Three mishnayot in Avot describe different types of undesirable conduct as having the same curious and somewhat menacing outcome:
רַבִּי
יְהוֹשֻֽׁעַ אוֹמֵר: עַֽיִן הָרָע, וְיֵֽצֶר הָרָע, וְשִׂנְאַת הַבְּרִיּוֹת,
מוֹצִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם מִן הָעוֹלָם
Rabbi Yehoshua used to say: An
evil eye, the evil inclination, and the hatred of one's fellows drive a
person from the world (Avot 2:16).
רַבִּי דוֹסָא
בֶּן הָרְכִּינַס אוֹמֵר: שֵׁנָה שֶׁל שַׁחֲרִית, וְיַֽיִן שֶׁל צָהֳרָֽיִם,
וְשִׂיחַת הַיְלָדִים, וִישִׁיבַת בָּתֵּי כְנֵסִיּוֹת שֶׁל עַמֵּי הָאָֽרֶץ,
מוֹצִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם מִן הָעוֹלָם
Rabbi Dosa ben Harkinas used to
say: Morning sleep, mid-day wine, children's talk and sitting at the meeting
places of the ignoramus drive a person from the world (Avot 3:14).
רַבִּי
אֶלְעָזָר הַקַּפָּר אוֹמֵר: הַקִּנְאָה וְהַתַּאֲוָה וְהַכָּבוֹד, מוֹצִיאִין
אֶת הָאָדָם מִן הָעוֹלָם
Rabbi Elazar HaKappar used to
say: Envy, lust and [the desire for] honour drive a man from the world (Avot
4:28).
I’ve quoted the Chabad.org translation here; the ArtScroll
translation is remove a man from the world. They mean practically the
same thing and are much in accord with modern English translations. But what
does it mean, to drive or remove a person from the world? The implication is
that the world from which a person is being removed is this world, olam
hazeh, rather than the world to come, olam haba, since every public
recitation of a chapter of Avot traditionally opens with a declaration that
every Jew has a portion in olam haba. In any event, Rabbi Yisroel Miller
observes (The Wisdom of Avos), our mishnayot should have referred to not
gaining admittance to the world rather than being taken out of it.
But what does this mean in practice?
Ancient commentators offer some suggestions, but they do not
go into granular detail—possibly because they have an understanding of the term
which they believe they share with others. Neither the Bartenura nor the
commentary ascribed to Rashi offer any explanation at all for the words “drive
a man from the world” (מוֹצִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם מִן הָעוֹלָם).
Rambam makes no comment the first two occasions when this phrase appears. On
the third time around, in relation to envy, lust and honour, he adds that these
bad middot “cause a person to lose his faith and prevent him from
attaining intellectual and ethical virtue” (tr. R’ Eliyahu Touger)—though it is
not clear whether this is an explanation of מוֹצִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם מִן
הָעוֹלָם or simply a comment on the harmful effects of envy, lust and
honour. Rabbenu Yonah (at Avot 2:16) however takes a robust approach to the
meaning of this phrase: “you sear your own internal organs by desiring what is
not yours … your jealous thoughts will destroy your body, making you
short-tempered and removing you from the world” (tr. Rabbi David Sedley).
Later commentators are generally less cautious in expressing
their opinions. Thus at Avot 2:16 Rabbi Yitzchak Magriso (Me’am Lo’ez),
citing a gemara at Bava Metzia 107a, asserts that the evil eye which Rabbi
Yehoshua mentions in that mishnah is the cause of death of 99% of the people
buried in a cemetery visited by Rav. At Avot 3:14 R’ Magriso offers a different
explanation: being driven from the world simply means wasting time and losing
out on one’s mission in the world.
The most brutal modern explanation of being removed from the
world may be that of Gila Ross (Living Beautifully, at Avot 2:16): for
her, Rabbi Yehoshua is teaching about things that are “so harmful they can
actually destroy a person”. More than that, they can “cause us anxiety, … ruin
our health .... and distance us from the World to Come by derailing us…”
Of all the recent explanations, the one that appeals to me
most is that of Rabbi Norman Lamm (Foundation of Faith, ed. Rabbi Mark
Dratch). At Avot 2:16 he writes as follows:
“The blacks and the whites of
life are not what make up the ‘world’ which is for the greatest part comprised
of shades of gray. It is rare that in crisis we have clear-cut options with
which we are confronted: good and evil, right and wrong. Normally we have to
make subtle distinctions; we are faced with paradoxes and ambivalences and are
forced to choose out of uncertainty and confusion.
The confusion and ambivalence is
most oppressive when we deal with ideas and qualities which can serve both the
ends of good and evil, of the right and of the wrong. At such times not only is
there an element of uncertainty as to whether we are using or abusing a certain
quality, but there is a tendency for us to submit to rationalization—to abuse a
quality and to assume that we are doing the right thing. Since the world is
constituted mostly of such uncertainties and such qualities of double nature,
when we confound their right use and wrong use, when we allow ourselves to
rationalize away our own self-interest, then we lose contact with ‘the world’
and we are removed from it …”.
In other words, simpler words, Rabbi Lamm is saying this: the
‘world’ from which we are being removed is the world of our own
objectively-viewed reality. We effectively remove ourselves from being able to
think logically and along the lines of Jewish law and tradition to which we
subscribe.
Being removed from the world of reality is not necessarily a punishment. Most of us feel it at one time or another. for example when a person is first in love. In former times such a person might be described as "looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles"; I'm sure that there are modern equivalents. The main point is that, for good or not so good, our view of reality is distorted.
May our distorted view of the world only be the product of good and happy things!
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