dal (Happy is the one who gives to the wretched). R. Yonah's point was that it is not enough to give ẓedakah; one must give wisely, with due regard to the dignity and self-respect of the person being helped.

102. For another look at this story, see Kalmin, Richard, Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 179CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103. My student David Segal perceptively observed that even though Rava himself did not respond to the poor man's scriptural exegesis, the narrative itself criticizes it. The poor man argued that Psalms 145:15, which recognizes God as the provider of food to all “when it is due,” meant that the community must provide lavishly for him whenever he required it. The sudden appearance of Rava's long-lost sister with the poor man's customary meal shows, to the contrary, that “when it is due” for the formerly wealthy poor is a matter of serendipity, hardly the fixed communal obligation upon which the poor man insisted.

104. Bereshit Rabbah 71:6 (ed. Theodor-Albeck, 2:829–30).

105. B. Nedarim 64b; B. ‘Avodah Zarah 5a.

106. The notes to the translation have been omitted here.

107. This translation follows the text of the printed edition. There are no significant differences in Vatican Bibliotheca Apostolica Ebr. 113 or Ebr. 130, or in Munich 95.

108. The Bavli's more organized approach to the issue, including the quotation of a relevant mishnah, requires more study. It seems that this is another overall literary distinction between the Talmuds.

109. See Alyssa Gray, A Talmud in Exile, 121–25; cf. “A Bavli Sugya and Its Two Yerushalmi Parallels,” 64–66.

110. For some interpretations of Rav Papa, see Rashi to B. Ketubot 68a, s.v. “kan kodem sh'yavo’ l'dei gibbuy”; Tosafot to B. Ketubot 68a, s.v. “kan” (Rabbenu Tam disagreed with Rashi); Rif to B. Ketubot 68a, p. 29b in the Rif's pages; Ran on the Rif to B. Ketubot 68a, s.v. “t'nan” (siding with the Rif as against Rashi). See also ’Or Zaru‘a, Hilkhot Ẓedakah, who reads Rav Papa as referring to the gabbai rather than gibbuy. Most medieval authorities appear to reject Rashi's interpretation of Rav Papa.

111. Earlier readers of these sugyot have seen them as parallel. See the Ran on the Rif to B. Ketubot 68a, s.v. “yerushalmi” and ’Or Zaru‘a cited above in n. 110.

112. E.g., Rambam, Hilkhot Matanot Aniyyim 9:14; Arba'ah Turim, Yoreh De'ah 253; Shulḥan Arukh Yoreh De'ah 253:1. For a recent discussion of B. Ketubot 68a in the context of halakhic history, see Jacobs, Jill, “Toward a Halakhic Definition of Poverty,” Conservative Judaism 57, no. 1 (2004): 3–20Google Scholar.

113. See Saul Lieberman, Tosefta ki-Feshutah (Order Nashim, Part VIII), 762, lines 44–64; Neusner, Jacob, A History of the Jews in Babylonia (Leiden: Brill, 1969; repr., Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 3:126–30Google Scholar; and Beer, Moshe, Amora'ei Bavel: perakim be-ḥayei ha-kalkalah (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1982), 258–71Google Scholar. Elman, Yaakov also recently noted this phenomenon in his “The Socioeconomics of Babylonian Heresy,” in Studies in Mediaeval Halakhah in Honor of Stephen M. Passamaneck, ed. Gray, Alyssa and Jackson, Bernard (Jewish Law Association Studies XVII; Liverpool, UK: Deborah Charles, 2007), 81–86Google Scholar.

114. Beer, Amora'ei Bavel, 258.

115. Ibid., 259.

116. See Dikdukei Soferim to B. Berakhot 57b, note zayin. The printed edition reads “Rav.”

117. Although this essay is not the appropriate venue in which to explore this question, several points must be noted. First, as Beer himself noted (Amora'ei Bavel, 270) this rags-to-riches portrayal of the Amoraim fits well with the old tannaitic notion that if a candidate for the high priesthood was not wealthy, his fellow priests must enrich him (T. Yoma 1:6 [Lieberman ed., 222]). Beer hypothesizes that in Babylonia the toseftan norm had become a “sanctified norm, or nevertheless accepted and obligatory.” Yet it is also possible that the toseftan norm was seen as the basis on which to construct portrayals of leading Babylonian Amoraim, not necessarily one guiding actual social policy. The notion that these rags-to-riches portrayals are indeed ideologically motivated rather than historically factual draws further support from a point not previously noted by Beer or other scholars: the similarity of these Babylonian portrayals to the portrayal of R. Akiva in both Talmuds. R. Akiva is described as ascending from poverty to wealth (e.g., Y. Pe'ah 4:9, 18c), and it is possible that this portrayal later influenced the portrayal of the Babylonian Amoraim. Again, I emphasize that even if these portrayals are what I have termed “ideologically motivated,” this does not mean that they are devoid of historical value, simply that they may not transparently reflect that reality.

118. Beer, Amora'ei Bavel, 270 (my translation).

119. Becker, Adam H., Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and the Development of Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 80Google Scholar.

120. Ibid., 80–81.

121. See ibid., 258; and Richard Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity.

122. There is also evidence that middle- to late-generation Babylonian Amoraim were much more involved in social welfare provision than their early predecessors. Detailing this evidence is work for another venue; suffice it to say that, as with the Palestinian Amoraim, increased amoraic involvement in social welfare—with the concomitant recognition of the limits of social resources and the need to exercise careful discretion—may have been inversely proportional to empathy for the formerly wealthy poor.