Wednesday 9 December 2020

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?

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