Testing God: a national pastime?

Two mishnayot in Avot (5:4 and 5:6) deal with tests. In 5:4, we learn about God testing Abraham; in 5:6 it is we who test God.  But why did we keep on testing God in the desert -- and why do we test God at all? The following may be a partial explanation, though it cannot claim to be a complete answer.

The generation of the wilderness was far from unique in testing God, complaining both to Him and about Him. The practice is indeed so deeply ingrained in Jewish culture even today and, from our words and our conduct, it is clear that many of us now assume that He is no longer bothered about being tested. We should however bear in mind that not just every complaint we make but every request we lodge in our prayers has the capacity to be taken as a criticism of the lot which God has apportioned to us and it is best practice to make sure that, whatever one asks for, one always takes care to be grateful for that which one already has.

Why exactly do we test God? Since this is something we have always done and continue to do, the reason may be connected to our psychological and emotional make-up and may even have a positive side to it.  Testing God and trying His patience is not something that anyone would trouble to do unless they believe in God in the first place, since it makes no sense for an atheist to test or provoke an entity which, he holds, does not exist.  Therefore we can see that testing God is, at base, an affirmation of our faith in Him.

Drawing on our own human experiences (we have all been children and many of us will also be parents), we should be able to recall without difficulty those occasions on which a small child, despite every warning, has defied a teacher’s or parent’s threat. Even the most normally obedient child will probably have crossed, on one or more occasion, a red line such as “If you poke your little sister with that stick once more, you’ll have to sit on the naughty step” or “The next person to call out in class without putting their hand up will be sent straight to the Head Teacher”.  Sometimes, as often happens at school, the transgression is the product of unrestrained enthusiasm. Sometimes, as frequently transpires in the home scenario, it is simply because the child craves a reaction—any reaction—because it is a source of personal attention.

We are created in the image of God, possessing feeble and finite versions of His qualities. What God does in capital letters, as it were, we do in small print.  God tests us because He wants our response. We test Him because we desire His.  

Whatever happened to the mamaloshen?

Looking through my collection of books and commentaries on Pirkei Avot, it suddenly dawned on me that something might be missing.  Not every commentary on Avot has been written in Hebrew. The Rambam's Pirush Mishnayot was originally penned in Arabic: the version we learn today is the translation of the ibn Tibon family, and Rabbi Yitzchak Magriso's Me'am Lo'ez on Avot was written in Ladino -- but in all the years I've been learning Avot I can't recall ever seeing any mention of a major (or even, for that matter, minor) commentary that was first written or published in Yiddish. 

Though I neither speak nor read Yiddish, I am curious to seek an explanation. There are many possibilities. For instance:

• There are no commentaries in Yiddish;
• There are commentaries in Yiddish but these add nothing to pre-existing commentaries in Hebrew and have therefore not been cited or discussed by later writers;
• Yiddish commentaries that were of interest or merit have already been translated into Hebrew and published in Hebrew but without any obvious reference to the fact that they were first published in Yiddish;
• Commentaries in Yiddish did exist but were all lost or forgotten during the Holocaust and the persecution of Jewish populations in the years leading up to it;
• I have seen footnoted references to such commentaries in Hebrew format but did not know that they were originally written in Yiddish.

My parents' generation spoke Yiddish and considered it the Queen of Languages. Its cadences, colourful expressions and egregious theft of words from other languages made it a source of pleasure, amusement and nostalgia for them -- and for very many it was their life membership badge, proof of their true Jewish status, long after any vestiges of religious practice had been cast off. It was the only language in which one could say "Oy!!, "Oy! Oy!" or "Oy! Oy! Oy!" with any degree of sincere conviction. Did this somehow disqualify it as a language fit for commentaries on Pirkei Avot?

Readers' comments are invited -- as are any references to works that fit the description above.

Protecting the US Postal Service: where does Avot fit in?

