Life as a journey: Pirkei Avot, Waze and means

Within the annual cycle of weekly Torah readings, Masei is not among the most popular; nor is it one of the most enthusiastically studied. Masei is not associated with any festivals or pleasures. Indeed it is always read in the Three Weeks, a period of increasing solemnity that culminates with the great outpouring of grief that is Tisha be’Av. The few mitzvot associated with Masei have a solemn flavour too, since they include several laws that deal with the consequences of homicide, whether intentional or accidental. The haftarah, one of the three that warn Israel of impending disaster, is studded with words of vituperative criticism as Jeremiah lambasts his people for deserting God in favour of the vacuous pleasures of idolatry.

The parashah however opens with a lengthy travelogue, listing the 42 places at which the Children of Israel encamped, however briefly, during their four-decade sojourn in the wilderness. While some of these places are unknown to us, many commentators on the Torah have commented on the significance of the journey which encompassed them. In short, the Jews are a people on the move. As has often been observed, the Hebrew term for Jewish law is halachah, from the root הלך, “go”. This is because life is a journey and the law consists of a collection of pointers that direct us along the route we are to travel in our lives as we head for our ultimate destination—a deeper understanding and appreciation of the God we serve through compliance with those halachot.

The Jew on a journey is a theme which is reflected in Avot, where the Tannaim discuss the path in life that a person is supposed to follow. Halachah is the journey we must undertake, but in order to do so we must find the derech, the actual path along which we travel and which best suits our abilities and our needs. Like the popular navigation app Waze, Pirkei Avot can help us find the right combination of paths to take us to our intended destination.

Effectively, halachah provides the framework within which we live, but it does not dictate how we live. A person can avoid transgressing every one of the Torah’s 365 prohibitions by locking himself away and doing nothing, and can tick the box for each mitzvah he or she performs, but without actually gaining any benefit in terms of personal development and certainly without bestowing any benefit upon the society in which that person lives.

Two great mishnayot in Avot discuss the need to select the right derech, but in very different ways.

Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi (Rebbi, at Avot 2:1) opens the discussion with a question: what is the right derech that a person should choose? He then supplies his own answer: it’s the path that best enables a person to gain credit with others while maintaining one’s own self-respect. We learn three things here: first, there is no one-size-fits-all derech and it is for everyone to weigh up their conduct for themselves. Secondly, we are free to choose this derech for ourselves, subject only to such constraints and boundaries as halachah lays down. Thirdly, from the fact that circumstances in life keep changing, we can infer that the process of weighing the prospects of pleasing both oneself and others is one that requires constant recalibration. Rebbi is not offering a philosophy for life but a compass whose arrow is in constant motion.

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai widens the discussion (at Avot 2:12-13) by throwing it open to five of his most highly-regarded talmidim. He asks not one question but two. First, what is the good derech, the path to which one should adhere? Secondly, what is the bad derech, the path from which one should distance oneself? From the answers given here and Rabban Yochanan’s response to them it is clear that this discussion is not about choosing the right derech and does not therefore overlap with Rebbi’s teaching. Rather, it is about the attitude a person should have, or avoid. when travelling his or her derech. Suggested answers relate to the qualities of generosity, friendship, neighbourliness, piety, foresight and fear of sin, but the most highly approved answer, that of Rabbi Elazar ben Arach, is lev tov (literally “a good heart”), this being a sort of magnanimity of spirit that a person should evince in the course of his or her journey through life.

So, synthesising the propositions stated above, in travelling the journey of life in accordance with halachah, a person must select for him- or herself the right derech, this being the path dictated by Rebbi’s formula. Having done so, when pursuing that derech one should display an attitude of magnanimity of spirit as mandated by Rabban Yochanan.