Rabbi Akiva, free will and God's foresight again: a mishnah for the month of Ellul

Our previous post looked at one of Rabbi Akiva's somewhat enigmatic teachings, one that has been given all sorts of interpretations over the generations because no-one knows what he had in mind when he taught it. Because it is so vague, its flexibility allows it to be applied to situations and scenarios that lie entirely outside the traditional scope of Avot. For example, the table below relates Rabbi Akiva’s words to the period between the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul (a period traditionally marked by introspection and self-improvement) and Yom Kippur.

Time	Avot 3:19	Relevance
Chodesh Elul	Everything is foreseen but free will is given	Man must examine his past deeds and future plans honestly, since God knows them too. Does he have the willpower to break bad habits or to take new and better commitments upon himself?
Rosh Hashanah	The world is judged for good	We reappoint God as King and accept Him as our judge, praying that He will fasten on to our good points and forgive those that are not.
Yom Kippur	Everything depends on the rov hama’aseh	God weighs us in the balance. If the preponderance of our deeds and intentions are good, we trust that we will be acquitted

Readers are invited to try their hand and find their own scenarios in which the great rabbi's words can shed some quite unexpected light.

A rabbi? Not quite

Perusing Rabbi Irving Greenberg's popular commentary on Avot, Sage Advice, my eye was drawn to a footnote (there aren't that many in this readable tome) that referred to the source of a quote. This quote came from "Rabbi Travers Herford, Pirkei Aboth: Ethics of the Talmud: Sayings of the Fathers". 

I know this book because I possess a copy of it, am very fond of it and have literally read it to pieces. However, the reason why I am mentioning it is because it illustrates a point that has frequently troubled me: the dangers that lurk behind initials.

The book itself describes the author as "R. Travers Herford". Many people use R. or R' as an informal abbreviation of "Rabbi", and it is not unreasonable to assume that the "R." here means exactly that. The real story, as you may by now have guessed, is different. In this context, "R." stands for "Robert", a fairly common forename and not as memorable as "Travers". The man himself does have semichah -- of a sort. He was not a rabbi, but an ordained minister of the Unitarian Church. His book on Avot is unusual, in that part of his aim was to persuade fellow Christians that they should read and appreciate Jewish texts from the perspective of the Pharisees (i.e. guardians of Judaism based on both the Tanach and rabbinical law), rather than read and condemn it because it is not in accord with Christian doctrine.  

Rabbi Akiva, free will and God's foresight

Avot 3:19 is one of the most enigmatic of Rabbi Akiva's teachings. In short, he says: "Everything is foreseen, and freedom of choice is granted. The world is judged with goodness, and everything is according with the majority of the deed". 

The flexibility of Rabbi Akiva’s dictum offers great opportunities to vest his words with meaning. The table below shows how this mishnah in its entirety can be contrasted with an earlier mishnah (Avot 1:18) taught by his younger near-contemporary, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel: ""he world is kept going by three things: truth, justice and peace".

Avot 3:19 (Rabbi Akiva)	Avot 1:18 (Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel)	Significance of contrasting content
Subject: the world, as viewed by man, which is full of doubt and uncertainty	Subject: the world, as viewed by God, which stands on three fixed pillars	God sees and knows all, while man’s knowledge is limited in time, space and depth of intellectual capacity
Everything is foreseen but free will is given	Truth	God, who knows all truths, makes man responsible for his actions by giving him free will
The world is judged for good	Justice	God, knowing all, is entirely just. Lacking such knowledge, man must give others the benefit of the doubt
Everything depends on the rov hama’aseh (literally "the majority of the deed")	Peace	God makes perfect peace in Heaven and on Earth; man-made peace is a compromise, depending on what the majority are prepared to accept

 On this reading, we see that Rabbi Akiva teaches how complex and baffling is the real world in which we live: we daily face unresolvable problems. We have to accept that, while nothing happens in the world unless God wills it, we have free will—or at least the illusion that it exists. We are required to be just, but our judgements are clouded by ignorance and uncertainty. We crave peace but know too well that one man’s peace (and indeed one nation’s peace) may be incompatible with another’s—and that even what appears to be genuine peace may be quite meaningless. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel however shows us how these same issues can be viewed, when considered from God’s perspective. To Him, truth, justice and peace are absolutes. They can be achieved if only we can approach them from God’s standpoint and not from ours. 

The point that we cannot understand God’s ways is poignantly recalled when we reflect on Rabbi Akiva’s own fate, as a faithful and brilliant Torah scholar who met a martyr’s death at the hands of Israel’s Roman conquerors. From Rav Yehudah’s aggadic account (below) of his martyrdom in the Talmud we see how this explanation of Rabbi Akiva’s own words applies: his death is foreseen though he still had the option not to teach Torah; God’s judgement is for the good even though we cannot understand how or why this is so, and the Romans followed the usual path of executing troublesome enemies in order to maintain peace in Israel in the form of the pax Romana, this being man’s path to peace but not that of God.

