RICHARD RHEINS

mentioned prohibitions against deriving benefit from the Torah . The following two passages present additional evidence of rabbis who“enriched” themselves through their rabbinic office and of communities who paid rabbis salaries. Note especially the wistful hope that rabbis should rank highest among their brethren in wealth!

"There once arrived at the beit midrash[a gift of] a bag of dinars. Rabbi Ammi came in first and acquired them. But how may he do such a thing? Is it not written,‘And they shall give,” but he shall not take it himself? Perhaps Rabbi Ammi acquired them on behalf of the poor. Or, if you wish, you may say that in the case of an eminent person it is different. For it has been taught:‘And the priest that is highest among his brethren’ implies that he shall be highest among his brethren in beauty, in wisdom, and in wealth. Others say,‘Where is it proved that if he does not possess any wealth, his brethren, the priests, shall make him great? It is proved in the Scripture:‘And the priest that is highest[by reason of gifts] from his brethren.’®

"Rabbi Simeon b. Menasha taught: If you see that the towns have been destroyed in the Land of Israel, you should know that it is because the inhabitants did not pay the scribes and the teachers their due salary.”

Already by the third century the rabbis had established the halakhic justification for an economic support system.” Indeed, it certainly appears that the rabbinate, as portrayed in the Talmud , already embodied the main characteristics of a professional institution. In the Talmud we find halakhic principles by which rabbis would receive financial compensation(tirha and sekhar batalah). Rabbis were exempt from poll-taxes. Rabbis were granted advantages in the business world. And finally, rabbis were understood to be the inheritors of the priestly benefits which included support from communal funds and tithes.

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