A thought for the Winterval

2021 is at last getting an upgrade, its final numeral rising from 1 to 2. In one sense this transition is just the arbitrary replacement of one digit with another, but we humans tend to vest such changes with significance. Often this is because they represent a fresh start, the chance to put a segment of one's life behind one and start afresh. In many countries the year-end, combined with religious and secular festivities, provides an extended period for partying and relaxing -- but also for reflection, introspection and the making of resolutions that can serve as a basis for self-improvement over the coming year.

Rabbinical tradition marks this as down-time for Pirkei Avot, which is traditionally not studied in the winter months. Many have given the same explanation for resuming the study of Avot in the spring, after the festival of Pesach: this is the time of year when sap rises not only in the season's new plant growth but also in human beings. This means that lustful inclinations are stirred. The measured messages of Pirkei Avot are however taken to be the ideal antidote to the seasonal surge of the yetzer hara ("evil inclination"). Popular sages who have subscribed to this explanation include Rabbis Shmuel de Uçeda (Midrash Shmuel), Yitzchak Magriso (Me'am Lo'ez) and, in more recent times, Ovadyah Yosef.

The notion of spring being associated with an increased interest in the pursuit of pleasures of the flesh is not new; nor is it confined to Jewish tradition. In secular culture it has long been marked in song, in verse, in the performing arts and beyond. It is, in short, a fact of life, something that is the product of biological programming that cannot be amended -- though it can be controlled and constructively channelled by those who wish to do so.

Here's a point to ponder. In the olden days, the activities and urges of the springtime were, broadly speaking, confined to three months of the year. However, it is impossible to avoid the observation that spring now lasts a full 12 months of each year. In terms of human behaviour, we have an undoubted example of "climate change".

If, centuries ago, it was possible for anyone to absorb enough mussar (moral guidance) to last them a whole year by waiting till spring before studying Pirkei Avot, it is surely no longer so. But there is an obvious solution. Don't wait till Pesach before resuming the study of Pirkei Avot! Make a new year's resolution to start right now. And don't stop when you get to the autumn either since, it now appears, our sap is rising then too: autumn is the new spring.

To end on a cheerful note, I'd like to wish all readers of the Avot Today weblog a happy and prosperous (secular) new year! And don't forget to keep your Pirkei Avot by you. You never know when it's going to come in handy!

"A name made great...": some notes on Avot and celebrity failure

The following is a short review of some of the provisions of Pirkei Avot that are relevant to the Chaim Walder affair and other instances of well-known personalities whose reputations have been tarnished. It does not seek to condemn or to condone.

Until recently, Chaim Walder was almost universally regarded as the epitome of a good Jew: caring, compassionate, learned and religiously committed, his books sold in the tens of thousands. Now he is dead, having apparently taken his own life, and will not face trial for any of the many accusations involving sexual abuse that have mounted against him. The need for probity and integrity among Jewish role models, and the need to call offenders to account for their crimes, are issues that demand action from both the Jewish community and society at large. But what can we learn about these issues when we examine them from the point of Pirkei Avot? Let us briefly mention some of the more obvious points.

A name made great is a name destroyed (Avot 1:13)

Sadly sexual abuse, breach of trust and manipulation of positions of power and responsibility are evident today in society at large. The media inform us of teachers, employers, social workers, law enforcement officers and sports trainers who are accused, charged and more often than not convicted of activities such as those of which Chaim Walder was accused. From the perspective of the victim, the suffering and the consequences may be the same, but most perpetrators are relatively anonymous and suffer no loss of reputation. The greater the fame of the accused, the greater the embarrassment and the greater the loss.

The degree of loss suffered by a reputation is however not consistent. Thus Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s name is still spoken of by many with warmth and affection, notwithstanding the allegations made against him. His tunes are still regularly sung in many synagogues, while Chaim Walder’s books are fast becoming unacceptable. The two cases can be contrasted, though: Carlebach was not accused of abusing children, and the accusations mounted after his death rather than during his lifetime.  It also seems that sex-related claims damage a reputation more than other sorts of claim. Thus Roald Dahl’s books can be found in many Jewish households today even though he was an acknowledged antisemite, and the reputation of that complicated character Robert Maxwell was by no means destroyed by revelations of his fraudulent financial conduct.

