Truth and putting people right

Truth is one of the three things that keeps the world going (Avot 1:18). It should surprise no-one then that one of the seven signs of the chacham, the wise person) that distinguishes him from the golem (an uncultured, ignorant or immature person) is the ability to acknowledge the truth (Avot 5:9). In other words, when you are in the wrong you should concede that you are in the wrong. But this is not the only situation in which error occurs. For example, if someone else says something that is palpably wrong, are you either allowed or obliged to put that person right?

Putting others right would appear to be the right and proper thing to do when learning or teaching Torah. This is because Avot 6:6 lists "setting others on the course of truth" as one of the 48 things through which Torah wisdom is acquired. When you put someone else right you have the comfort of knowing that only a person who learns from everyone can truly be called "wise" (Avot 4:1). However, one must be careful how one does this, because it can be embarrassing to be corrected in public and embarrassing another publicly can have the most serious of consequences (Avot 3:15). 

Creative quarantine and Avot as art

"Confined to ‘creative quarantine,’ artists transform rabbinic wisdom into art", an article by Jessica Steinberg (Times of Israel, 31 March 2021), writes of an unusual art event that was based on Pirkei Avot. In relevant part it reads as follows:

Jerusalem gallery Kol HaOt challenged 48 artists of all stripes to create new artwork while sequestered for 48 hours in their formerly bereft space

Many went into quarantine over the last year thinking they would use the time to finally finish that novel or artistic project they had been putting off for years, but then wound up binge-watching Netflix instead.

At Jerusalem art gallery Kol HaOt, that concept (without the Netflix) was recently pared down into an intensive 48-hour challenge to produce pieces of art while sequestered away in “creative quarantine.”

The two-day seclusion brought 48 different artists over the last three months to the gallery and interactive Jewish educational art center, located in the Hutzot Hayotzer alleyway of artists’ galleries facing the Old City walls.

Each chosen artist had 48 hours locked away in the gallery to create an artwork responding to one of 48 teachings from Pirkei Avot, known as Ethics of the Fathers, a compilation of Jewish teachings from rabbinic Judaism. Artists were only allowed to leave to eat or sleep....

Kol HaOt, which always connects art and Judaism in its exhibits and educational experiences, utilized Pirkei Avot’s 48 pathways to wisdom, a passage in the Mishnah [it's actually a Baraita in the sixth perek that lists 48 "things" through which Torah is acquired] which lists 48 ways of “acquiring” Torah knowledge.

“It’s a very universal list, things like, you have to be loving, you have to make room for friends, don’t do things in the common way, do stuff with awe and sacredness,” said [the curator, Eli] Kaplan-Wildmann. ...

This is certainly a novel and imaginative way to bring Avot into the lives of artists and their addressees. An example, by Michelle Brint, features above. Can you work out which of the 48 "things" she is depicting?

Keeping cool, Avot-style

The theme of "Community Voices: Be Cool" by Rabbi Robert Kravitz, posted on City Sun Times, 22 March 2021, is not hard to guess. We live in what he describes as "panic mode."  He adds:

All around are internecine fights, arguments, challenges to authority, revolutions, overthrows, melting glaciers, wildland fires, demagogues and more. All heat, seldom light. ... When two sticks are scraped against one another rapidly, heat and even fire is produced. When two angry individuals argue violently, again heat erupts, and sometimes violence. Molten lava flows and destroys everything in its path. So too with words that emanate from enraged individuals. And speech, with all of today’s volatile verbiage, often yields violent actions.

After asking, "What is the possibility of cooling the temperature, of lowering the volatility, of calming the rage?", he states:

In the Talmud there is a section called Ethics of the Fathers, Pirke Avot in Hebrew. (Today, we would probably re-title it as Ethics of the Parents, or something similarly egalitarian.) In Avot we learn that anywhere where there is no one acting appropriately, it is our personal obligation to be the one to act appropriately, to do what is seemly [see below for reference to the mishnah and what it literally says]. Hence in this world of disorganization and turmoil, a planet melting from human violence and discord…we each have the obligation to cool it down, lower the heat, begin to rationally resolve the issues. Each of us has the personal opportunity — some would say the obligation — to be the one who makes the difference. To begin a process of reconciliation; to start to change the level of malevolence that is all around us.

