230 CHAPTER EIGHTcharity in their town give it to the poor of their town; in another town, they
giveittothepoorofthattown.”Thisrulesimultaneouslyassertstheessentially
local character of charity collection and imposes a significant limitation on
the importance of the’ir, that is, the community.
While the Palestinian Talmud occasionally describes rabbis of the later
third and fourth centuries serving as charity collectors (gabba’imorpar-
nasim),^44 the Tosefta still takes it for granted that charity collection is not
underrabbiniccontrol:“Atfirsttheysaidthatahaver(literally,associate)who
is made agabbaiis expelled fro mhishavurah, but then they said that while
he is agabbai, he is not trustworthy [i.e., is not permitted to be ahaver], but
when he ceases to be agabbai, he is trustworthy” (T. Demai 3:4). On the
common assumption that all rabbis werehaverim,^45 this rule effectively bars
rabbis fro mserving asgabbaimand implicitly assumes that there was no sub-
stantial overlap between the groups and that rabbis had no influence over
appointments ofgabbaim. Why did the rabbis keep their distance? Perhaps
because charity collectors had to deal with the’am ha’aretz—people who
were careless about the laws of purity and priestly gifts; such dealings are
forbiddenforhaverim.Perhapsalsobecauseasuspicionofdishonestyadhered
togabbaim, as to tax collectors. T. Bava Metzia 8:26 may confirm the second
suggestion without excluding the first: “The repentance ofgabbaimand tax-
collectors is difficult: they may return [scil., what they have extorted] to ac-
quaintances, but the rest they must use for the public good.”
TheSynagogueintheMishnahandToseftaTheMishnahattributesreligiousimportancetothetowninonlytwoconnec-
tions: it ambiguously and fleetingly implies that public supplicatory fasts dur-
ingdroughtsareconductedbytowns,^46 anditacknowledges,initsbriefdiscus-
sion of the issue, that synagogues are built and used by towns.^47 Its discussion
of the public fast is equivocal: the bet din (court) is required to decree public
fasts, apparently for the entire nation, if rain has not fallen by 1 Kislev (M.
(^44) Levine,Rabbinic Class, pp. 162–67; Hezser,Social Structure, pp. 270–73.
(^45) Levine,Rabbinic Class,p.55n.56;M.Beer,“OntheHavurainEretzIsraelintheAmoraic
Period,”Zion47 (1982): 178–85; see, however, Hezser,Social Structure, pp. 74–75.
(^46) On this see H. Lapin, “Rabbis and Public Prayers for Rain in Later Roman Palestine,” in A.
Berlin, ed.,Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East(Potomac: University of Maryland
Press, 1996), pp. 105–29. For more detailed discussion, see D. Levine, “Communal Fasts in
Talmudic Literature: Theory and Practice” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1998).
(^47) T Bava Metzia 11:23 adds: “Townspeople may compel one another to build a synagogue,
and to buy scrolls of the Torah and the Prophets, etc.” Also, M. Berakhot 4:7, perhaps implying
a connection between some sort of local autonomy and the obligation to commemorate the
special sacrifices on Sabbaths and festivals. But the Mishnah’s language is unusual here and its
interpretation is difficult.