Playing God by refusing to judge?

At Avot 1:6 Yehoshua ben Perachyah teaches:

עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וּקְנֵה לְךָ חָבֵר, וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת

Make for yourself a teacher (or master), acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every person meritoriously.

The third and final part of this mishnah is the source for the injunction to give other people the benefit of the doubt if you don’t know whether they intended to act in a dubious manner. After all, we don’t have a window into other people’s minds. When they do something wrong, can we be sure that they were doing so deliberately? Or did they have an explanation, an excuse that was at least plausible if not deserving of our approval?

This may not have been quite what Yehoshua ben Perachyah meant.  The word safek (“doubt”) does not actually appear in this mishnah. The commentaries of the Bartenura, Rambam, Rashi and Rabbenu Yonah make no mention of doubt either.

According to the commentary ascribed to Rashi, one should not assume that what one hears someone else has done is bad unless there is clear evidence to that effect. This idea that we are talking here about the burden of proof when judging a legal dispute—a subject matter that fits well into the first perek of Avot, where much, if not most, of the teachings are relevant to judicial proceedings. The Bartenura uses “scales of justice” imagery too: when the case is equipoised, one should not treat the person being judged as a rasha, someone who is wicked.

Rambam, whose explanation is endorsed by Rabbenu Yonah and the Me’iri, takes this mishnah beyond the realm of judicial proceedings. In their view it only really applies to someone you don’t know: if you know a person to be bad, even his apparently good actions are probably bad, while a good person’s seemingly bad actions should be viewed as good.

Some commentators seek to link the third part of the mishnah to the teachings that precede it. Thus the Sforno and Rabbi Chaim Volozhin (Ruach HaChaim) both see judging others favourably as the means of preserving the friendship that one has just acquired.

Rabbi Norman Lamm (Foundation of Faith) offers a very different explanation of this mishnah, citing a teaching of Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Spira of Dinov, Chasidic author of the Bnei Yissaschar.  Here the focus is shifted from subjective doubt to and objective evidence of truth, towards the higher value of emulating God. He writes:

“[I]f your friend does something and you have two ways of judging him, either realistically, attributing his actions to malice and bad motives, or charitably, seeking out the best interpretation of his deeds, you must do the latter and give him the benefit of the doubt. But how can one do this when one knows that a fellowman did indeed perform a transgression out of malevolence or at least indifferent motives? Knowing the psychology of human beings, and the nastiness that lies so close to the soul, are we indeed being truthful in judging another lekaf zechut—charitably?”

This is not a rhetorical question. It is indeed demanded by Pirkei Avot itself, where truth is highlighted as one of the three things that enable the world to function (Avot 1:18) and we are told that conceding the truth is one of the seven signs of the chacham, one who is wise (Avot 5:9). The Bnei Yissaschar however effectively bypasses this issue. As Rabbi Lamm explains, this answer hinges on another mishnah in Avot, an enigmatic statement by Rabbi Akiva at Avot 3:19 that appears to have no obvious connection to our discussion:

הַכֹּל צָפוּי, וְהָרְשׁוּת נְתוּנָה

Everything is foreseen, and freedom of choice is granted.

Rabbi Lamm explains:

“[T]he Almighty foresees everything, yet we are possessed of free will. But is this not a contradiction? Does not divine foreknowledge mean that I must do what He has foreseen, that I am denied free choice between good and evil? The answer of a number of Rishonim is that the Almighty practises tzimtzum, He deliberately curbs His own foreknowledge. He decides not to see, not to know, hence not to coerce man’s choice. So …we must imitate the divine act of self-denial—Imitatio Dei—and man too must refrain from knowing too much of the human proclivity for the base and the ugly. We must not see, not know, not understand our friend’s “real” character; instead, we must judge him charitably, lekaf zechut. This is the essence of Jewish Gevurah [literally ‘strength’,meaning here ‘self-control’]: to know how to pull back, to know when not to look at another person’s character, and to achieve “simplicity””.

These words are so noble and inspiring that we could almost swallow them whole. But in the world of middot and mussar nothing is simple. In the same perek as this mishnah, we are told to distance ourselves from a bad neighbour and to avoid joining up with a rasha, someone who is evil. These assessments are of people rather than of actions (the subject of our mishnah) but there is a fine line to be drawn—for how do we judge a person other than through his or her actions?

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Mind what you wear!

There’s not much in Pirkei Avot about clothing. In fact, clothes don’t get a mention at all—unless you count crowns, that is. But we do learn about being clothed. In the first baraita of the sixth perek, immediately after the prolegomenon, we learn the following in the name of Rabbi Meir:

כָּל הָעוֹסֵק בַּתּוֹרָה לִשְׁמָהּ זוֹכֶה לִדְבָרִים הַרְבֵּה, וְלֹא עוֹד, אֶלָּא שֶׁכָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלּוֹ כְּדַאי הוּא לוֹ. נִקְרָא רֵֽעַ, אָהוּב, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַמָּקוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, מְשַׂמֵּֽחַ אֶת הַמָּקוֹם, מְשַׂמֵּֽחַ אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, וּמַלְבַּשְׁתּוֹ עֲנָוָה וְיִרְאָה

Whoever studies Torah for Torah's sake merits many things; not only that, but [the creation of] the entire world is worthwhile for him alone. He is called a friend, beloved, a lover of God, a lover of humanity, a person who makes God happy, someone who makes humans happy. And the Torah enclothes him with humility and awe …

This is obviously a metaphor, since any talmid chacham who walks the streets clad in nothing but his humility and awe would soon attract quite the wrong sort of attention—but what is the significance of this metaphor?