A surprise reference to Pirkei Avot came a week ago in this piece in the Jewish News about the US Postal Services (USPS). In a call to protect the USPS, Rabbi Matthew Kaufman states that this task is a mitzvah and "the single-most important thing we need to do during the countdown to November third" [US Presidential Election Day]. He observes that, if it cannot function properly, "the democratic process that undergirds the American way of life fails", since conventional voting during the COVID-19 pandemic raises public health issues that are too enormous to risk. Then comes the religious support for this proposition:

Jewish ethics and Talmudic teachings call out to us to take action. The famous maxim of Hillel, “Do not separate yourself from the community,” reminds us of the importance of supporting the health of society (Pirkei Avot 2:4). The Talmudic sages make this point explicit. This maxim, they explain, teaches that when the community is suffering, you have an obligation to support it (Ta’anit 11a). The deliberate sabotage of the USPS is causing a unique suffering.

I was wondering whether any other mishnayot in Pirkei Avot might also be marshalled in aid of the USPS, given that this mishnaic tractate is not known for its warm endorsement of involvement in any aspects of public life. Maybe Rabban Gamaliel's teaching (Avot 1:16) that one should remove oneself from doubt might come in handy -- at least when it comes to accuracy in vote-counting.

Igor's not here today

Here, from Huntingdon, New York, comes a preview of a preparatory program for the High Holy Days that reads as follows:

Cheshbon HaNefesh: Accounting of the Soul for the High Holidays

The High Holiday season invites us to look at our lives, in the words of Pirkei Avot: “Where do we come from and where are we going?” But what is the specific process we might take to do this? Join us at the beginning of the month of preparation, to receive a specific program, and let's begin together.

“Where do we come from and where are we going?” Pirkei Avot does indeed quote something like these words, but there is something -- or rather someone -- who is missing. In full, the mishnah in question (Avot 3:1, taught by Akavya ben Mahalalel) goes like this:

Reflect upon three things and you will not come to the grip of sin Know from where you came, where you are going, and before whom you are destined to give a judgement and accounting. From where you came—from a putrid drop; where you are going—to a place of dust, maggots and worms; and before whom you are destined to give a judgement and accounting—before the supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.

In other words, the punchline of this mishnah is all about God and the point of doing one's chesbhon hanefesh ("an account of one's soul") -- but God sitting in judgement does not get a plug in the program mentioned above.

This rather reminds me of an old Russian Communist-era joke about two men who are toiling all day long at their work. One assiduously digs holes in the ground and the other equally assiduously fills them in again. A foreign tourist, watching this pointless work with incredulity, asks them what on earth they are doing. The hole-digger leans on his shovel and explains:

We usually work as a team of three. I dig the holes, Igor plants the trees and Anatoly then replaces the soil. But Igor's not here today ...

In like vein, the exercise of asking ourselves where we have come from and where we are going is a bit empty if there is no-one before whom we have to justify our journey and what we do along the way.

In Search of Abraham's Ten Tests

Let's return to Avot 5:4 (see earlier blogposts here and here), which teaches that Abraham was set ten tests by God and passed them all, to demonstrate the strength of Abraham's love of God. 

Since the Mishnah does not spell out which are Abraham's ten tests, I have been trying to compile a list of them. The table below features 28 "possibles", of which no fewer than 19 are counted as one of the ten tests by at least one reputable Torah scholar.

