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