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Krista Dalton (Kenyon College) presents: Table Fellowship as a Holy Altar: How Dinner Parties Shaped Rabbinic Judaism
People often take the existence of rabbis and their authority as a given, but that role and institution also needed to be invented–and some of the forces that shaped it may surprise you. This lecture explores how the practice of eating together functioned as a critical social institution for the development of rabbinic culture.
Elaborate dinner parties served as sites where rabbis cultivated relationships with wealthy patrons, solidifying their social standing and economic support. Wealthy patrons who hosted these gatherings not only provided material support for rabbinic institutions but also facilitated the rabbis’ growing influence within broader Jewish communities. The table thereby functioned as a space where rabbis could demonstrate their Torah expertise while simultaneously participating in the cultural practices of their Greco-Roman environment.
Bio: Dr. Krista Dalton is Associate Professor of Religious and Jewish Studies at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Her first book, entitled How Rabbis Became Experts (Princeton University Press, 2025) analyzes the process by which the rabbis of late ancient Roman Palestine became seen as religious experts in Jewish communities. Her second and current book project, entitled The Rabbi: a Cultural History (Princeton University Press), offers a broad survey of the vocation of rabbis from antiquity to modernity.
Cosponsors: Center for Premodern Studies, Department of Anthropology, Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions & Cultures, Department of History