Lion's tails and foxes' heads: a fresh perspective

In Avot 4:20 Rabbi Matya ben Charash teaches that one should be the "tail of lions" and not the "head of foxes". We all know that lions are supposed to be lordly and majestic, while foxes are menial and crafty. There are however many explanations of what this Rome-base rabbi meant.

One such perspective on this mishnah comes from Rabbi Yehoshua Heller's Toledot Yehoshua. It focuses on the relative status of Israel and the various lands into which its Jewish inhabitants were exiled. Israel is the natural home for Torah learning and for living one’s life in accordance with its precepts. By the time of the Roman occupation, “Israel” as a country was however only a geopolitical synonym for Judah, the southern kingdom based largely on the territory of Yehudah after the dispersal and loss of the Ten Tribes following the Assyrian conquest in 722 BCE. The symbol of Judah is the lion. Alluding to the tail of the lion, Rabbi Matya ben Charash is effectively teaching that it is better to serve the more exalted chachamim of Israel than to be regarded as a chacham among the less learned Jews who inhabit the lands of exile.

The Shemonah Perakim: are they really a preface to Avot?

 Many scholars past and present have written introductions to Pirkei Avot. Some are majestic and inspirational, like that of Rabbi Yehudah Loewe (the Maharal) in his Derech Chaim. Others are quite prosaic, largely explaining that Avot is based on mussar and middot rather than on halachah, that it contains five chapters of mishnayot and a chapter of baraitot, and that it is (or was) read every Shabbat between the end of Pesach and Rosh Hashanah. 

Rambam has provided two introductions to Avot. The first is of the short, simple variety. It explains that, while most of the content of Avot is straightforward and easy to understand, it is hard to apply in practice. Also, it helps a person become a chasid (an almost untranslatable term that mainly suggests someone who seeks eagerly to do God's will even before he is commanded to do so). Finally, Avot has character-building or even character-changing qualities that demand a lengthy preface. This preface is effectively a second, lengthy and complex introduction that goes by the name of the Shemonah Perakim (the "Eight Chapters").

The Shemonah Perakim are always treated as Rambam's second introduction to Avot, which is not surprising given that Rambam himself calls it a preface to that tractate. I should like however to put on record my opinion that it is no such thing. If we were to ask anyone who read it, not knowing what it was supposed to be, what he or she thought it was, I very much doubt that anyone now or even in Rambam's time would imagine that it had anything to do with Avot at all. There is scarcely any reference or allusion to anything one finds in Avot. Instead, one finds the following things:

• A disquisition on the soul and its powers, together with the positive and negative qualities that may be found within it;
• An explanation of spiritual sickness and how it can be treated;
• How our thoughts can control and govern our souls;
• Contrasts between someone who is an actual chasid and someone who is able to control his desires;
• Man's shortcomings and the manner in which they affect his perceptions;
• The composition of human nature.

This content could serve just as well, if not better, as a preface to Hilchot De'ot in the Rambam's Mishneh Torah. It would be good to know if readers agree. The mismatch between Avot and the Shemonah Perakim might account for the reason why so few commentators on Avot feel the need to make any reference to it at all.

It is my intention to return to the Shemonah Perakim from time to time, making reference to elements of its content that do seem relevant to Pirkei Avot and, if possible, explaining why.

The moral behind the miracle: a crowded Temple and the need to make space for others

One of the more mysterious mishnayot in Avot is 5:7, which lists 10 miracles that are said to have taken place in the Temple. Some commentators examine them simply in terms of their miraculous content. Others however, mindful of the role of Pirkei Avot in conveying moral instruction, look beyond the miracles on the ground, as it were, and seek to frame them within a larger or more contemporary setting. 