Rabbenu Yonah surprisingly states that being wrapped in the garb of humility and awe is comparable to being immersed in water—which itself is a metaphor for water. Midrash Shmuel sticks closer to the concept of clothing when he comments that, just as chochmah, wisdom, is at the head of a person, humility is, as it were, his pair of sandals since, like humility itself, there is nothing lower.  But what does chochmah, rather than yirah, fear, have to do with this teaching? Explains Midrash Shmuel, reshit chochmah yirat Hashem (Tehillim 111:10): the first step towards wisdom is fear itself, fear of God.

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) picks up the metaphor and runs with it: humility is a garment which must be removed when necessary, since there are times when a person must show himself to be firm and decisive. Misguided humility can be destructive, and a true Torah scholar knows when to be humble and when not to be.

I can offer another plausible explanation. We recognise many people by their uniforms: the police, fire fighters, nurses, for example. On this basis we can identify them easily and feel confident that they have the skills and training that have earned them the right to wear their uniforms. So too, if we see a person who is, as it were, clothed in humility and deep respect, we are entitled to assume that the person who “wears” these characteristics actually possesses them. If not, then the clothes are a deceit, a false description of the person beneath them.

Is there any support for this? Possibly. The Chasid Yavetz utilises much the same idea, pointing out that a true tzaddik does not alternate between righteousness and unrighteousness but “wears” his finer qualities all the time (we might add, “like a uniform”). The garments of humility and awe are not undergarments, says the Chasid Yavetz: they are the visible over-garments that advertise a person’s true nature and qualities.

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Beware of the government -- or Beware, government?

If we were editing the mishnah in place of Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah NaNasi), would we have made the same decisions as to what to include and what to leave out? Though this is an entirely academic question, there is a point to it.  Following the well-established methodology of the Tannaic sages, Rebbi was careful to minimise the use of words but to demand in turn that each word and each teaching was given its fullest meaning. No word spoken by a Tanna could be presumed superfluous, and no teaching should be deemed redundant on account of its apparent duplication of another one.

Would we then have admitted the mishnah at Avot 2:3 into our canon. There, Rebbi’s son Rabban Gamliel teaches:

הֱווּ זְהִירִין בָּרָשׁוּת, שֶׁאֵין מְקָרְבִין לוֹ לְאָדָם אֶלָּא לְצֹֽרֶךְ עַצְמָן, נִרְאִין כְּאוֹהֲבִין בְּשַֽׁעַת הַנָּאָתָן, וְאֵין עוֹמְדִין לוֹ לְאָדָם בְּשַֽׁעַת דָּחֳקוֹ

Be careful with the government, for they befriend a person only for their own needs. They appear to be friends when it is beneficial to them, but they do not stand by a person at the time of his distress.

We might wonder if this teaching is just a verbose extravaganza, amplifying the theme of other, more succinct teachings. Shemayah (at Avot 1:10) has already taught:

אַל תִּתְוַדַּע לָרָשׁוּת

Don’t [even] make yourself known to the government.

Quite apart from that, suspicion and distrust of governments and politicians is a natural phenomenon that is almost as old as mankind itself. We might feel that, just as the common housefly needs no lessons in avoiding the hand that seeks to swat it, so too do most ordinary people instinctively shrink from embracing an institution that demands their support, expects their loyalty, taxes their income and sends them into battle.

Rabbi Yaakov Hillel suggests the importation into Rabban Gamliel’s words of an additional meaning that takes them well beyond their plain meaning while still placing them firmly within the realm of mussar.  He does this by casting the opening words, הֱווּ זְהִירִין בָּרָשׁוּת, as being addressed to politicians and those who wield power and authority.  This means translating them not as “Be careful with the government” but as “Be careful in government”.

What is the significance of this switch? Effectively it turns Rabban Gamliel’s mishnah into a message that goes like this: “Be careful when you are in government. This because you will be perceived as only befriending people when you need something from them. For this reason, don’t provide any basis for this perception to take root. In particular, make sure that you do stand by others at a time of their distress”.

Is this what Rabban Gamliel meant? And is this why Rebbi included this teaching in Avot? We can only guess, and the answer will most likely be “no”—but it’s a great lesson nonetheless.

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Mordechai: loved by not quite all?

The hero of Purim, Mordechai, slips quietly into the end of the long baraita at Avot 6:6 that enumerates the 48 qualities that facilitate kinyan haTorah—acquisition of Torah learning. Although in our tradition Mordechai was a Talmid Chacham of sufficient status to be counted as a member of the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah (“The Men of the Great Assembly”: see Bartenura at Avot 1:1), we don’t actually learn anything from him in his cameo appearance in Avot—he appears in a proof verse that praises Esther for telling Achashverosh, in Mordechai’s name, of the regicidal plot hatched by Bigtan and Teresh (see Esther 2:22). But Mordechai has a handy didactic role in helping us understand a curious mishnah in Avot

In Avot 3:13 Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa teaches:

כֹּל שֶׁרֽוּחַ הַבְּרִיּוֹת נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּוּ, רֽוּחַ הַמָּקוֹם נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּוּ. וְכֹל שֶׁאֵין רֽוּחַ הַבְּרִיּוֹת נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּוּ, אֵין רֽוּחַ הַמָּקוֹם נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּוּ

Everyone who is pleasing to his fellow humans is pleasing to God. But everyone who does not please his fellow men does not please God.

Rabbi Chaim Druckman (Avot leBanim) quotes the 14^th century Spanish scholar Rabbi Yosef Even Nachmias, whose explanation of this mishnah—which he heard from the mouth of Rabbi Yitzchak Melamed—has been preserved for us in Midrash Shmuel.

Rabbi Nachmias points to the famous verse in Megillat Esther (Esther 10:3) that bemoans the fact that even Mordechai—who saved the Jews of Persia from genocide—was unable to achieve total popularity:

כִּ֣י  מׇרְדֳּכַ֣י הַיְּהוּדִ֗י מִשְׁנֶה֙ לַמֶּ֣לֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵר֔וֹשׁ וְגָדוֹל֙ לַיְּהוּדִ֔ים וְרָצ֖וּי לְרֹ֣ב אֶחָ֑יו דֹּרֵ֥שׁ טוֹב֙ לְעַמּ֔וֹ וְדֹבֵ֥ר שָׁל֖וֹם לְכׇל־זַרְעֽוֹ

For Mordechai the Jew was second to King Achashverosh, and great among the Jews and in favour with many of his brothers, for he worked for the good of his people and spoke for the peace of his whole nation.