Number	Test	Source (Torah or Midrash	Endorsement
1	Exile from family and homeland	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
2	Famine in Canaan	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
3	Abduction of Sarah in Egypt	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
4	War of the Four Kings against the Five Kings	Torah	Rambam, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
5	Marriage to Hagar since Sarah was barren	Torah	Rambam, Abarbanel
6	Circumcision	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
7	Abduction of Sarah by Abimelech	Torah	Rambam, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
8	Expulsion of Hagar after birth of Yishmael	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Abarbanel
9	Expulsion of Yishmael	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
10	The binding of Isaac	Torah	Rambam, Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez, Abarbanel
11	Hiding underground for 13 years to avoid Nimrod	Midrash	Rashi
12	Being thrown into a fiery furnace by Nimrod	Midrash	Rashi, Rabbenu Yonah, Bartenura, Me’am Lo’ez
13	Capture of his nephew Lot	Torah	Rashi
14	Being told that his offspring would suffer under four alien regimes (Persia, Medea, Greece, Rome)	Midrash	Rashi
15	Being told that his offspring would be “strangers in a strange land”	Torah	Bartenura
16	Angering his father by destroying his stock of idols	Midrash	---
17	Having to argue with God in order to try to save the inhabitants of Sodom and Gemorrah	Torah	---
18	Being made to choose whether his descendants went into exile or to Gehinnom	Midrash	---
19	Having to pay an extortionate price for a burial-place for Sarah even though all the land had been promised to him by God	Torah	Rabbenu Yonah
20	Being told that his offspring would suffer both exile and purgatory	Torah/midrash	Me’am Lo’ez
21	Having to seek out visitors after circumcision so as to perform the mitzvah of welcoming travelers	Midrash	---
22	Being prepared to turn his back on the Shechinah in order to attend to his visitors	Midrash	---
23	Sending away his sons by Keturah	Torah	---
24	Having to seek out the exiled Yishmael in order to make peace with him	Midrash	---
25	Promising Abraham a son to inherit from him but then withholding one	Torah	---
26	Taking away from Abraham the mitzvah of sacrificing Isaac	Torah	Netivot Shalom
27	Whether to accept the spoils of war following the War  of the Five Kings against the Four.	Torah	---
28	Complying with God’s request to sacrifice Isaac even though it was not actually a commandment	Torah	Rabbenu Nissim

Can anyone add to this list, either by supplying more possible tests drawn from the Torah or midrash, or by supplying the names of rabbis who have endorsed any of the tests in the table above which have not (yet) to my knowledge been counted among the ten?

Respect for rabbis and teachers: how does this apply today

Rabbi Elazar ben Shammua says, “Let the honour of your student be as dear to you as your own; and the honour of your friend should be like fear of your teacher—and fear of your teacher should be like fear of Heaven” (Avot 4:15).  We don't usually fear our teachers these days, but the Hebrew word translated here as "fear" can also mean a deep and sincerely felt respect.  On this basis the mishnah speaks of something that comes rather closer to our own experiences.

Classic Roman Vishniac
photo from pre-War Poland,
when rabbis really could
instill fear

Here's a thought about how we respect some of our principal Jewish teachers, our communal rabbis.

It seems to me that, at least since the 1960s and the dawn of the teshuvah movement, one can divide Jewish communities into three broad categories.  

The first consists of communities which are far from the epicentre of Jewish life, either in geographical or spiritual terms, and where the level of knowledge and commitment to learning within that community is relatively modest.  

The second consists of communities where the average standard of attainment in terms of religious knowledge and practice is quite considerable, and where its members have the confidence and the capability to participate actively in synagogue services and learning programmes.  

The third is made up of communities where the level of knowledge and commitment is extremely high, and where the majority of congregants may well be rabbis themselves or have spent several years in full-time Torah learning before entering a profession, business or trade.

In the first category, respect for the rabbi is likely to be high since he possesses a suite of talents that may not be replicated to any great extent within his community. These might include the ability to read unpunctuated and vowel-less Hebrew and Aramaic text fluently, knowledge of how to officiate at weddings, funerals, a broad range of pastoral skills, and the like.  

In the third group too, respect for the rabbi is likely to be high since the congregants, who likely share the rabbi’s linguistic and learning skills, are in a position to appreciate its quality and know how much time and effort he would have had to expend in order to acquire them.  

In the middle category, however, it seems to me that the rabbi is likely to receive less respect.  This is because his congregants may have enough knowledge, learning and commitment to be able to challenge his rulings and test his learning, but may lack sufficient patience, willingness or understanding to enable them to accept his decisions and appreciate his answers. Here, superimposed upon the rabbi-congregation relationship, is something that is almost akin to sibling rivalry: he is a sort of older brother, entitled to respect and often genuinely loved, but generally vulnerable to challenge and sometimes taken for granted. It is within this middle ground, therefore, that the practical challenge of respecting the rabbi is put to the greatest test.

Comments, anyone?

Is there an "Evil Eye" in Avot?