Some names appear to be harder to destroy than others. Convictions for both sex offences and fraud, for example, have not lessened the loyalty and admiration of followers of Rabbi Eliezer Berland. Likewise, Rabbi Aryeh Deri’s conviction for bribery, fraud and breach of trust did not bring an end to his political career. The bringing of similar charges against former Prime Minister BinyaminNetanyahu may have intensified criticism among those who already opposed him but his popularity remains more or less unabated.

To avoid sin, remember that everything a person says and does is noted and recorded Above (Avot 2:1)

A religious Jew should bear in mind that he cannot avoid being observed by an omniscient and all-seeing God. It is therefore hard to regard anyone who imagines they can hide from God as being a sincerely religious person. If a person wouldn’t commit a crime in front of a human audience, why should they think it is preferable to commit it before a divine one?

To avoid sin, remember that everyone must give an account of himself before God (Avot 3:1)

Before engaging in any wrongful activity, a helpful exercise is to construct an imaginary dialogue in which a person seeks to explain to God why he or she has, for example, sexually abused a child. That should be capable of stopping a would-be offender from going further.

Whoever desecrates the name of Heaven in private – they will punish him in public (Avot 4:5)

The threat of being publicly shamed may be a greater deterrent than that of receiving Heavenly punishment – or even of being tried in a terrestrial court. Not just Chaim Walder but Jeffrey Epstein and Robert Maxwell ended their lives before the process of public humiliation was allowed to complete its course, and Zaka’s founder Yehuda Meshi Zahav came close to taking his life too.

Death provides no escape from final judgment (Avot 4:29)

The course of taking one’s own life is futile, Avot explains: the yetzer hara (evil inclination) entices a person to end it all and thereby flee from retribution. In reality, far from escaping it, one brings it about more speedily for the obvious reason that, the sooner a person dies, the sooner he will be made to give an account of himself before God.

We should not judge others until we are standing in their place (Avot 2:5) and, when we do judge them, we should seek to judge them favourably (Avot 1:6)

These two maxims are hard to apply at the best of times, and particularly difficult to put into practice for two reasons. First, we receive so much information from the news and social media, and it is bound to affect our assessment of the legal liability and moral culpability of a fallen celebrity. Secondly, it is so much easier – and more painful – to identify and empathise with a victim or the victim’s family than to put oneself in the position of a perpetrator of actions that one cannot imagine oneself committing.  The difficulty of applying these maxims does not mean that we can ignore them, but they do remind us that, at first instance, liability should be established by due legal process and that the ultimate outcome lies in the hands of God, who knows the thoughts and feelings of people whom we do not understand.

Beloved is man, for he is made in God’s image (Avot 3:18)

Avot reminds us that we all have something of the divine in us and it is therefore incumbent on each and every human to accord an appropriate degree of respect to fellow humans. This works in several different directions. For example, the complaints and the suffering of actual and alleged victims should be treated with understanding and sympathy; their physical and psychological needs must be met even where a perpetrator is no longer alive. It also means that those bereaved through the loss of someone whose reputation is destroyed are entitled to be comforted and assisted through their own time of difficulty, and that those who seek to comfort them should not be called out and criticised for endorsing criminal activity by doing so. When famous and respected personalities go astray and damage others in the process, we are all the losers and, as human beings, we are all obliged to do what we can to minimise the damage and prevent its repetition.

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 There is much more that can be said on the relevance of Avot here, and readers are invited to offer their own thoughts and comments.

A place at last

Yesterday morning I spent a pleasant hour participating in the Temple Mount Sifting Project. This, the largest crowdsourced archaeological event in the world, is a trawl of some 400 truckloads of rubble that were removed from Jerusalem's Temple Mount in 1999 and dumped in the Kidron valley.