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Rav Yehudah's account of the death of Rabbi Akiva (Menachot 29b)

Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: ‘When Moses ascended on High, he found the Holy One, Blessed be He, engaged in fixing crowns on to the letters [of the Torah]. Moses said, ‘Lord of the Universe, What’s holding things up?’ He answered: ‘A man will arise, after many generations—Akiva ben Yosef—who will expound, upon each little crown, heaps and heaps of laws.’ ‘Lord of the Universe,’ said Moses, ‘let me see him.’ [Moses then has a vision in which he finds himself sitting at the back of a Torah class which he could not understand at all]. They came to a certain subject and the disciples said to their teacher, ‘Where do you know this from?’ When the latter answered, ‘It is a law given to Moses at Sinai’ he was comforted. [Moses then exclaims], ‘Lord of the Universe, even though you have such a man, You give the Torah through me!’ God replies: ‘Be silent, for such is My decree.’ Then Moses said, ‘Lord of the Universe, You have shown me his Torah, so show me his reward.’ ‘[Moses then has another vision, in which Rabbi Akiva’s flesh is being weighed out on market stalls]. Moses cried out: ‘Lord of the Universe, this is Torah, and this is the reward?’ He replied, ‘Be silent, for such is My decree.’

Time and tithe

In Avot 3:17 Rabbi Akiva mentions that the giving of tithes is a way to ringfence one's wealth. He does not go into detail. However, it is no secret that the laws relating to tithes are articulated in detail in both the Written and Oral Torah. These laws deal with what must be tithed, who must give them, to whom they must be given, how and when they are given, and so on. They are firmly focused on man’s physical environment and the people with whom he shares it. 

Is there any scope for considering if it is meaningful to talk of a person tithing his intangible resources too?

Some intangible assets may be quite suitable for tithing. An obvious example is one’s spare time. If you have, say, ten hours’ free and disposable time each week, you metaphorically tithe it by setting one hour aside and donating it for the benefit of others rather than indulging in an enjoyable pastime of your own choice. Other intangible assets may be less suitable, such as one’s intelligence, affection, patience or imagination. Some assets are both tangible and intangible: money has a physical format when it is represented by banknotes and coins, but for most people in the developed world it is intangible, being represented by electronically transferable debt and credit. The tithing of money is effectively required by the mitzvah of tzedakah (loosely translated as “charity” though the word’s Hebrew root has strong undertones of “justice” and “righteousness”): this is the setting aside of one tenth of one’s income for distribution to those who need it. Tzedakah gets several honorable mentions in Avot  and, while Rabbi Akiva does not list it in 3:17 among his “fences,” other rabbis do: Hillel teaches (Avot 2:8) that it is a sort of fence to peace in that, the more tzedakah one gives, the greater is the amount of peace in the world  and, if tzedakah falls within the general category of “good deeds,” it also acts as a shield against divine retribution. 

It cannot be said that the tithing of intangibles is what Rabbi Akiva had in mind. However, the overall principle is equally applicable to all assets, material and immaterial: if you give part of what you have and dedicate it to the benefit of others, should you not be entitled to expect not just God’s outline approval but a measure of assistance in maximising the benefit you derive from what you retain?

Epispasm: no great disguise

Rabbi Eliezer HaModa'i has some strong things to say about people who prefer not to reflect Jewish identity and values. At Avot 3:15 he says:

The person who (i) desecrates those things which are holy, (ii) denigrates the festivals, (iii) embarrasses his friend in public, (iv) nullifies the covenant of our father Abraham and (v) reveals aspects of the Torah that are not in accordance with the law—even though he has Torah learning and good deeds in his hand, he has no portion in the World to Come.”

The fourth of these five items is generally understood to refer to epispasm, this being “a form of foreskin restoration to reverse circumcision, historically practiced among some Jews in Hellenistic and Roman societies.”  

This procedure is a curious way to conceal Jewish identity when one considers that, for centuries, the nations of the world appear to have had no difficulty in picking Jews out as being Jewish even when they are fully clothed.  However, the desire to assimilate into what appears to be a more sophisticated and successful society is, according to one midrashic tradition, something that Jews have had to resist even before the giving of the Torah. According to this tradition, after Joseph died the Children of Israel cancelled the practice of circumcision, saying “Let us be like the Egyptians!” This was the event that triggered a change in heart on the part of their Egyptian hosts, who ceased at that point to love the small tribe that nestled within their vast territory, despising them instead.

Rav Yosef Dov Ber Soloveitchik (Bet HaLevi, parashat Shemot) explains this Midrash as teaching that the Children of Israel did not just give up circumcision of their children: worried about their future in Egypt and concerned as to how they might make themselves more beloved to their hosts, they first performed the operation in order to fulfil the mitzvah but then carried out an epispasm—and it was this that caused the Egyptians to despise them. The message for all generations is clear: making oneself more like a prevailing non-Jewish culture is no guarantee of peace and happiness. This is particularly true when, in doing so, we appear to be deceitful, duplicitous, unprincipled and ready to put our obedience to God firmly in second place, behind our desire to be more like those who do not obey Him.

Not all commentators consider that this Mishnah refers to the practice of epispasm. One such view is that it relates to a refusal to circumcise at all;  such a person presumably would rather be attached to his foreskin than to his Creator.

Competition among sages -- where is it?

