The steamship, not the cemetery: Fighting fascism with Avot

1945 was a grim year for mankind, as the end of the Second World War brought with it the discovery of the extent of the destruction and devastation that came in its wake. The same year marked the publication of a most unusual edition of Pirkei Avot: Sayings of the Fathers, with translation and commentary by the then Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Dr Joseph H. Hertz. As is so often the case, I knew nothing of this work till I came across it in a second-hand book shop. Printed under wartime austerity conditions, this slim volume has already begun to fall apart.

Although this work was published by a commercial publisher, Behrman House Inc., New York, it was published under the auspices of the American Chapter of the Religious Emergency Council of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. Chief Rabbi Hertz's royalties were donated to the American Chapter with a view to their being utilized in England for the purpose of continuing its provision of "religious ministrations" to refugees, evacuees and Allied fighting men. I do not know how much money these royalties came to, but the book has been reprinted many times, in standard and illustrated gift editions, and is still available from the publisher's website.

My edition opens with a Foreword by Moses Schonfeld, Honorary Secretary of the American Chapter and co-author of The Mark of the Swastika: Extracts from the British War Blue Book Together with the White Paper on the Treatment of Germans in Germany. He writes:

It is at a turning point in history that this volume makes its appearance. All over the world, the oppressed in bondage so long are at last shattering their bonds. The armies of fascism are being defeated. Yet the war against their insidious ideas must continue if we are to banish evil and intolerance from the face of the earth. And in this war the reaffirmation of the ethical and moral values of the Pirke Aboth can be a powerful weapon against the enemy.

In the wisdom of these ethical sayings we can find an excellent source for evolving the basic philosophy of a decent civilization. Couched in simple, stimulating phrases, many of the Hebrew teachings of the Pirke Aboth have long since become part of the structure of democratic society. Not only is it now fitting to emphasize the origin of these principles to the world at large, but Jews themselves, in relearning the tenets of their fathers, will be armed with the oldest and strongest ammunition...

Chief Rabbi Hertz's commentary on Avot reflects his propensity for citing sources that reflect the width of his general knowledge and cultural awareness rather than the depth of his Torah knowledge. This practice earned him some criticism in his commentary on the Torah -- the Hertz Chumash -- because it gave a platform to some of the Higher Critics whom he sought to take to task, but it makes this little book more interesting for the modern reader who is willing to make the effort to penetrate the formal and somewhat archaic English which was favoured by rabbis long after most of their gentile counterparts had jettisoned it (I doubt that words like "almsgiving" and "chaplet" were part of day-to-day English in 1945, and most readers today are not so squeamish about seminal emissions that they would need to be treated to the euphemistic "unclean accident").

Since this edition was published at the outbreak of peace, I thought it useful to see what Chief Rabbi Hertz had to say on that topic. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel (Avot 1:18) teaches that the world stands on three things -- by truth, by justice and by peace. On this he adds:

The symbol of peace is not the cemetery, but the steamship -- the harmonization of conflicting forces towards one goal".

While the choice of metaphor might not immediately commend itself to a contemporary student of Avot, the message is clear.