Some 9,000 tons of excavations have been reclaimed from the Kidron valley and, since 2004, volunteers have been slowly sifting through them in search of evidence of the Temple Mount's long and varied history. Many hundreds of thousands of items have been unearthed so far: coins, pottery, glass, metal artefacts, stone items of non-local origin, bones and tesserae (small cubes of ceramic or other material, used in the manufacture of mosaics).

The items found so far extend back as far as the era of the First Temple, reflecting Jewish, Islamic and Christian cultures.

Trying to find them is no easy matter for volunteers, and even experienced sifters can find it hard to identify what they have found, which is why many of the finds are sent to specialist laboratories for forensic examination. Pairs of volunteers are given a small bucket-load of what looks like mud, which they sift through by hand. Fragments of each "find" may be tiny and, unless they are sprayed with water, quite unrecognisable.

What does any of this have to do with Pirkei Avot, you may be wondering? A great deal, I believe. In mishnah 4:3 Ben Azzai teaches:

"Do not be scornful of any person and do not be dismissive of any thing, since there is no person who does not have his hour and no thing that does not have its place".

The myriad of items unearthed from the Temple Mount are not treasures that were deliberately buried for safekeeping on account of their value. They consist in the main of shards of pottery and glassware, small coins that may simply have slipped from their owners' grasp, bones left over from sacrifices, chunks of broken plaster and masonry and a variety of odds and ends. In aggregate they were no more than landfill. But now, carefully examined and, in the case of some mosaics, patiently reconstituted, they have great historical value for us. They have found their place at last.

Lawgiver takes law into his own hands: what does Avot say?

The Torah reading for this week's Jewish sabbath begins the book of Exodus (Shemot). The first few chapters introduce Israel's slavery in Egypt and briefly describe the formative years of Moses -- the leader and lawgiver whose story runs through to the end of the Jewish bible.

One event in this week's reading has continued to attract discussion for two millennia or more. It is Moses' departure from Pharaoh's household in search of his brethren, swiftly followed in the Torah narrative by the killing of an Egyptian man who was beating a Jew (Exodus 2:11-12).

Nehama Leibowitz ("Moses seeks out his brethren", Studies in Shemot: Exodus, 1981) observes that this is the first of three instances at the beginning of Exodus in which Moses intervenes to protect a victim from an aggressor. She comments that they reflect on Moses' character as a champion of the cause of justice. Here Moses comes to the aid of a Jew against a non-Jew. He later intervenes in a fight between two Jews (Ex. 2:13) and then, when Jethro's daughters get into difficulties with Midianite shepherds (Ex. 2:17), he takes the cause of one non-Jew against another.

In the Bible's account of Moses killing of the Egyptian, we learn that "He looked this way and that way" and did not strike the fatal blow until "he saw that there was no man..." What does this mean?

Taken literally, the Torah's words suggest that, since Moses did not wish to be seen killing the man, he looked both ways to make sure that there was no witness. For example Rabbi Yaakov Zvi Mecklenburg (HaKetav veHakabalah, 1839) thinks not. Rather, Moses was looking to see if there was any real man among the Jews who was prepared to stand up for the underdog -- but he saw no such person. The Netziv (Ha'Amek Davar) fastens on to Moses' penchant for due process under the law: he looked in vain to see if there was anyone to whom he could appeal for legal protection.

In here review, Nehama Leibowitz cites Rabbi Ze'ev Wolf Einhorn (the Maharzav), who focuses on the teaching of Hillel in Pirkei Avot 2:6 that, "in a place where there is no man, strive to be one", which he interprets in light of similar terminology in Isaiah 59:15-16 ("The Lord looked round ... He saw that there was no man ... so His own arm brought them victory").

The idea of taking the initiative, acting decisively when no-one else is available, able or willing to do so, can certainly be found in Hillel's words. We may however wonder if this was the meaning that Hillel intended them to have. This is because he spoke these words within a longer mishnah that addresses fear of God, piety and the ability to learn and teach Torah. Another point to ponder is whether we would even need a mishnah to teach us the imperative importance of decisive action, when an episode in the Torah -- Pinchas' killing of Zimri and Cozbi (Numbers 25:6-16) -- has taught us this already.

Thoughts, anyone?