Writing in the Jewish Press, Rabbi Moshe Meir Weiss asks, "How Can You Protect Yourself From an Ayin Hara?"  He discusses a mishnah from the second chapter of Avot (2:16) in which Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya teaches:

"Three things can cause a person’s expulsion from this world: an evil eye, evil desires (yetzer hara), and hatred of others (sinas habriyos).”

Rabbi Weiss comments:

So not only is ayin hara real, it can cause a person’s early demise. Even more astounding is that Rabbi Yehoshua lists it first. Evidently, he considers ayin hara to be more deadly than either the yetzer hara or sinas habriyos!

Part of the manuscript of the Machzor Vitry
held by the British Museum, London

This may not be so and there is good reason to suggest that Pirkei Avot does not endorse the popular notion of an "Evil Eye" that one person may cast on another in order to damage him or her.

First, not everyone agrees that this mishnah even mentions ayin hara.  The ancient and authoritative Machzor Vitry has the similar-sounding but quite different ayin ra'ah, which essentially is a meanness of spirit and a lack of magnanimity towards others.

Why should Rabbi Yehoshua be taken to say "ayin ra'ah" rather than "ayin hara"?  First and foremost, the term "ayin hara" is not used elsewhere in Avot. What's more (though I stand to be corrected on this), I don't think that ayin hara appears anywhere else in the whole of the Mishnah.

Secondly, Ayin ra'ah does appear elsewhere in Avot. This term is used by Rabbi Yehoshua's friend and sparring-partner Rabbi Eliezer in the same chapter of Avot and also in the fifth perek, when discussing four different types of donor (or non-donor) to charity.

More on tests

On Tuesday I posted this piece on being tested by God, in the context of Avot 5:4 which teaches about God setting Abraham ten tests, all of which he successfully negotiated. Since then I have been musing about a quotation that has floated past my line of vision many times in recent years. It runs along the lines of "God only sends a person a test He knows he can handle". This quote comes in various forms, but is never accompanied by any source.

Does anyone know who first expressed this sentiment? If so, please get in touch! It would be good to know. It would be even better to know if its originator had any empirical evidence on which to base it.

Does the person who is being tested know what he is being tested on?

In the fifth chapter of Avot (5:4) a mishnah mentions that Abraham was tested by God with ten tests (all of which the Patriarch passed) in order to make a show of how dearly Abraham regarded Him. Much has inevitably been written on this topic. Questions such as (i) which are the ten tests, (ii) why any number from one to nine wouldn't have done just as well and (iii) which was the greatest test continue to be debated. This blogpost focuses on one small issue: the fact that the person being tested may not at the time know what the test actually is.  This little episode, drawn from the lower strata of the world of finance, illustrates the point well.

Back in the 1980s a friend of mine was a trainee bank manager with the then National Westminster Bank in London. Part of the way through the training program the trainees were given a test. They were ushered into a room full of desks, on each of which was a test paper that was several pages in length and which opened with the following rubric: “Please read this test paper carefully. Do not attempt to answer any of the questions before you have finished reading this test paper”.

 My friend obediently read through the questions without writing anything, even though he knew some of the answers without the need to consider the questions deeply. He could so easily have completed those questions as he went along. At the very end of the test paper he read the following rubric: “Do not write any of the answers to the questions on this paper”.

It transpired that the real purpose of the test was not to see what the trainee bank managers knew but to see whether they could carry out the simple instruction of not writing anything until they had finished reading the test paper. My friend was the only person who passed that test. The salutary lesson of this exercise—we may know that we are being tested but we may not recognize what we are being tested on—is even more applicable when it is God and not a bank that sets the tests.

Right content, wrong focus? Creation of the World revisited

The first mishnah in perek 5 of Avot is a puzzling one. In English it reads:

The world was created with ten statements. What does this come to teach us? Could it not have been created with just a single statement? But this is in order to punish the wicked for destroying a world that was created with ten statements, and to reward the righteous for sustaining a world that was created with ten statements.

A small puzzle lies in the connection between the world being created with ten statements and God's policy of punishing those who would destroy it and rewarding those who keep it running smoothly. Would God not do the same if the world had been created with one, three or five statements?