Says Rabbi Nachmias, look closely at the words of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. He talks of כֹּל שֶׁרֽוּחַ הַבְּרִיּוֹת נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּו (“Everyone who is pleasing to his fellow humans”). What he does not say is כֹּל שֶׁרֽוּחַ כֹּל הַבְּרִיּוֹת נוֹחָה הֵימֶֽנּו (“Everyone who is pleasing to all his fellow humans”). In other words, however popular you are, there will always be someone whose feelings will run to contrary effect. This is human nature. You do your best but, as secular wisdom succinctly expresses it:

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

God knows the truth of this aphorism and Mordechai experiences it.

If you don’t believe this, try an experiment. Go to your browser and search “most popular people in the world”. Your results will include the following:

• Barack Obama
• Elon Musk
• Justin Bieber
• Taylor Swift
• Jennifer Lopez
• Jeff Bezos
• Dwayne Johnson
• Beyoncé

Even allowing for the eccentricities of Google Chrome, how many of these people can you honestly say is pleasing to you? If your score is lower than 8, you’ve proved the mishnah’s point.

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Life with the lions

One of the shortest and most memorable mishnayot in the fifth perek is Yehudah ben Teyma’s one at Avot 5:23:

הֱוֵי עַז כַּנָּמֵר, וְקַל כַּנֶּֽשֶׁר, רָץ כַּצְּבִי, וְגִבּוֹר כָּאֲרִי, לַעֲשׂוֹת רְצוֹן אָבִֽיךָ שֶׁבַּשָּׁמָֽיִם

Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven.

We can all get the gist of this teaching, even without the assistance of learned scholars and commentators: when doing God’s will, we should do our best and measure our performance against those who excel, in whichever field of activity we seek to do His will.

Some commentaries go further. They discuss, for example, the choice of these four creatures and the quality of their assigned attributes. Some look at other verses from Tanach and the Gemara that enrich this mishnah by developing its animal-based theme.

But can one go too far when offering an explanation of that which, superficially at least, we can understand without one?  Arguably, yes.

On our mishnah Rabbi Shlomo P. Toperoff (Lev Avot) writes:

“The lion possesses a number of features which make it conspicuous. The head and neck are covered with a thick, long and shaggy mane, considered by some as a crown. His great strength, thunderous roar and majestic appearance inspire his enemies with dread. The lion will devour when he is hungry but he is not naturally cruel. He will aid weaker animals and procure food for them, and is known to spare human beings. He will not chase his prey, but will wait patiently and time his attack”.

Taken at face value, this paragraph is frankly bizarre. Lions do not procure food for other animals. Nor do they aid weaker ones. When they hunt, they hunt in families and most certainly do chase their prey (her prey, not his—since the hunt is led by the female of the species. Lions in aggadic literature and in Greek mythology spare humans (think of Daniel in the lions’ den, and of Androcles), but in the real world they kill an average of five humans a week, making them the third most prolific human-killers after hippopotamuses and elephants. I could go on.

I very much doubt that the author of this paragraph intended it to be read literally. My feeling is that what he meant was that the lion is a symbol of nobility, a metaphor for all that is good in human behavioral norms. If you do the things which are ascribed here to this symbolic beast, one might say that you are a lion among mortals, a person who leads by example and by good conduct.

It would have been good, if that is what Rabbi Toperoff meant, if he had spelled it out too.

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The Mishnah, the Message and the Method

How do we learn? And how do we teach? These two related questions are not just matters of pedagogical curiosity. They address the fundamental issue of how any society—and particularly one that recognises the importance of learning for its own sake—pass its customs, its rules and its values from one generation to the next?

Many mishnayot in Avot touch on this issue and it would serve little purpose to list them here without detailed discussion. But since there is no mishnah in Avot that explicitly asks and answers these questions, commentators—many of whom have strong opinions on the topic—hang their comments on whatever Tannaic peg they can.

An example of this is Rav Yaakov Hillel’s treatment of Avot 2:2 in Eternal Ethics from Sinai, which opens with the following teaching of Rabban Gamliel ben Rebbi:

יָפֶה תַּלְמוּד תּוֹרָה עִם דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, שֶׁיְּגִיעַת שְׁנֵיהֶם מַשְׁכַּֽחַת עָוֹן, וְכָל תּוֹרָה שֶׁאֵין עִמָּהּ מְלָאכָה סוֹפָהּ בְּטֵלָה וְגוֹרֶֽרֶת עָוֹן

Beautiful is the study of Torah together with a worldly occupation, for the effort of them both causes sin to be forgotten. Ultimately, all Torah study that is not accompanied with work is destined to cease and to cause sin.

This is the platform from which Rav Hillel launches his thoughts on the learning process. In the course of this review he emphasizes the paramount importance of learning Torah. He also discusses the balance to be struck between supporting oneself, accepting support from others and dedicating oneself to Torah study, before taking a close look at the methodology of learning itself.

Rav Hillel points out that learning is not a homogeneous concept. Essentially it embraces four activities: gaining information, understanding it, analysing it and ultimately creating it. The sequencing of these four elements may vary in time and space. Thus, in a society such as that which existed in Tannaic times, where the printed word had yet to exist and even written materials were scarce, great emphasis had to be placed upon memorising material before one could even begin to proceed to the next level. In later times (and particularly in our own, where computer-retrievable texts are available to anyone who uses a smartphone), relatively little emphasis is placed on learning by heart, though learning by rote still plays a role with small children who may learn verses and principles as songs before they are able to understand them fully.