A good example of this can be found in relation to the miracle that, though the Temple was extremely crowded and the order of the day was "standing room only", there was always enough room for worshippers to bow down. Rabbi Eliezer Prins (author of the second half of the Lehmann-Prins Pirkei Avoth) explains this part of the Mishnah figuratively, sending out a powerful message to late 19th century German Jewry that has a curiously contemporary ring to it:

 [W]e see that this miracle still happens today. When all people stand up and oppose one another, there is never enough room for everyone; but when each individual gives way to the next man, all find a place. It is ironic that our fathers managed to earn their daily bread in the narrow ghettos into which they were crowded, and yet had time to maintain their spiritual life, to learn and fulfil the Divine Torah; our generation, however, enjoys the freedom of the whole world but complains that the world is too narrow, competition too great, the fight for existence too severe to allow study of the Torah and fulfilment of its precepts!

A point well made, if ever there was one.

When I have the time ...

Still on Avot 2:5, Hillel's final teaching is "Don't say 'when I'm free I will learn, because perhaps you will never have the time". 

There are times in many people’s lives when their physical and mental resources are stretched to the point that meaningful Torah learning is impossible. The Torah sages are right to say that it should always be possible to make time to learn and that each moment that passes can never be reclaimed. However, in earlier generations and to a great extent in our own, those who teach this message have the privilege of being in full-time learning or Torah teaching themselves, with wives who were supportive to the point of unselfishly and unstintingly sacrificing their strength and any personal aspirations in order to enable their rabbinical husbands to fulfil their Torah commitments to the maximum possible. 

This level of commitment to learning is often impossible for a modern family man to attain, despite his wish to do so. Two or three daily visits to his synagogue to pray,  an hour’s commuting to work and the same again to return home, the best part of the day spent working for a living, taking children to school a couple of mornings a week, helping at home as a dutiful husband and father—all these things can leave a man with little time and peace of mind to address his duty to learn Torah. It is not unreasonable for such a person to say “when I’m free to learn, I shall do so.” The big problem for him, though, is to recognize the point at which he has to stop saying it. Otherwise, once he has settled into his no-learning routine in order to feed, clothe, educate and marry off his children, pay off his mortgage and put himself on a secure financial footing, he will simply start over and do the same thing for the next generation and will never get round to learning at all.

Not in front of the children

 In the second chapter of Avot, there is a teaching by Hillel (Avot 2:5) that one should not say things that cannot be understood, if one's intention is that they should ultimately be understood. This is based on the rendering of the words שמוע and הישמע as being connected with understanding. Their original meaning is however connected with hearing, as Rabbi Eliezer Papo notes.

In his Ma'amar HaKavod Rabbi Papo explains that anyone who speaks words that are not meant to be broadcast to a wider world takes a great risk in saying them when there are small children present—even if those children do not understand what one is saying at all.  The ability of children to pick up words, phrases and names say them over again, even if it is just because they like the sound the words make when they say them, is a well-known phenomenon. 

The Talmud itself recognizes that the sometimes outrageous things children say in public can be directly attributable to what they hear their parents say in private but would never dream of articulating in public. This is found in Sukkah 56b, which relates the episode of Miriam bat Bilgah. The daughter of a Kohen, this young lady kicked the Temple Altar and shouted at it, "Wolf, wolf! For how long will you consume the Jews’ money but not stand by them in their poverty?” Miriam’s entire family was punished for this outburst. Abaye explains why: a child's words are invariably opinions that have been repeated from what has been heard at home.

Keeping in with the crowd, even at a distance

Hillel the Elder teaches (Avot 2:5) that a person should not separate himself from the tzibbur (usually translated as "community" or "congregation"). This is usually understood in physical terms. There is however another dimension to it.

Even if one is quite detached from one’s fellow Jews in both physical and communal terms, one can still be at one with them. The template of the thrice-daily Amidah prayer couches the words of each blessing in the plural, irrespective of whether it is an acknowledgement of God’s existence and His qualities, an expression of gratitude for His kindness, a plea for forgiveness, or a request for the provision of something necessary that is lacking in one’s life. Correlative to this is the need for every Jew who launches into his Amidah to be conscious of the fact that he is only an individual, a small part of a greater entity. 