To be the one who stands up and acts appropriately; to tie up the fraying ends of a world that is disintegrating; to be the individual who will promote facts and values that we as human beings must share. To finally commence ending the panic, dropping the temperature, and beginning to create light — not more heat — as we save ourselves and preserve our planet.

The mishnah in question is Avot 2:6, where Hillel teaches that, in a place where there are no men, one should strive to be a man. An alternative citation might have been the same Tanna's exhortation at Avot 1:12 to be like Aaron -- loving peace and pursuing it. 

"Derech yasharah" -- the road that leads to Israel

 In the mishnah that opens the second chapter of Avot, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi asks:

Which is the derech yasharah (the "right path") for a person to choose? 

He answers his own question thus:

Whatever is a tiferet for the one who does it, and a tiferet for one's fellow humans.

The word "tiferet" cannot be easily translated into English. Suggestions in published translations include that which is glorious, harmonious, creditable and so forth. However, this is only a description of the path a person should choose, not an indication of what that path actually is.

Since today is Yom Ha'Atzma'ut, Israel's Independence Day, it seems appropriate to cite the opinion of Rabbi Ben-Tzion Meir Chai Uziel (Israel's first Sefardi Chief Rabbi) in the ninth and final essay on Avot in his work Derashot Uziel.  There he recommends that the derech yasharah is for people to make aliyah, to come to Israel -- the world's only independent Jewish state. By living there a life based on respect for God and kindness towards others, they will gain self-respect as well as the respect of others. 

The flaming coals -- not so bad after all?

Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus teaches (in Avot 2:15):

Warm yourself by the fire of the sages, but be beware in case you are burned by its embers; for their bite is the bite of a fox, their sting is the sting of a scorpion, their venom (literally "hiss") is the venom of a snake, and all their words are like flaming coals.

If the only point of this teaching is that the words of Torah sages can inflict pain, that point is established once they are likened to the fox’s bite, the snake’s venom and the scorpion’s sting—each one of which alone should be quite sufficient to deter anyone who might be thinking of tangling with a talmid chacham. Rabbi Eliezer could then have stopped after listing these three deterrents. Why then might he need to add the apparently unnecessary line about the sages’ words being “flaming coals”?

I have not found the following explanation in any earlier commentary, but in terms of moral guidance (mussar) it may have something to commend it. While fire has the capacity not only to burn but to inflict unbearable pain on anyone it touches, it has another quite different function. Fire also purifies. In the Torah (Numbers 21:23) we are taught, regarding the purification of vessels captured from the Midianites, that “everything that can withstand fire, you shall pass it through fire and it will be pure.”  The same process is used even today for purging household utensils that have been used for preparing and serving leavened food products so that they may be used on the Festival of Passover when only unleavened food may be consumed (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 451).  Bearing this in mind, we can provide an extra justification to the reference to flaming coals: while the words of the chachamim may be painful in an extreme, if they are understood and accepted by the person to whom they are addressed they will ultimately have the effect of refining and improving that person.

March in April: a new book on Avot

Published last week on Amazon is a new book on Pirkei Avot, authored by Martin March. It's Who Were the Fathers? A Guide to the Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) From a Historical Perspective. I've not yet had a chance to get my hands on it, but it's on sale via Amazon here. Details on the Amazon page run like this:

Martin March has written this book for those who wish to be exposed to one of those facets that most of the popular commentaries to Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) fail to explore in any detail, namely the historical settings against which the individual comments of its mishnayot were set, and the religious, political, and social circumstances that gave rise to those comments. In his book, the author has given us this much needed background as his notes on their biographies open a window onto their ideologies. It is replete with historical insights that will reveal new meaning to each mishnah and brings to life aspects of the fascinating, formative and turbulent period in which the Mishnaic Sages lived. Both the novice and the veteran student will find much in the work to benefit them, and aid them in a deeper understanding and greater appreciation of the times and the words of our fathers and teachers. This truly is a concise, accessible and compelling guide to the great sayings of our Sages, mishnah by mishnah.