Writing on Communal News platform, David Wexelman ("Competition Between Religions and Philosophies") states:

There is a teaching in the Ethics of the Fathers that competition between sages promotes more wisdom. The same is true in business where we see price wars. The supplier has to meet the demand at the best price. Also this is true in religion. Religions try to satisfy their followers to prevent them from looking somewhere else to be for them a connection to God.

The proposition that competition between sages promotes more wisdom is a good one, much in keeping with Jewish thought on the value that is placed upon the process by which sharpen their wits and improve their learning skills by pitting their brain-power against each other. I can't find a mishnah in Avot that says this, though. Which mishnah or mishnayot might the author have had in mind?

"Stolen" Torah: more on Shammai and making Torah "fixed"

The previous post ('Shammai and the Three Pillars on Which the World Stands', here) discussed his teaching at Avot 1:15 about (i) making one's Torah "fixed", (ii) saying a little but doing a lot, and (iii) greeting other people with a happy, smiling face.

My copy of the Breslov commentary (featuring Rabbis Nachman and Natan) has an unexpected insight into making one's Torah "fixed" -- which is that the mishnah doesn't mean "fixed" at all -- it means "stolen". My first inclination was to dismiss this as a bit of fluffy Chasidut, but further reflection led to the conclusion that there was a rock-solid basis for this. The word קְבַע, translated as "fixed" does not have that meaning in the Tanach. Its root is found in only two uses in the Written Torah, both in the late book of Malachi, and on both occasions the word means "steal".  The meaning "fixed" is not found until it is used in later Hebrew, in mishnaic and midrashic texts. 

The idea of making one's Torah "stolen" is the exact opposite of "fixed". Rather than have regular times for learning Torah (which one should ideally have anyway), one should "steal" moments of learning time from other activities, thus both showing one's dedication to learning Torah and gaining a little more precious time for that purpose. 

Shammai and the three pillars on which the World stands

The only mishnah in Avot that is attributed to Shammai is found in the first perek, at Avot 1:15.  There, he teaches three things: (i) one should make one's Torah "fixed", which is usually taken to mean either that one should fix regular times for one's Torah learning or that one's fulfilment of its precepts should be constant rather than wavering in accordance with the company one keeps or other influentual variables; (ii) one should say a little but do a lot, and (iii) one should greet other people with a happy, smiling face.

It occurred to me that these three pieces of stand-alone advice somewhat mirror the content of another, earlier mishnah in Avot in which Shimon HaTzaddik lists the three things: (i) Torah, (ii) avodah (literally "service", meaning one's service to God) and (iii) the performance of acts of kindness (Avot 1:2). 

These two mishnayot actually complement each other quite neatly, though this is not a point that seems to have been picked up by earlier commentators [can readers please get in touch if they find anyone who has already made this point?]. "Torah" and "fixing" one's Torah are obviously on the same topic; acts of kindness and greeting people cheerfully both involve an element of respect and concern for other people. That leaves only "service" and saying little but doing a lot. If "service" in context is taken to mean serving God by performing his mitzvot, it makes sense to teach that service of this nature is rendered by doing, by real action, not by talking at length about what one plans to do. This forges a three-ply link between the two mishnayot.

Avot in Retrospect: a summary of last month's blogposts

 In case you missed them, here's a list of items posted on Avot Today in November 2020:

Thursday 26 November 2020: Righteous and Righteouser: two types of servant explained. We look at servants who serve (i) without making a stipulation that they should receive a reward or (ii) after stipulating that they will only serve if they do not received a reward. What can we learn from the Noam Elimelech?

Sunday 22 November 2020: Not Considering Oneself Wicked: a response to Paul: Does Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel have a theological point to prove when urging people not to see themselves as being wicked?

Wednesday 18 November 2020: Kavod v Mussar: contrasting cases: an observation on how, while honor runs away from people who chase it, chastisement chases after people who seek to avoid it.

Sunday 15 November 2020: Ten Tests for Abraham -- but why not for Jacob too? A mishnah in the fifth perek of Avot famously mentions the fact that Abraham passes 10 tests from God. It would seem though that Jacob faced more tests, yet he gets no mention at all. Why?

Thursday 12 November 2020: Loving Rebukes: what does this mean? Avot 6:6 lists "loving rebukes" as one of the 48 means through which Torah is acquired. But what do we understand from this?

Thursday 12 November 2020: Rabbi Sacks. A brief acknowledgement of a great loss.

Friday 6 November 2020: All Creatures Great and Small: good examples for the Torah scholar.  In Avot 5:23 Yehudah ben Teyma cites the leopard, eagle, deer and lion as "role models" for the ideal servant of God. Rabbi Eliezer Papo has a novel slant on this mishnah.

Wednesday 4 November 2020: Trial and Error: More thoughts on the Ten Tests of Abraham in Avot 5:4. Is it irrelevant what they are? And what are they supposed to prove?

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Avot Today blogposts for October 2020 here

Avot Today blogposts for September 2020 here

Avot Today blogposts for August 2020 here

Avot Today blogposts for July 2020 here

Avot Today blogposts for June 2020 here
Avot Today blogposts for May 2020 here