Abstract
This book enters into an ongoing conversation about exchange systems in the ancient world. Sorek argues essentially that the Jewish system of benefaction in the Second Temple period differed substantively from the Greek and Roman systems of euergetism and from the system of Jewish/Christian charity that would develop after it. The difference, for Sorek, lies mostly in the motivation for giving benefactions. Greeks and Romans, Sorek argues, were motivated primarily by the desire to be recognized by their contemporaries (honor), while “the Jewish system could be seen as the activity of doing good deeds without expecting a return in the form of inscriptions or other secular honours” (3). On the other hand, however, Sorek identifies “personal benefits” that may accrue to the Jewish benefactor that prohibit the Jewish system of benefaction during the Second Temple period from being labeled “charity” (3).
Sorek divides the work into two parts. After briefly describing the Greek/Roman system of benefaction, involving both patronage and euergetism (chapter 1) and examining evidence for a similar system among Jews during the Second Temple period (chapter 2), Sorek discusses the roles of synagogues in the period (chapter 3) and the inscriptions found in them as non-literary evidence for a Jewish benefaction system (chapters 3–9). Noting that many of the inscriptions begin with the phrase “remembered for good” (40 of the 77 inscriptions she examined), Sorek argues that, contrary to the opinion of other scholars, those mentioned as “remembered for good” should be considered now deceased donors to the synagogues. In Sorek's view, piety prevents living donors from having their donations memorialized by inscription.
In the second half of the book, Sorek outlines what she calls hesedism, the Jewish system of benefaction operative from the period of the composition of Deuteronomy through the development of a system of tsedakah (righteousness) by the Rabbis after the fall of the Second Temple. Hesed (“loving kindness”) in Israelite tradition is a characteristic of God. God extends hesed to Israelites, and Israelites can perform acts of hesed for one another either directly (in a one-to-one reciprocal relationship) or indirectly (in which a benefactor provides something to people with whom he/she has no direct reciprocal relationship). Sorek argues that this system of hesedism begins in Deuteronomy, and that the provisions regarding the poor found there are designed to prevent a permanent “poor.”
The Jewish benefaction system could provide loans, debt release, hospitality, food stuffs (for feasts or for daily necessity), burial, the ransom of captives, care of orphans/widows, and various other needs of the community. Almsgiving, rather than charity, was the chief means during the Second Temple period of alleviating the needs of members of the community. For Sorek, it is only after the destruction of the Second Temple that a true system of charity begins to develop, developed as tsedakah by the Rabbis. The switch from almsgiving to acts of righteousness meant that the needy now had a right to benefaction and that to give benefaction became a mitzvah (command) for those who could provide it. Having become a command, doing “righteous acts,” in the absence of the Temple's sacrificial system came to be considered redemptive. In rabbinic literature, women were thought to be more likely to demonstrate acts of hesed. Sorek suggests that this fact, taken together with the redemptive nature of righteous acts, may be the reason that the principle of matrilineal descent developed in the rabbinic period.
Part Two of the work provides the context for understanding Part One of the book. Though chapters 1–2 are placed ideally to introduce the reader to the book, the overall flow of the book might have been enhanced had Parts One and Two been reversed. The rich, yet dense, examination of the synagogue inscriptions is easier to interpret after the big picture is explained in the second half of the book. Numerous typos throughout the book are distracting as well.
The book is designed for advanced audiences. Though most of the Greek and Hebrew phrases are translated throughout, there are numerous places where some knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew language of benefaction is necessary to understand Sorek's arguments. Furthermore, Sorek assumes that readers will be conversant with the features of Greek/Roman benefaction and the differences (mostly based on the work of Seth Schwartz) between those features and a “Jewish system” of benefaction. Scholars and advanced graduate students engaged in the discussion of benefaction will, no doubt, find much useful in this work. The detailed discussion and careful analysis of the many synagogue inscriptions provides useful material for considering the differences between Greek and Jewish commemoration of benefactors.