Weighed in the balance

In Avot 2:11 Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai praises the different qualities of his five top talmidim. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus is the "sealed cistern" who retains his vast corpus of learning, while Rabbi Elazar ben Arach is the "irrepressible spring" from which fresh Torah continues to gush. Which of these rabbis is the greater scholar?

According to Avot 2:12:

He [i.e. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai] used to say, “If all the wise men of Israel were on one side of the scales and Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was on the other side, he would outweigh them all.”

Abba Sha’ul says in his name, “If all the wise men of Israel were on one side of the scales, and Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was with them too, but Elazar ben Arach was on the other side, he would outweigh them all.”

How might we account for this apparent discrepancy between Rabban Yochanan’s words as cited by him with those quoted by his contemporary, Abba Sha’ul? There are several possible explanations. For example, it could be that

1. The original version is correct and Abba Sha’ul’s is not;

2. The original version is wrong and Abba Sha’ul’s is right;

3. A muddle has arisen on account of the similarity of the frequently-confused names of Eliezer and Elazar, with Abba Sha’ul seeking to clarify that it was Rabbi Elazar and not Rabbi Eliezer upon whom Rabban Yochanan wished to confer the accolade;

4. Both versions were correct at the time when they were spoken: Abba Sha’ul records the fact that, while Rabbi Yochanan initially held Rabbi Eliezer in higher regard than Rabbi Elazar, he subsequently changed his mind;

5. Both versions were correct at the time when they were spoken: the first statement was made before Rabbi Elazar appeared on the scene, but later revised in order to take his learning into account;

6. The first version was intended for public consumption, while the second was intended for the ears of Abba Sha’ul alone;

7. Both versions are correct: Rabban Yochanan however said them in different circumstances and they relate to different qualities possessed by Rabbis Eliezer and Elazar.

Given that both statements have been collated in Avot and passed down faithfully for getting on for two millennia, it is suggested that the correct approach to them should be to seek to validate and reconcile them both, if that is possible. In evaluating the possibility of a reconciliation, we should also recognize that, while argument and dispute are the life-blood of the Oral Torah, it is not normally the way of the Mishnah for any Tanna to seek to embarrass or overtly contradict another. Appreciating that the reputations of Rabban Yochanan, Abba Sha’ul, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Elazar are at stake, we should not be quick to assume that Abba Sha’ul was either correcting Rabban Yochanan or trying to catch him out—or indeed that the praise of Rabbi Eliezer was given at the expense of Rabbi Elazar, or vice versa.

Seeking a positive reconciliation of the two statements, Rabbi Ovadyah Sforno points to a dispute in the Talmud (
Berachot 64a, Horayot 14a) over whether it is better to be “Sinai”—the mountain on which the Torah was given to Israel—or “one who uproots mountains.” Here “Sinai” is a shorthand expression for a person who possesses a vast and all-encompassing database of Torah knowledge, while the “uprooter of mountains” is the master of dialectics who, with that database at hand, can deduce fresh rules and correctly apply them.

Rabbi Eliezer, the cemented cistern that retains everything, would appear to be the epitome of “Sinai,” while the irrepressible spring symbolizes the spontaneous application of reasoning techniques by Rabbi Elazar.

Before any Torah can be taught and transmitted, “Sinai” is preferable since it is impossible to derive fresh concepts from earlier ones if that earlier, necessary knowledge is unavailable. However, once that necessary Torah data is supplied, the “uprooter of mountains” comes into his own since he can raise our understanding of Torah to new heights. In other words, in terms of raw Torah data, Rabbi Eliezer outweighs the rest, while Rabbi Elazar tips the balance when it comes to deductive prowess. Which takes precedence? We rule in favour of the Tanna Kama of Rabban Yochanan against Abba Sha’ul (see discussion of Maharam Shik on this point).

The idea that, without Torah, there is no basis for reasoning but, without reasoning, there is no functional utility in learning Torah, is echoed by a metaphor in a later Mishnah (“… if there is no flour, there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour”: Avot 3:21). Torah is the wheat, as it were, which is only made digestible when it is ground into flour—but without Torah there is no intellectual grist for the mill.