Martin March was born in London, UK, and obtained his M.A. at Jews’ College, London. He has been an eternal Torah student and a popular teacher for over 65 years known, both in schools and synagogues, for the depth and lucidity of his Tanach shiurim, and for his critical analysis of our traditional texts and sources. He made aliya, with his wife, in 2015, and now lives in Jerusalem where he continues to give weekly shiurim.

I understand that there will be book launches in Jerusalem in the near future and I shall provide details as and when I get them, for any reader who might wish to attend.

"If I Am Not For Me": the Possible and the Plausible

Students of the Written Torah are often confronted by “documentary” approaches to their texts. They are not alone. Those who study the Torah sheb’al peh (the so-called Oral Torah) face them too. This is because, though in Jewish tradition the Torah sheb’al peh was passed through the generations—in some cases from the Giving of the Law at Sinai itself—our only evidence of it today consists of recorded versions in manuscript or print format. Though we learn that some Tannaim kept their own written notes on the Oral Law, none are extant and even the earliest written versions of the oral tradition were made many centuries after the redaction of the Mishnah in around 180-200 CE.

The first perek of Tractate Avot features a case in point.  Hillel the Elder famously teaches (in Avot 1:14) “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” While there is no consensus as to what Hillel actually meant by these words, until the last century there was no doubt that this was what he taught. This consensus was breached in 1940 by Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein in the commentary on Avot contained in his Baruch She’Amar. 

Rabbi Epstein was troubled by the word “I”, since Hillel uses the same word in a troublesome context in Tractate Sukkah (53a) where he teaches, in the context of the Simchat Bet HaSho’evah celebration, “If I am here, everyone is here, but if I am not here, who is here?” Taken literally, these words seem surprisingly conceited when spoken by the humble Hillel, and it is difficult to extract from them any sort of take-home message for the Talmud student.

The solution, suggests Rabbi Epstein, lies in the Hebrew letters aleph-nun-yud that constitute the word ani (“I”).  Within the technique of writing Hebrew texts, it has long been usual to abbreviate words by leaving out one or more letters. After giving several examples of words that were sometimes foreshortened, Rabbi Epstein explains that ani is actually a short form of a name of God (aleph-dalet-nun-yud). Accordingly, what Hillel is really saying is not “If I am not for me, who will be for me?” but “If God is not for me, who will be for me?”  This explanation also removes the need for a literal understanding Hillel’s quote from Sukkah and even ennobles it: “If God is here, everyone is here, but if God is not here, who is here?”

Even though none of the examples cited by Rabbi Epstein concern the name aleph-daled-nun-yud, his explanation of the mishnah in Avot is an appealing one and has been endorsed in Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau’s Yachel Yisrael. Are we however obliged to accept it?

If Hillel’s ani was originally God’s name, the scribes would have known that this was so. They would all have had to make the same conscious decision to abbreviate aleph-dalet-nun-yud as aleph-nun-yud. Then, even though this teaching is part of the Oral Law, transmitted through the generations by word of mouth, Hillel’s original teaching would have had to be lost or forgotten by entire generation of Torah scholars. Eventually, someone would have found this teaching and, having never heard it recited orally, would have had to forget that God’s name was sometimes abbreviated by leaving out the letter dalet. When compiling the tractate of Avot, Hillel’s direct descendant Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi—who seems otherwise to have a large degree of familiarity with his famous ancestor’s teachings—would then have had to accept the new teaching at face value, incorporating it into Avot with ani and not the name of God, and presumably not even suspecting that Hillel might have been referring to the deity.

This chain of events is possible. We must however decide for ourselves if it is also plausible.

The Fantastic Mister Jackal, or "Let sleeping foxes lie"

Foxes feature prominently in two mishnayot in Avot. In Avot 2:15 Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus warns against getting over-familiar with the Chachamim since (among other things) their bite is like the bite of a fox. Later, in Avot 4:20, Rabbi Masya ben Charash teaches that it is better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a fox. 