But for Rav Hillel, citing the Ba’al HaTanya, the most important thing is to teach Torah students how to learn. Once they have mastered the methodology of study, they will have acquired a skill that will last them a lifetime. He adds that, now we have printed texts at our fingertips, gaining the tools of analytical study should be our priority.

The language of methodology may change over the generations, but the concept does not. At Avot 6:6 we have a baraita that lists no fewer than 48 ways to acquire the Torah. This list is incomplete, since it omits explicit reference to over thirty further ways that Chazal have identified (I’ve tabulated these in vol. 3 of my book, Pirkei Avot: A Users’ Manual). But it makes its point: teaching, classroom learning, practical learning, learning alone and with others, and many other aspects of Torah study are embraced. It is in effect a methodology checklist.

My own experiences in secular studies support Rav Hillel’s emphasis on methodology over content.  Almost entirely throughout my studies at school and in university I was a successful student and achieved excellent grades. The exception was my second year reading Law at university. During that year I decided not to use textbooks but to try to work out for myself how the principles relevant to my second-year courses evolved, using the raw materials of published statutes and reported legal decisions. My exam results were extremely poor, something that hurt me at the time, but I later discovered that I had developed a level of methodological skill that later served me well in my doctoral and post-doctoral research and in my career as an academic.

The problem with methodology is that it’s not really a suitable subject for small children at the start of their learning career, and it’s difficult to gauge when any individual is ripe from the transition from ‘what’ (“What berachah do you say when eat an apple?”) and ‘why’ (Classically “Why is this night different from all other nights?”) to the question that drives method: ‘how’.

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Too busy to learn? Where Pirkei Avot meets reality

This is my first post for nearly three weeks, and it’s not because I’ve given up on Avot Today. Rather, it is a consequence of my intense involvement in the running of my synagogue, of which I am currently the president and, it seems, a good deal more.

The precise circumstances in which I became president need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that there was no one else was willing and able to do so. My decision to accept the post was based on the dictum of Hillel at Avot 2:6:

וּבְמָקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ

 In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.

I very soon discovered that, before I could be of any service to the synagogue, I had a great deal to learn about its membership and its governance. In this I was greatly assisted by long-time members and Board members both past and present. I also received a large number of suggestions and pieces of incidental information from the membership at large—many of which appeared irrelevant at the time but have since found a place in the jigsaw that comprises the community which the synagogue serves. Here I was guided by the maxim of Ben Zoma at Avot 4:1:

אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם

Who is wise? One who learns from every person.

I soon found myself swamped by shul business and struggled to juggle my many commitments within the time available. It was apparent at that juncture that, since I could not function without food or sleep, and synagogal responsibilities were so many and so pressing, the easiest commitment to push aside was my Torah learning—but it seemed to me that, the less learning I did, the more shul administration there was for me to tackle. Nechunyah ben Hakanah at Avot 3:6 had already noted this possibility when he taught:

כָּל הַמְקַבֵּל עָלָיו עוֹל תּוֹרָה, מַעֲבִירִין מִמֶּֽנּוּ עוֹל מַלְכוּת וְעוֹל דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, וְכָל הַפּוֹרֵק מִמֶּֽנוּ עוֹל תּוֹרָה, נוֹתְנִין עָלָיו עוֹל מַלְכוּת וְעוֹל דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ

One who accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah is exempted from the yoke of government duties and the yoke of worldly cares; but one who casts off the yoke of Torah is saddled with the yoke of government duties and the yoke of worldly cares.

I had initially hoped against hope that, if I learned a bit less now, I could step up my learning again when I had mastered my presidential duties. But this has not happened. Again, Hillel warns, at Avot 2:5:

וְאַל תֹּאמַר לִכְשֶׁאֶפְנֶה אֶשְׁנֶה, שֶׁמָּא לֹא תִפָּנֶה

 And do not say "When I free myself of my concerns, I will study,'' for perhaps you will never free yourself.

Potentially comforting is the assurance of Rabban Gamliel the son of Rebbi at Avot 2:2:

וְכָל הָעוֹסְקִים עִם הַצִּבּוּר יִהְיוּ עוֹסְקִים עִמָּהֶם לְשֵׁם שָׁמָֽיִם, שֶׁזְּכוּת אֲבוֹתָם מְסַיַּעְתָּם, וְצִדְקָתָם עוֹמֶֽדֶת לָעַד

Those who work for the community should do so for the sake of Heaven, for then the merit of their fathers shall aid them, and their righteousness shall endure forever. 

It’s difficult to know what to make of this, since I’m still swamped with duties and responsibilities and don’t feel that I’m receiving any aid.  Does this mean that I’m not acting for the sake of Heaven, or that those from whom I am descended have no merit to aid me—or that I am already receiving aid from Heaven on account of the merit of my forebears, but that I ungratefully do not appreciate how much more I would be struggling in its absence? I doubt that I shall never know.

But not all hope is lost. One of the 48 ways of acquiring Torah (Avot 6:6) is to be

נוֹשֵׂא בְעוֹל עִם חֲבֵרוֹ

One who bears the burden along with one's fellow.

The solution is clear. What I must continue to do is to find others to help me and to share the strain of carrying out tasks that are currently left to me alone. Where there are no obvious candidates for helping me to take the strain, I shall have to train them myself. Many commentators on the baraita at Avot 6:6 have expanded its application beyond sharing the burden of learning, to embrace financial and moral support and even an element of counselling since it is only when a person’s mind is free of anxiety and stress that he or she is free to learn Torah to the full extent. Why should not this principle apply also to freeing up another’s time?