When we pray for good health, for sustenance, for justice, peace or anything else that is encoded into the Amidah, our thoughts should therefore be united with others, our brethren who have the same human needs and requirements. To pray only for one’s own health, or only that of one’s family, but not empathize with the needs of others, is effectively to separate oneself from the tzibbur. This point is stressed by Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (Alei Shur, sha’ar 3: Tefillat Shemonah Esrei, at p 378, where he cites Rabbi Yisrael Salanter as the source of this idea in general terms but makes no reference to this mishnah).

What does “be exiled” mean?

Rabbi Nehorai (Avot 4:18) taught: "Be exiled to a place of Torah; don't say that it will follow you, because your colleagues will help you retain it, so don't rely on your own understanding". Anyone who reads this mishnah might assume that its addressee is someone who is already in a place where Torah is being learned and that its message is this: “if you have to leave the place where you are engaged in Torah study, you should make sure that your destination is also a place where you can pursue the same activity—a place where Torah is studied, where its precepts are respected and kept".  The text of the Mishnah is however phrased as an imperative: “Be exiled!” In the second volume of his work Elef HaMagen Rabbi Eliezer Papo (a.k.a. the “Pele Yo’etz”) takes this to mean that you should move to such a place in order to learn Torah even if it means exiling yourself and traveling far away.

There is however no need to take the concept of exile as a physical reality; it can also be a metaphor. “Be exiled” is an imperative, an order to a person to leave the comfort zone of his learning and stretch his mind, taking it beyond the same familiar areas of study. Why, for example, spend another year just going through “Chumash with Rashi", when you can try out another commentator for a change? Why not sign up for a daf yomi learning programme that takes you to the outer reaches of the Babylonian Talmud instead of just learning the most popular bits? Why not change your brand of mussar (moral chastisement) for a while and see if it changes you? 

The mishnah also contains a caveat. If you do venture beyond your comfort zone, don’t think you can do it all by yourself. You may find that you are in difficult and uncharted learning terrain. Nachmanides’ commentary on the Chumash is written in the same Hebrew as Rashi’s, but his conceptual vocabulary is quite different, as is his methodology, and tractates of the Babylonian Talmud may be incomprehensible when they are built on the structure of mishnayot with which you are unfamiliar. Take a friend with you in your exile, keep a chavruta alive in this zone of unfamiliarity, and then you will have a better chance of surviving in your new environment—and even of thriving.

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 December 2020:

Sunday 27 December 2020: Rabbi Akiva, free will and God's foresight again: a mishnah for the month of Elul. Here's an imaginative and fanciful approach to one of the most puzzling and enigmatic mishnayot in Avot, Rabbi Akiva's teaching at 3:19.

Friday 18 December 2020: A Rabbi? Not Quite? Distinguished theologian, scholar and commentator on Avot R. Travers Herford is many things -- but is he really a rabbi?

Friday 18 December 2020: Rabbi Akiva, free will and God's foresight: Avot 3:19 is a difficult mishnah as it stands. It can however be read together with Avot 1:18, with interesting results.

Monday 14 December 2020: Time and Tithe. Is it possible to tithe one's time?

Friday 11 December 2020:  Epispasm: No Great Disguise. Some thoughts on circumcision and attempts to conceal it -- a pointless exercise if one considers how many people seem to be able to identify Jews as such even when they are fully clothed.

Monday 9 December 2020: Competition Among Sages: Where is it? Pirkei Avot is cited as the source for the proposition that competition among Sages promotes wisdom -- but which mishnah might furnish that source?

Sunday 6 December 2020: "Stolen" Torah: more on Shammai and making Torah "fixed". An apparently outrageous chasidic interpretation of Shammai's teaching on making one's Torah "fixed" is based on quite firm premises. 

Thursday 3 December 2020: Shammai and the Three Pillars on which the World stands: Two mishnayot with a motif of "three things" appear to complement one another.

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Avot Today blogposts for November 2020 here

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