Keeping honour at a distance

Avot 6:6 has a hit-list of criteria that have to be met by anyone who seeks to acquire knowledge of the Torah. There are theoretically 48 such criteria, of which one is to distance oneself from kavod.

Kavod, loosely translated as “honour”, is extensively discussed in Avot -- both in its positive and its negative aspects. But what is its connection to an individual's ability to acquire Torah.

If nothing else, the quest for kavod can be a major distraction. The urge to be honoured can be almost overwhelming, both in the case of those who actually deserve it and for those who believe they do. However, it's not all bad: even if one shouldn't seek it for oneself, it can be a wonderful thing to give to other people.

Apart from unanimously cautioning that honour and the quest for it is dangerous, what else do our Sages say about kavod and the need to keep away from it? Most commentators on Avot have little or nothing to say, since the meaning of this criterion is self-evident. Nevertheless, some later rabbis have added to it. Here are some perspectives.

• Someone who should by now have learned much Torah but hasn’t should not let his sense of lack of kavod distance him from going to the Bet Midrash (House of Study) to carry on learning (Rabbi Chanoch Zundel ben Yosef, Anaf Avot).
• It is best practice to keep kavod distant even when one has earned it and is receiving it from others but to be careful about not making a show of distancing oneself from it in order to flaunt one’s humility (Rabbi Yosef Yavetz).
• On the theme of literally keeping one's distance, one should take a detour rather than walk past people who are sitting down but would have to stand up respectfully if a much honoured person were to pass them (Rabbi Shmuel de Uçeda, Midrash Shmuel).

One aspect of kavod that the commentaries tend not to discuss is the actual process by which a Torah scholar seeks to obtain it.

It is taken as axiomatic that, if you chase after honour, it runs away from you but, if you run away from it – a policy in line with this teaching in Avot – it will seek you out. That however is the theory. In practice there is a blatant asymmetry: while everyone should flee from honour, honour does not run after everyone. In the real world we see for ourselves that honour runs after very few people indeed, and even then it rarely runs, or even breaks into a leisurely trot. Honour often plods after those who deserve it at a snail’s pace, reaching them many years after they have deserved it and sometimes long after they have already died.

But that's not all. Even when honour arrives, it may be the wrong sort of honour: it may be bestowed by someone whose opinion doesn’t count for much. Being honoured by someone you don’t have much respect for may feel almost as bad as not being honoured at all.

A Torah-true student will not fret about whether honour chases after him since that is not why he learns Torah. His glory-seeking colleague will however go through paroxysms of angst, asking himself questions such as: “how can I tell people I deserve honour without actually telling them?” “what means can I deploy to make sure that people notice me when I’m doing all the things I should be honoured for?” and “why am I still not being honoured when I am no worse than others who are?” All of this can be highly distracting for a person who is supposed to be focusing on accumulation of Torah understanding and not seeking honour -- and it will do little to foster the respect he has for others.

Not chasing after honour but keeping it at a respectable distance is not just a message for Torah students. In the secular world we have seen countless instances of people buying, or seeking to buy, medals, titles and positions of power and influence so that others will honour them. Even if they succeed in their acquisition, can they look themselves in the mirror and truly respect themselves.

Testing God: a national pastime?

An anonymous mishnah in the fifth chapter of Avot draws our attention to the propensity of the Jewish people to test their Creator. In translation, Avot 5:6 reads as follows:

With ten tests our forefathers tested the Holy One, Blessed be He, in the wilderness, as it is stated [by God]: "They tested Me these ten times, and did not listen to My voice" (Numbers 14:22).

Many commentators on Avot have little to say about this mishnah, other than to identify and discuss the ten tests. A quasi-official list of God's desert tests appears in the Babylonian Talmud (Arachin 15a-b). Maimonides' list, which is somewhat different, is endorsed by two leading commentaries on the mishnah (Bartenura and Tosafot Yom Tov) but criticised by others (notable Rabbi Yaakov Emden). My feeling is that, while it is right to ask what these tests are, their identity is unimportant when it comes to understanding this mishnah, which addresses our tendency to test God. Let us look at this tendency a little more closely.