But there is a bigger puzzle: why do so many of the commentators on this mishnah spend so much time and effort counting out the ten statements? It is well established that, in its account of the Creation, the Torah states nine times "And God said ...", and that each time these words are spoken they relate to something that He creates. The words "In the beginning", being taken as a statement of creation, make up the total of 10.  In contrast, the commentators spend rather less time and focus on the real message of this mishnah, which relates to God's policy on reward and punishment.

There is nothing wrong in explaining which were the 10 statements, of course -- but the function of the Oral Torah is not to summarise or repeat what anyone can read in the Written Torah. It is to lead in other directions, which is what almost all Pirkei Avot does.

To give a secular example of the popular approach, take a popular proverb, "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise". The point of this proverb is that a person will benefit from keeping sensible sleeping hours and this is what we would expect the commentators to discuss. We would not expect them to expend time and effort explaining what is meant by "early" and what precisely constitutes a "bed".

Pirkei Avot: by accident or design?

I have been asked a few times about the structure and organisation of Avot: is it just a motley collection of maxims and wise saws, or is there more to it? To this end, I've composed the following little note:

The chapters of Avot did not compile themselves. They were put together with care and skill by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi ("Rebbi"), the leading rabbinical authority of the time. It is important to remember this, because sometimes it can seem that a Mishnah has been misplaced, has slipped into the wrong chapter, or has no place in Avot at all.  

I believe that a better understanding of Avot and its constituent parts can be gained by assuming, in the absence of genuine evidence to the contrary, that the arrangement of Avot that we have today reflects the intention of  Rebbi that it should be as it is, rather than by speculating that various mishnayot have slipped their moorings and floated off to a different perek or have been misplaced within a perek. 

None of the chapters of Avot is entirely dedicated to a single theme, though in some cases their heterogeneity is not great.  In terms of their general themes, the five perakim of the mishnayot of Avot can be described as follows: 

Perek 1 (18 mishnayot) establishes the pedigree of Avot, as part of the Torah sheb’al peh that was delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai at the same time as the Written Torah and which was passed through the generations from Moses to the rabbis and prophets who held sway at the beginning of the Second Temple period. It then shows how the oral tradition of the Torah passed through six pairs of scholars, ending with Hillel and Shammai. Samples of the teachings of each generation are cited, largely on the theme of judges and judging. The perek concludes by introducing the reader to the passing of the oral tradition through Hillel’s descendants. 

Perek 2 (21 mishnayot) opens with more teachings brought by Hillel’s descendants, then returns to the chain of tradition, leading from Hillel through to the talmidim of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai.  A major theme of this perek is the quest for a path—whether it be the “right path” or the “good path”. 

Perek 3 (23 mishnayot) has a predominant theme of the extent to which a person should ideally be aware of God and of the Torah, even if he is occupied (or preoccupied) with other matters. The perek also addresses the importance of putting one’s practical awareness of God and one’s Torah knowledge into practice. 

Perek 4 (29 mishnayot) reflects on the personal qualities that a person should seek to cultivate when living a life in accordance with Torah precepts, bearing in mind that God’s will is backed by rewards for compliance and punishments for non-compliance. Assessment of a person’s performance in this world, followed by rewards and punishments, comes thereafter. 

Perek 5 (26 mishnayot, most of which are not attributed to a named rabbi) has an almost entirely numerical structure. Opening with “tens”, it moves on to “sevens” and “fours”, before tapering down to some notional twos. The Maharal explains that “ten” represents the domain of God, “four” the domain of man and “seven” is where the two interact.  Several of the “tens” appear to be out of place in Avot since superficially they do not address mussar and middot in the manner that the mishnayot of the first four perakim do. This is not however the case, as the commentaries on those mishnayot in this work sets out to demonstrate.

Perek 6 (‘Kinyan HaTorah’, 11 baraitot) does not consist of mishnayot, was not compiled by Rebbi and has its own independent character and quality. It was a late addition, to bring to six the number of perakim that could be recited on the basis of one perek per Shabbat between Pesach and Shavuot.

I hope this helps!