Thursday 11 June 2020

Four types of person: a parody of Perek

Pirkei Avot, being part of the Oral Law (Torah sheb'al Peh) which was initially transmitted only by mouth from generation to generation, had to be memorable for the obvious reason that even fairly clever and learned people would forget it if it wan't.  Memorability is an important factor in our lives though, in the internet age, many of us simply save ourselves the trouble of learning things by heart and rely instead on a quick and usually painless an online search.

In the fifth chapter of Avot we came across a sequence of mishnayot that are expressed in a four-fold logical sequence of propositions (A but not B; B but not A; A and b: neither A nor B). This makes them far easier to commit to memory, and therefore to teach others. 

I recently received by WhatsApp a forwarded parody of this mishnaic style that points most effectively to two of the issues that the coronavirus pandemic raises -- social distancing and the wearing of masks. It runs like this:

There are four types of those who converse in the presence of their neighbors:  
 
He who wears a mask and does not practice social distancing, protects his friend but not himself.  
He who practices social distancing and does not wear a mask, protects himself but not his friend.  
He who wears a mask and practices social distancing protects both. 
He who does not wear a mask and does not practice social distancing, protects neither.

This parodic technique, which also reflects the content of at least two mishanyot in Avot (2:13, 2:14), works so well that I suspect it has been used elsewhere in the past, though I have yet to find similar examples. All advice from readers on this matter is welcome.

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