If we are honest with ourselves, we must concede that the generation of the wilderness, in testing God, complaining both to Him and about Him, was far from unique. The practice remains deeply ingrained in Jewish culture even today and, from our words and our conduct, it is clear that many of us now assume that God is no longer bothered about being tested. Much Jewish humour is also predicated upon the fact that we have a God to whom we can endlessly complain and who has become quite accustomed to our lack of gratitude for what He does for us.

We should however bear in mind that not just every complaint we make but every request we lodge in our prayers has the capacity to be taken as a criticism of the lot which God has apportioned to us. From a practical perspective it is therefore a good idea to make sure that, whatever one asks for, one always takes care to be grateful in the first place for that which one already has.

Why exactly do we test God? Since this is something we have always done and continue to do, the reason may be connected to our psychological and emotional make-up and may even have a positive side to it. Testing God and trying His patience is not something that anyone would trouble to do unless they believe in God in the first place, since it makes no sense for an atheist to test or provoke an entity which, he holds, does not exist. From this we can see that testing God is, if nothing else, an affirmation of our faith in Him.

Drawing on our own human experiences (we have all been children and many of us will also be parents), we should be able to recall without difficulty those occasions on which a small child, despite every warning, has defied a teacher’s or parent’s threat. Even the most normally obedient child will probably have crossed, on one or more occasion, a red line such as “If you poke your little sister with that stick once more, you’ll have to sit on the naughty step” or “The next person to call out in class without putting their hand up will be sent straight to the Head Teacher.” Sometimes, as often happens at school, the transgression is the product of unrestrained enthusiasm. Sometimes, as frequently transpires in the home scenario, it is simply because the child craves a reaction – any reaction – because it is a source of personal attention.

We are all created in the image of God, though we possess only feeble and finite versions of His qualities. What God does in capital letters, as it were, we do in small print. God tests us because He wants our response. We test Him because we desire His.

Illustration: Nicolas Poussin, "Aaron et les Israélites" (1633), National Gallery, London.

A Mishnah for all seasons? Avot's political guidance in the 21st century

This piece was commissioned for the Judaism Reclaimed Facebook Group, on which it was first posted. 

A notable feature of three parshiyot that conclude Sefer Bereshit is the interaction between the early Israelites and Egyptian officials. Starting with parashat Miketz we encounter Pharaoh, the Head Butler, Joseph’s steward and vice-regal civil servants. Joseph himself operates in a dual capacity: as viceroy of Egypt and a son of Jacob, he is the linchpin around which all the action takes place.

The Torah’s account of court dialogue in these parshiyot is generally polite and formal, as befits any interaction between a group of nomadic immigrants in search of food and favours and a regional superpower which does not appear to have anything to gain by granting Israel’s requests. Even when Yehudah pleads for the release of his captive brother Binyamin—which midrashim portray as a battle royal—he is careful to observe the proprieties of correct etiquette when addressing the viceroy.

Pirkei Avot has a good deal to say about how a Jew should view interactions with officialdom:

Initially, Avot teaches that caution is the watchword when it comes to dealing with public officials and politicians. Shemayah (Avot 1:10) advises us to keep a low profile and remain out of their sight if possible. Rabban Gamliel beRebbi explains why (Avot 2:3): such people are motivated by self-interest and, while they seek our support when they need it, they don’t support us at our time of need. Shemayah adds that one should not seek office oneself, a position supported by Nechunyah ben Hakanah (Avot 3:6) on the basis that it takes us away from learning (and by implication practising) Torah.

Having taken this position, the Tannaim concede that government is a necessary evil. We should therefore pray for its well-being since, without it, humans would swallow one another alive (per Rabbi Chanina segan HaKohanim, Avot 3:2). What’s more, where there is no-one coming forward who is fit to lead, Hillel urges us to stand up and take the initiative (Avot 2:6).