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Brazen effrontery

At Avot 5:24 Yehudah ben Teyma teaches, somewhat mysteriously:

עַז פָּנִים לְגֵיהִנֹּם, וּבֽוֹשֶׁת פָּנִים לְגַן עֵֽדֶן. יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶֽיךָ, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ, שֶׁיִּבָּנֶה בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ בִּמְהֵרָה בְיָמֵֽינוּ, וְתֵן חֶלְקֵֽנוּ בְּתוֹרָתֶֽךָ

The brazen-faced—to Gehinnom; the meek—to the Garden of Eden. May it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, that the Holy Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days; and grant us our portion in Your Torah.

In the previous mishnah the same Tanna urged us to be as brazen as a leopard in doing God’s will. Now he appears to be flagging the same attitude as possessing a negative quality.  Commentators have no trouble in reconciling the two teachings. If fulfilling God’s will is a desirable end, then there are times when one must adopt the posture of chutzpah, brazen insolence, in furthering that end. But brazen effrontery that is not aligned with God’s wishes is offensive and worthy of punishment. That is why the brazen can expect to end up enduring the torments of Gehinnom (whatever they may be), while the meek can expect to enjoy the tranquillity and bliss of life in the Garden of Eden.

A quite original reinterpretation of this pair of teachings comes from Rav Moshe Leib Sassover (I found this in Rabbi Tal Moshe Zwecker’s Ma’asei Avos). He starts with the premise, often found in chasidic writings, that there is more than one kind of righteous person, or tzaddik. For the purposes of his analysis here, we can divide tzaddikim into two classes: the reactive and the proactive. Both are righteous, but there’s a big difference between them. 

The reactive tzaddik does what he is told and gets on with his life as a sincere and committed servant of God. He spends his days and nights in prayer and praise, in contemplation of the Divine, and in studying Torah and imbibing its every shade and nuance of meaning. Not for him is the hustle and bustle of social interaction or the distraction of personal relationships: his thoughts soar towards the heavens and he troubles no-one. He is the very epitome of the meek man and it is he who will go to the Garden of Eden because there is nowhere else for him to go.

Contrast this with the proactive tzaddik. He too is a sincere and committed servant of God, but his orientation is towards his fellow man. He is pained by their failure to appreciate the beauty of Jewish practice and the noble ideals of the Torah. Not content with teaching by example, he goes after sinners and urges them to return to the fold, never losing hope and pursuing them even to the gates of Gehinnom in the hope of bringing them back.

This is a fascinating explanation of our mishnah, but it does invite an obvious question: where do we go, those of us who simply do our best to serve God on a daily basis and, being neither entirely reactive nor proactive, take our opportunities when we may?

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Means and ends

Only a short while ago we discussed two related mishnayot at opposite ends of the first chapter of Avot, but we are going to return to them again.

At Avot 1:2, Shimon HaTzaddik teaches us that the world depends on three things:

עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם עוֹמֵד: עַל הַתּוֹרָה, וְעַל הָעֲבוֹדָה, וְעַל גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים

The world stands on three things: Torah, divine service and acts of kindness.

However, at Avot 1:18, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel teaches:

עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם קַיָּם: עַל הַדִּין, וְעַל הָאֱמֶת, וְעַל הַשָּׁלוֹם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: אֱמֶת וּמִשְׁפַּט שָׁלוֹם שִׁפְטוּ בְּשַׁעֲרֵיכֶם

By three things is the world sustained: justice, truth and peace. As it says: "Truth, and a judgement of peace, you should administer at your gates.''

There are many commentaries on the significance of the difference between these two lists. Some link them, maintaining that justice, truth and peace correspond to Torah, divine service and acts of kindness. Others argue that the two mishnayot convey separate messages, delivered at different junctures in Jewish history. The explanations are all plausible and have their merits.

I’ve been thinking about this pair of teachings says to me. How should I reconcile them?

My conclusion is that Shimon HaTzaddik’s teaching and that of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel complementary and serve different functions.

Torah, divine service and acts of kindness share a common feature. They are all means of achieving an end.  That end can be laudable or not, as the case may be. Thus a person can learn Torah in order to get closer to God and do His will, or so that people will give him respect when he basks in the prestige of being a Torah scholar (see Rabbi Tzadok at Avot 4:7). Divine service, both in the sense of Temple sacrifices and as prayer, can be for worthy or unworthy purposes, and even acts of kindness can be demonstrations of one’s selfishness, as we learn from the midrashic teaching that about the chasidah (stork) displaying kindness only to its own kind.

So how do we know if our Torah, divine service and acts of kindness are worth anything, or whether we are just walking the walk and going through the motions? It’s because truth, justice and peace are the yardsticks of one’s performance.

How does this work? If these three classes of action are the means of achievement, then justice, truth and peace are the objectives that these means are intended to achieve. Thus if one’s study of Torah, divine service and acts of kindness are not directed towards the acceptance of truth, the creation of a society based on justice and the establishment of peace and harmony between potential points of conflict, one’s efforts are in vain.

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Hot cross buns may come and go, but doughnuts are forever

One of the three teachings of the Men of the Great Assembly (Avot 1:1) is so short that it just can’t help attracting attention:

עֲשׂוּ סְיָג לַתּוֹרָה

Make a fence around the Torah.

One of the usual explanations runs along the lines of how important it is to buttress Torah observance by what we might call double-wrapping the mitzvot to keep them safe (Rambam, Bartenura, commentary ascribed to Rashi).  If this was necessary at the beginning of the Second Temple period, it might be even more imperative to build halachic fences in order to counter yeridat hadorot, generational decline, and to combat the effects of war and persecution (Rabbi Avraham Azulai, Ahavah beTa’anugim).

There are other explanations too. Rabbenu Yonah writes of how one who respects the rabbinical decrees is more beloved of God than one who merely keeps the Torah. For Rabbi Chaim Palagi (Einei Kol Chai), fences are there to protect the truly humble person who doesn’t trust himself to avoid the Torah’s prohibitions. The Anaf Yosef shows how, by distancing oneself from the risk of transgression, one is actually emulating the example of the Torah itself where it teaches (Vayikra 18:19) that a man should not even draw close to his menstruating wife.

