ABSTRACT
Poverty among the Jews in the rabbinic age and after was, perhaps, the single main handicap in the creation and maintenance of an educational system. The rabbis responded by elevating the value of work, emphasizing the mutual dependence of Torah im derekh eretz. The rabbis, the intellectual aristocracy in Jewish society, mostly came from the working class, and included cobblers, bakers, farmers, scribes, shepherds, tanners, needle-makers, smiths and even an ex-gladiator. Talmudic rabbis tend to elevate the worker and the value of work. By elevating work, the rabbis acted in their own interests: they were largely dependent on the support of workers, and most of their pupils came from working families.