Whether we are in a position of power and responsibility ourselves, or have to deal with such people, we have to bear in mind a potentially relevant teaching of Rabbi Yishmael (Avot 3:16):

הֱוֵי קַל לְרֹאשׁ, וְנֽוֹחַ לְתִשְׁחֽוֹרֶת,

The first part of this teaching is, frustratingly, capable of bearing so many meanings that we have no idea what its author intended. Indeed, the 19th century German scholar Rabbi Marcus Lehmann gives four quite different explanations of it, based on four different but equally justifiable translations, while commentators as diverse as Rashi and the Chida also offer a selection of meanings.

I believe that this can be best explained to mean something along the lines of:

“Be respectfully submissive to someone in a position of authority and be polite to someone junior to yourself”.

 In other words, don’t take liberties with others and abuse your power over them, but don’t be cheeky and uncooperative to those who have authority over you. Both halves of this explanation are broadly supported by rabbinical authority, though I have not yet identified a single rabbi who endorses it specifically.

There is a lot of room for debate and discussion as to the applicability of the advice offered by Avot to relations between citizens and governments in today’s world. Pirkei Avot itself, as well as its classic accompanying commentaries, were largely authored by people living under hostile authoritarian governments, and this is likely to have coloured at least some of their advice.

Readers of this post living in modern Western political systems may relate differently to elected authorities which wield power over us supposedly in our name and for our notional benefit. Not only has the era of democratic government and human rights led to a more positive relationship between the government and the government, but the very nature of our interaction with officials has changed, and is now conducted through the impersonal medium of the internet which diminishes potential for personal conflict or confrontation. All of this leads to the question of how the advice of Pirkei Avot might have been presented had it written in today’s political settings.

Finally, it must be noted that Avot’s advice guiding the interactions between private citizens and the state was authored when the Jews were living at the mercy of an unsympathetic Roman governorship. How might this Mishnah’s advice apply to those living in the modern state of Israel?

How Judaism approaches pain and suffering

This piece, by Rabbi Shmuel Phillips, was first posted on his Judaism Reclaimed Facebook Group and shared with the Avot Today Facebook Group.

The hardest moments that any rabbi or religious figure have to deal with tend to relate to pain, grief and suffering of innocent people. Sometimes this can involve otherwise less-religious people who are trying to make some sort of sense of their devastating difficulties, but for many religious people too, witnessing such inexplicable suffering at close hand can present a significant challenge to their faith.

What range of responses does Judaism offer to people who find themselves in such an unfortunate situation – or to rabbis who are approached to advise them?

Perhaps the most important words of wisdom that Jewish tradition has for rabbis – and indeed anyone who finds themselves in a position of providing support – are taught in Pirkei Avot (4:23):

Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar said, do not appease your fellow at the time of his anger, do not console him at the time his dead lies before him…

A person’s profound suffering will sometimes express itself in the form of theological questions: “why is this happening?” “why is God doing this to me?”. Those numb with grief are unlikely to be genuinely seeking a deep philosophical response, and their minds are typically not settled enough to appreciate such a response anyway. At a particularly tragic shiva I attended a couple of years ago, the parents of the deceased stared blankly across the room – clearly uninterested in engaging any of the visitors in conversation. After what seemed like an interminable awkward silence, another family member told the gathered crowd that their very presence was providing support and comfort for the mourners – even if no words, conversation or advice were being sought.

While knowing when to remain silent and avoid theological discourses is certainly important, Judaism certainly does contain an interesting range of responses to why the innocent suffer. The closing section of Judaism Reclaimed’s chapter relating to parashat Vayeshev focuses primarily on Rambam’s approach to explaining human suffering in Moreh Nevuchim.

Rather than trying to explain and justify individual cases of suffering, Rambam seeks to provide a broader perspective on why an all-powerful perfect deity should have constructed a world which contains so much suffering and pain. His answer presents three primary categories of suffering experienced by humanity, all of which are necessary components of creation.

The first category is caused by the inevitable disintegration of all aspects of physicality. Only God and spiritual entities can be unchanging and eternal. Humanity’s purpose is to transcend mortal physicality, and for people to develop their souls in order to earn the eternity of the World to Come. Our physicality, indispensable to this fundamental purpose, automatically makes us subject both to mortality and to the illnesses generated by the process of decay, a natural consequence of the body’s temporal physical existence. Natural disasters are also included in this category, these being the inevitable result of the dynamic nature of the cycle of growth and decay which characterises the physical world.