I have always wondered who the Men of the Great Assembly were addressing. At the time they taught this mishnah, were they not the most appropriate people body to identify and issue Torah-friendly decrees that would safely hedge both positive and negative commandments that might need extra protection? And did they have a sense of who would be best equipped to issue tanakot and gezeirot (positive and negative decrees) once the Assembly no longer existed?

A quite different perspective on our mishnah can be found in Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum’s Divrei Yoel al Pirkei Avot, where he looks at fences around the Torah in terms of minhagim, customs, in contrast with laws. He notes the strength of custom within Jewish society and its ability to bind the community together across the generations. Jews, he notes, have a tendency to cling to their old customs while wider society tends to jettison them. 

The interesting thing about customs is that they develop whenever there is a need for them. You don’t need a Sanhedrin, a Beit Din or an influential rabbi to institute them: they just evolve. The lesson of Avot 1:1 is therefore a lesson that speaks to all of us, across the years and wherever Jewish life is found: let us support and develop our customs since it is they that provide the protective stratum of lifestyle that helps keep us attached to Torah even if we may feel we are being pulled away.

Is it true, though, that while Jewish customs and practies tend to persevere, those of wider society do not? Thinking through my own lifetime, I witnessed many changes in English society, and these generally involved the abandonment of formerly cherished customs. One such custom was for children to dress up a dummy and parade it through the streets (or place it strategically outside a tube station), asking passers-by for a “penny for the guy” with which to purchase fireworks for Guy Fawkes Night. Another was Trafalgar Day (21 October), when we celebrated victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets in the Battle of Trafalgar.  Even when food is concerned, what was once ubiquitous has now become quite rare: witness the practice of tossing and eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) and the consumption of hot cross buns on Good Friday. While these activities may have originally had a religious basis, back in the 1950s they were a national pastime.  On contrast, while sufganiyot (doughnuts) and oznei Haman or hamantaschen (“Haman’s ears”) may have undergone changes in recipe, the customs continue.

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Justice, truth and peace

I was saddened to learn that Rabbi Yisroel (“Eli”) Brunner, of London’s Etz Chayim, passed away last week. A quiet, gentle and unassuming man, he was a direct descendant of Rabbi Yehuda Assad, author of Yehuda Ya’aleh and the leader of Hungarian Jewry after the death of the Chatam Sofer. 

Like his distinguished ancestor, Reb Eli was also a great lover of Pirkei Avot. Indeed his sefer, Chiddushei Mahari’a al Pirkei Avot, is a monument both to his affection for Rabbi Assad, whose life is extensively chronicled in the first part of this book, and for Avot itself: the second part of this work is largely based on Rabbi Assad’s own comments and reflections on the tractate.

Here is a little something to remember Reb Eli by: a short devar Torah from the Chiddushei Mahari’a.

At Avot 1:18 Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel teaches:

עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם קַיָּם: עַל הַדִּין, וְעַל הָאֱמֶת, וְעַל הַשָּׁלוֹם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: אֱמֶת וּמִשְׁפַּט שָׁלוֹם שִׁפְטוּ בְּשַׁעֲרֵיכֶם

By three things is the world sustained: justice, truth and peace. As it says: "Truth, and a judgement of peace, you should administer at your gates.''

Why does Rabban Shimon say this? Has not Shimon HaTzaddik not already taught us (Avot 1:2) that the world depends on three quite different things:

עַל שְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים הָעוֹלָם עוֹמֵד: עַל הַתּוֹרָה, וְעַל הָעֲבוֹדָה, וְעַל גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים

The world stands on three things: Torah, divine service and acts of kindness.

Rabbenu Yonah, one of the most authoritative Rishonim, explains in his commentary on Avot that, when the world was created and we could atone for our sins through the bringing of sacrifices, it was on the three pillars of Torah, divine service and acts of kindness that it was founded. However, following the destruction of the Temple and in light of the impossibility of bringing sacrifices, a new order of things was needed if the world was to survive, that of justice, truth and peace.

This is the background to the explanation of a midrash that, Moses ascended to Heaven to watch God engaging in the ma’aseh Bereishit, the act of Creation, through the words of the Torah. When God to the words תַּדְשֵׁא הָאָרֶץ דֶּשֶׁא (tadshe ha’aretz deshe, “let the earth put forth grass”), Moses burst into tears.

Why should Moses have done such a thing? Rabbi Assad explains.  In an ideal world, we would live our lives in the spiritual environment of Torah, divine service and acts of kindness. But once the Temple is lost, the possibility of sacrifices vanishes and Torah is diminished, the world must survive on Plan B: we have to achieve justice, accept the truth and seek to be at peace. The clue to this is the word דֶּשֶׁא, this word being made up of the initial letters of din, shalom and emet (justice, peace and truth).

Reb Eli was a man who bridged the two mishnayot we have discussed above. He subscribed to the values of Torah, serving God and displaying kindness to one's fellow humans, and he lived by the code of justice, peace and truth.

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Real learning and a stroll in the park

Many readers are uninspired by the standard explanations of Rabbi Yaakov’s (or, according to other texts, Rabbi Shimon’s) blistering attack on the Torah student who allows himself to be distracted from his learning. The mishnah in question, Avot 3:9, goes like this:

הַמְהַלֵּךְ בַּדֶּֽרֶךְ וְשׁוֹנֶה, וּמַפְסִיק מִמִּשְׁנָתוֹ וְאוֹמֵר: מַה נָּאֶה אִילָן זֶה, מַה נָּאֶה נִיר זֶה, מַעֲלֶה עָלָיו הַכָּתוּב כְּאִלּוּ מִתְחַיֵּב בְּנַפְשׁוֹ

One who walks along the way and studies, and interrupts his studying to say, "How beautiful is this tree!", "How beautiful is this ploughed field!"---the Torah considers it as if he had forfeited his life.

