Alyssa M. Gray is the Emily S. and Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman Chair in Rabbinics and Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature at HUC-JIR in New York. She is the author of A Talmud in Exile: The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah (2005) and numerous shorter studies on wealth, poverty, and charity in rabbinic literature and on the formation of the Babylonian Talmud.

1. Introduction: rabbis, charity, tzedaqah 2. God as the true recipient of tzedaqah 3. Redemptive almsgiving and charity's rewards in the land of Israel 4. Redemptive almsgiving and charity's rewards in the Talmud Bavli 5. Tzedaqah and teshuvah: partially overlapping magisteria 6. Charity and beyond: the Talmud Bavli's limitations on a divine role in human affairs 7. Select post-Talmudic developments 8. Conclusion: righteous before God

Studying the many ideas about how giving charity atones for sin and other rewards in late antique rabbinic literature, this volume contains many, varied, and even conflicting ideas, as the multiplicity must be recognized and allowed expression.