According to this approach, God’s plan required a world which could operate by itself through perpetual, dynamic and self-regulating rules of nature. Humans, the sole bearers of the ‘tzelem Elokim’ divine intellect, possess the ability to transcend this mundane physicality by connecting to the metaphysical divine, thereby attracting hashgachah (divine providence) and the prospect of entering the World to Come.

[As an aside, Rambam’s proposition that illness and natural disasters are the result of a necessary process of decay is developed on the basis of modern scientific understanding by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (The Great Partnership p 244). Rabbi Sacks finds support for this understanding from the dynamic conditions necessary for the emergence and evolution of life.]

The second category consists of the evil that humans are capable of inflicting on one another through the operation of their free will. Allowing free will to function is of fundamental importance to the purpose of the world, therefore God will rarely interfere with it.

Finally, Rambam considers that the most prevalent form of suffering in the world is self-inflicted through the choice of unwise and imbalanced conduct such as the pursuit of unhealthy lifestyles. Lack of control over one's desires for worldly pleasures not only has a negative impact on the intellect but can also lead a person towards illness and hardship

Rambam’s explanation certainly does not cover and explain all instances of suffering, and may well be too cold and detached to comfort many people. A more common approach to coping with grief and difficulty in this world seeks to place it in a wider perspective of the function and purpose which Jewish tradition attaches to our lives. As another Mishnah in Avot (4:16) teaches:

Rabbi Yaakov said: this world is like a corridor before the World to Come; prepare yourself in the corridor, so that you may enter the banqueting-hall.

The most far-reaching version of this approach explains suffering of innocents in terms of gilgulim, and each soul having its own specific mission and rectification that it needs to achieve. As someone put it to me earlier today, this is “surely the correct approach within Judaism as it is the only way to explain such suffering”. For those whose Judaism includes belief in gilgulim, this is probably correct. Its place within Jewish thought has been strongly challenged however by great figures such as Rav Sa’adiah Gaon, and it is notably absent from biblical passages – such as Job and Habbakuk – which address the suffering of innocents.

One final dimension to suffering of innocents emerges from a debate between Rabbi Akiva and Turnus Rufus, the Roman governor of Judaea. Turnus Rufus confronts Rabbi Akiva with the question: “If your God loves the poor so much why doesn’t He feed them?” Rabbi Akiva’s profound response is that it is of course within God’s power to feed the poor. But, in a perfect world which contains neither suffering nor poverty, there would be no real opportunity for humans to perform acts of kindness.

Reflecting further upon Rabbi Akiva’s response, one can ask which other forms of suffering it can be extended to cover. In a world in which there were no poor, suffering or sick people, what opportunities would there be for individuals to empathise with others and demonstrate the sort of self-sacrifice which really sets apart the greatest among us.

The Ramban, at the start of his commentary on the akeida, explains the concept of nisayon (a divine test): that God will sometimes test us in order to draw out the latent potential within us and thereby improve our character. But how far can such an argument be taken? There were certainly many Holocaust heroes including Raul Wallenberg, Oskar Schindler and many righteous people who risked their lives to protect others that they did not know. Had it not been for the Holocaust would these people still have pushed themselves to become great? Yet I’m not sure anyone would agree that the Holocaust was justified in order to produce such heroes.

While this approach may seem insufficient in its own right, taken in combination with some of the other ideas contained in this post, it may be able to provide a degree of comfort to those who are suffering (personally or their loved ones).

Ultimately, we cannot expect to fully understand or explain such events. One thing that we can take from the experiences of Ya’akov and Yosef in these parshiyot, is that years of painful and apparently pointless suffering can sometimes be part of a bigger picture and project that we are not aware of at the time.

The true prophetic response may therefore be contained in the words of Isaiah:

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts [higher] than your thoughts.

 More about Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the Torah can be found at www.JudaismReclaimed.com.