Commentators have poured scorn on the unfortunate talmid who interrupts study of the eternal, spiritual Torah for the fleeting pleasure gained by admiring the physical, material dimension while simultaneously squandering precious and irreplaceable time that could have been devoted to getting closer to God through the sole route available to His chosen people, that of learning Torah.  To be fair, this might very well have been precisely what the author of the mishnah intended—particularly if he were Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a Torah genius with an uncompromising attitude towards the objective of learning. But if this is so, the meaning is plain and needs no commentator to explain it.

Here’s an admittedly fanciful reinterpretation of the mishnah which, I believe, readers will not find elsewhere. It runs like this.

We start this mishnah by noting the insertion of two words that rarely attract attention. It’s not just any old tree and field that we learn of here, but this tree and this field. So which tree and field are we talking about?  I suggest that the tree is the Torah itself: the etz chaim for those who grasp it and shelter forever within its all-embracing shade. The field is where one ploughs, sows one’s seeds and then gathers one’s grain, to sustain oneself when learning Torah.

So much for the tree and the field. What is the way? Avot tells us, at 2:13. There Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai instructs his five top talmidim to go out, to leave the portals of the Beit Midrash, and see what is the derech yesharah, the right way for a person to travel in life. His choice lies between the tree and the field. Remember, the tree represents a life of total and exclusive immersion in Torah, as Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai advocates at Berachot 35b, while the field represents a life of Torah moderated by the need to reap God’s reward for keeping the mitzvot by harvesting one’s crops and addressing one’s physical needs, as advocated by Rabbi Yishmael.

“Walking along the way” in our mishnah is a challenge because it is a demand that Rabban Yochanan’s talmidim exercise their own judgement and educate themselves, free from the constraints of the Beit Midrash: let them look at a life of total Torah learning from the outside, as it were, and contrast it with a life of Torah im derech eretz—Torah combined with a livelihood.

The talmid in our mishnah takes this path. Along this path he sees the tree of Torah and the field of Torah im derech eretz. He praises them both, since both are worthy of praise. So why does he deserve to forfeit his life? Because he stops in the middle of his real-life learning exercise and says “Torah is beautiful, Torah im derech eretz is beautiful!” but he either does not or cannot choose one over the other and therefore chooses neither. He therefore has no path, no derech in life that he can follow.

Thoughts, anyone?

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Where is gratitude?

Pirkei Avot is widely regarded as the main source for middot,  the good and refined characteristics that mark the behaviour of an observant Jew. These middot include greeting others in a polite and cheerful manner, not interrupting others while they are talking, not making adverse snap judgements about other people and being prepared to respect and learn from other people, whoever they may be.

In an appendix to my book, Pirkei Avot: a Users' Manual, I listed 43 good middot that we are encouraged to pursue, and a further 29 bad middot that we are charged to avoid. But it was only this week that it occurred to me that one important middah seems to be missing: hakarat hatov, gratitude to others. Our sages of old were not reticent about the importance of gratitude--even if it be towards non-human and even inanimate objects, so why do we find  no overt reference to gratitude in Avot?

Some students of Avot have suggested that Ben Zoma's words at Avot 4:1 address this issue:

אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר, הַשָּׂמֵֽחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: יְגִֽיעַ כַּפֶּֽיךָ כִּי תֹאכֵל, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה, וְטוֹב לָךְ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

Who is rich? Someone who is happy with his lot. As it states: "If you eat from the effort of your hands, you are fortunate --  and it is good is to you"; "you are fortunate" in this world, "and it is good for to you" in the World to Come.

With respect, this does not appear to correspond to gratitude, though a person may not unreasonably feel grateful when happy with his lot. Ultimately contentment and gratitude operate in different dimensions: being contented is a passive state of mind; it does not impel one to do anything. Gratitude, however, is at least a potentially active state of mind; it has the ability to motivate a person to express gratitude to the person or circumstances that lead to us experiencing it.

If anyone has a fresh insight as to where we might find an endorsement of gratitude by the Tannaim quoted in Pirkei Avot, can they please share it with us?

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Taking a risk

Just last week we posted a discussion (“Material wealth, human needs: when does a luxury become a necessity?”, here) on Rabban Gamliel ben Rebbi’s dictum (Avot 2:2) on getting the right balance between learning Torah and earning a living:

יָפֶה תַּלְמוּד תּוֹרָה עִם דֶּֽרֶךְ אֶֽרֶץ, שֶׁיְּגִיעַת שְׁנֵיהֶם מַשְׁכַּֽחַת עָוֹן, וְכָל תּוֹרָה שֶׁאֵין עִמָּהּ מְלָאכָה סוֹפָהּ בְּטֵלָה וְגוֹרֶֽרֶת עָוֹן

Torah study is good together with earning a living, for the exertion of them both makes sin forgotten. All Torah study that is not joined with work will cease in the end, and leads to sin.

The earlier post addressed the extent to which one’s material wants and needs should be allowed to compete with the imperative requirement of learning Torah. I’ve just found a different slant on this teaching, focusing on the risk a Torah student takes in seeking to establish the right balance. This comes from Rabbi Norman Lamm—a champion of Torah Umadda—effectively the pursuit of all forms of knowledge for the purpose of enriching one’s Torah understanding and bringing one’s understanding to bear in the contemporary world. Rabbi Lamm’s premise is that, however important Torah learning may be, every community depends for its survival on some people working for a living and occupying themselves with acts that do not constitute Torah learning. This is a truism in respect of any and every Jewish community—we all need doctors, lawyers, accountants and others whose professional skill set lies outside the covers of the Talmud and its commentators. But ultimately the decision as to how to balance learning with work is placed on the shoulders of the individual and, for each of us, getting the right balance is just a euphemism for taking a risk and getting away with it.