The meaning of each mishnah is quite easy to accept at face value. In the first, we are warned to expect a sharp, snappy response from a learned rabbi if we speak with him in a manner that is less than respectful. In the second, we understand that it is better to be even an insignificant part of a noble enterprise than to lead a crafty, perhaps disreputable one. Foxes, after all, bite and are cunning. 

Professor Yehuda Felix however puts the metaphorical cat among the pigeons when he argues (HaChai BaMishnah, 1972, cited by Avigdor Shinan, Pirush Yisraeli Chadash at Avot 4:20) that the word shu'al -- normally translated as "fox" -- in mishnaic times referred to the jackal. While both are members of the canine family, the jackal is larger, carries a far more powerful bite that can deliver rabies, and was found widely in the area in the era of the Mishnah and Talmud. 

It has been accepted for close on two thousand years that "fox" means "fox" and not "jackal". While the jackal would fit well in Rabbi Eliezer's mishnah, he is not a byword for cunning and would therefore seem somewhat out of place in Rabbi Masya's mishnah.  Maybe it is best to let sleeping foxes lie ... 

Are politicians immune from good behaviour?

In "Israel Elections: Why I may not vote this time", a Jerusalem Post opinion piece by Walter Bingham that was penned a few days before last week's General Election, the author cites the imprecation in Avot that one should not embarrass other people in public (Avot 3:15, per Rabbi Elazar HaModa'i) and then contrasts this principle with the behaviour of some of Israel's leading political figures. This itself raises an interesting question: does this principle apply at all to things said by, or about, politicians?

When it comes to rules of law, politicians are both governed and protected to the same extent as anyone else. Thus the laws relating to theft, murder, etc are applied equally to all. However, behavioural standards (middot) are a different matter. Role models such as rabbis and Torah scholars, parents and community leaders are expected to demonstrate a higher level of conduct than others. But what of politicians?

Avot clearly expects little of the politician. People are urged to avoid them because they are motivated by self-interest (Avot 2:3) and not even to make themselves known to them (Avot 1:10). If, like many politicians, they interrupt others and don't give a straight answer to a question, they are deemed to be golems (Avot 5:9).

Do we say that contemporary politicians live in a little bubble in which they are immune to insult and are therefore to dish it out to others, or do we say that politicians' behaviour demonstrates little other than their own unsuitability to hold office on account of their inability to control themselves and to respect others? The latter, I suspect.

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 March 2021:

Sunday 28 March 2021: Mending our broken places -- a never-ending task: Rabbi Tarfon's famous dictum about the job that we can neither resign from nor complete gets a neat make-over. 

Monday 22 March 2021: All the World's a Radio! What do Shimon HaTzaddik's trilogy of Torah, acts of kindness and service to God have to do with turning on the radio, dialling in and turning up the volume?

Sunday 14 March 2021: Hillel's Policy: Keep it Simple: It's important to match an answer to a small child's question so as not to confuse him with more information than he needs.

Wednesday 10 March 2021: "Love truth and peace": some Avot thoughts from a gentle rabbi:  Another second-hand bookshop "find" -- this time a set of derashot by Rabbi Ben Zion Meir Chai Uziel.

Sunday 7 March 2021: Spelling out the Praise: When Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai enumerates the praises of his five star talmidim in Avot 2:11, why does the mishnah have to say he is praising them? Is it not obvious?

Thursday 4 March 2021: When Good News Travels Slowly: Rabbi Yaacov Haber's Lev Avot was published back in 2007 -- but this informative account of the mishnayot of the first three perakim, viewed in the context of their Tannaic authors, has only just come into this blogger's hands.

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Avot Today blogposts for February 2021 here

Avot Today blogposts for January 2021 here

Avot Today blogposts for December 2020 here

Avot Today blogposts for November 2020 here

Avot Today blogposts for October 2020 here

Avot Today blogposts for September 2020 here