In Foundation of Faith he comments on this mishnah:

“Yes, of course there are risks in Torah Umadda. Any knowledge that can never be dangerous is also never worth striving for. It is like anything else in life. Love, for example, is a great ideal, yet love can be very dangerous. You could love the wrong person or you could love illicitly. Peace is marvellous, Sim Shalom, but peace with the devil is dangerous. Democracy is a great idea, but democracy taken to an extreme means we can all vote to worship the Baal. Any great idea can be exploited and abused. All knowledge that is worthwhile can be dangerous, and a Torah Umadda approach means exposing students to the cultural winds that are current in the contemporary world. Not all of them are good, and not all of them are compatible with a Torah viewpoint”.

An educated, intelligent and perceptive Jew, comfortable with his Jewish knowledge base and secure in his own identity, should be able to weigh up the non-Jewish ideas he encounters when acquiring and practising a profession. But there is a warning:

“…[I]nstead of looking at [an idea that originates from a non-Torah source] critically, the student will embrace I, especially because Torah Jews are a cognitive minority … even within the Jewish community, and it is very difficult to live as a lone wolf, as it were, intellectually. So there is a tendency to give in, and that’s the danger”.

At this point the reader may be wondering why, given the risk of adopting ideas antithetical to the Torah, Rabbi Lamm should be so keen for a Torah-observant Jew to do so. Here’s his answer:

“[I]t’s worth taking that risk because doing the opposite means that we have given up our commission of being a goy kadosh umamlekhet kohanim. We are in danger of no longer being “a holy nation and a Kingdom of Priests” but, instead, becoming a safe sect and a denomination of Priests, and that is not exactly what we were told to do at Har Sinai”.

I wonder if I am alone in finding Rabbi Lamm’s argument, for all its power and passion, quite unpersuasive. Is it true in any meaningful sense that “any knowledge that can never be dangerous is also never worth striving for”? How does one go about verifying this assertion? Why is no apparent distinction drawn between “knowledge” and “ideas”?  And why are we any less a “holy nation and a Kingdom of Priests” if we absorb our own Jewish ideas and share them other nations? Thoughts, anyone?

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What are names for?

The Talmud and commentators on Tanach have a great deal to say about the meaning of a person’s name, the significance of divine and human-generated name changes and whether a name reveals one’s character. But, for most of us, we choose names for more mundane reasons. Perhaps they honour or recall the memory of a friend, a family member or a spiritual leader. Or maybe we pick them because we like the sound of them. Whatever the motive, we use names so that we can identify one another. Failure to tell one person’s name from another—in this instance Kamtza and Bar Kamtza—is  famously described in the Talmud (Gittin 55b to 56c) as the incident that ultimately led to the destruction of the Second Temple.

There are two elements to a person’s name: what the name is, and what a person is actually called by others. Two Tannaim in Avot 4:1-3, Shimon ben Zoma and Shimon ben Azzai, are known only as Ben Zoma and Ben Azzai. Why?

The commentary on Avot that is ascribed to Rashi offers two reasons. First, that they both died young and were therefore referred to only by their fathers’ names. Secondly, they had not yet received semichah, rabbinic ordination and had thus to be referred to only by their fathers’ names.  The Bartenura agrees with these explanations. 

Neither of the explanations offered above would seem to compel the use of the father’s name alone. One might have thought that it was all the more important to preserve a person’s memory by citing his name in full if he had died young; further, if the son only taught what he had learned from his father, the mishnayot should be learned in the father’s full name (e.g. Zoma ben Ploni), not the son’s.  In any event, another Shimon who is known only by his father’s name, but who is not said to have died young, is Shimon ben Nanos, a distinguished contemporary of Rabbi Akiva. I do not think that it is anywhere suggested that he had not received semichah. We might also consider, regarding lack of semichah, that this factor would have disentitled a Torah scholar from being called ‘Rabbi’, but why jettison his forename?

Not all commentators accept that Ben Zoma and Ben Azzai died young. The Tashbetz and the Maharal both assert that they had long lives. Since the Talmud later describes each of them by their full name, they conclude that it was only the want of semichah at the time when they taught their mishnayot that resulted in the suspension of the use of their forenames. Ben Zoma is however mentioned as “Rabbi Shimon ben Zoma” in the mishnah and gemara at Chullin 83a and Ben Azzai is “Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai” in a mishnah (Yadayim 3:5) and in the gemara (Yevamot 49a-b).

There may be another, simpler explanation of why these two Tannaim are known only by their father’s names, an explanation that applies to Ben Nanos too. Shimon was the most popular name among Tannaim. The Jewish Encyclopaedia lists no fewer than 33 of them, including Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (known simply in Avot as ‘Rabbi Shimon’) and the various Shimons who were descended from Hillel the Elder. Many of us have experienced Shimon-confusion at one time or another. If at least some of them are given another handle by which they may be called, the likelihood of confusion diminishes.  

It is important for us to know the names of our teachers, and this importance goes beyond the realm of good manners. The baraita at Avot 6:6 lists the citation of one’s learning in the name of the person who first said it as one of the 48 means of acquiring Torah and then adds:

הָא לָמַֽדְתָּ, כָּל הָאוֹמֵר דָּבָר בְּשֵׁם אוֹמְרוֹ, מֵבִיא גְאֻלָּה לָעוֹלָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַתֹּֽאמֶר אֶסְתֵּר לַמֶּֽלֶךְ בְּשֵׁם מָרְדְּכָי

This is what we have learned: One who says something in the name of its speaker brings redemption to the world, as it states: "And Esther told the king in the name of Mordechai."

This baraita cites Esther 2:22, a pivotal verse in the Megillah which opens a narrative that ultimately leads to the king’s Jewish subjects being spared the fate that Haman had in store for them. Esther cites her trusted source, and the rest of the story shows how God manipulates events without the need to reveal His presence.  Is this not an incentive to us to make at least an effort to quote our sources in full?

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