Out of sight

Learning a mishnah over my breakfast this morning, I was struck by a sudden thought.

In the mishnah in question, Avot 2:6, we learn from Hillel that (among other things) an irascible, impatient person cannot teach. The consensus view of commentators over the ages is that we learn by asking questions and that a student will be inhibited from doing so if he or she fears that any defect in the question will be met with an angry, intimidating or embarrassing response.

This mishnah is quite capable of bearing a wider meaning than that. As Rabbi Reuven Melamed notes in his Melitz Yashar, a student who fails to develop a close relationship with a teacher and indeed feels alienated by hostile or unsympathetic behaviour will find it harder to absorb and accept the teacher’s lessons, even when there is no need to ask questions.

There is still more. Most of what human beings learn does not originate in the classroom, yeshivah, seminar or shiur. It is the result of watching others and doing one of two things: we either emulate them or we reject their actions and do the opposite. This is how we learn to behave at home and in company, as well as how to avoid danger. You don’t pick up a hot potato that has been painfully dropped by the person next to you.

Curiously, Pirkei Avot—which is full of advice about teaching and learning—has very little to say about learning by watching. The 48 measures through which one acquires Torah (Avot 6:6) mention both attentive listening and careful speaking but make no special mention of perspicacious viewing.  Attending on the wise is listed. Since this includes every form of service to chachamim, it presumably embraces the notion of watching them and learning to follow their ways, but that is about all. There is also a mishnah (5:22) which identifies the three good qualities of talmidim of Abraham and contrasts them with the three bad qualities of the talmidim of Balaam. As the Netivot Shalom points out, one cannot distinguish the two camps merely by looking at them since these qualities relate to their attitudes, not to their appearance.

Earlier in Avot (at 2:1 and 3:1) we encounter two mishnayot that contain the injunction histakel (“see clearly” or “consider”), but they do not refer to the human sense of sight since, in each case, the object to be seen is abstract and therefore invisible. The use of this word is comparable to the English words “I see”, spoken as a shorthand for “I understand”. We also find several uses of the word ayin (“eye”) within the context of ayin tovah (“magnanimity”) and ayin ra’ah (“mean-spiritedness”); once again, there is no sense of the word “eye” being used in relation to vision.

The dangers of sight are however noted. For example, one should avoid making any effort to see a person who is experiencing humiliation or embarrassment (4:23), and one should not look at the bottle in preference to its contents (4:27).

Why then do sight and the ability to learn by looking receive so little attention in Pirkei Avot?  Suggestions, anyone?

Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu: a Perek man personified

Like so many people whose paths in life crossed that of Dayan Ehrentreu, I was greatly saddened to hear that he passed away yesterday morning. He was a great man with a great personality and it was my pleasure to work with him four four years in the early 1990s when I served as Registrar to the Court of the Chief Rabbi -- the court in which the Dayan was Rosh Bet Din.

In this capacity I was the effective CEO of the London Beth Din and had responsibility for its day-to-day running as well as for drawing up its budget. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to observe the Dayan at close hand and to appreciate his remarkable qualities.

My previous Avot Today post discussed the application of a mishnah in which Ben Azzai teaches:

Do not scorn any man, and do not discount any thing. For there is no man who has not his hour, and no thing that does not have its place (Avot 4:3).

This could have been the Dayan's motto since it was the principle by which he committed himself to his court's functions, both judicial and otherwise.

The Dayan's diary was always crowded, yet he made great efforts to accommodate the needs of all who sought to see him. No matter was too small, no person too insignificant, to gain an audience. Sitting in on some of his meetings, I could not fail to be impressed with the courtesy and attentiveness he displayed with people who might so easily and with justification have been dismissed as a waste of time. For him, every member of klal Yisrael had a place, a role in Jewish society and an entitlement to be treated with respect and dignity.

I was also responsible for maintaining the Dayan's extensive filing system. This included his notes and diagrams relating to electric circuitry for induction loops to aid those with hearing difficulties, the construction and operation of mikvaot (ritual baths), the flow of super-heated steam in the cooking of mass-produced food products and the properties of food additives. The Dayan, who was often called upon to make rulings on these and other technical topics, could lay his hands on the relevant materials at a moment's notice. Nothing was ever out of place.

It should not be thought that Ben Azzai's teaching was the only bit of Pirkei Avot to be reflected in the Dayan's life. He greeted people warmly with a smile (Avot 1:15); indeed, after attending one of his shiurim, I sometimes discovered that his smile, like that of the Cheshire Cat, remained in my memory long after the substantive points of his address had faded. He was also highly precise in his choice of words, particularly when giving advice or instructions, in order to minimise the possibility of being misunderstood (Avot 2:5). And of course there was much more.

The Dayan will be sorely missed by his family, friends, colleagues and congregants. May his memory be a blessing.

When Perek meets Pardes

How far dare one go when extracting a meaning from a teaching in Avot—or when injecting a meaning into it?

The main task of Avot Today is to look at ways of applying the precepts of Pirkei Avot in the context of our own 21^st century lives. Why? Because we learn from the Bartenura’s comment at Avot 1:1 that this tractate is devoted to mussar and middot—moral and ethical guidance in creating and maintaining a Torah-compatible lifestyle.

It is not always easy to work out what the teachings in Avot actually teach. This is because they can be divided into two approximate categories. In the first are teachings with meanings that are obvious on the face of things, but which we still have to analyse when we work out how to apply them today. Examples of such teachings include judging other people favourably (Avot 1:6), being extremely humble (Avot 4:3, 4:12), respecting other people’s personal space and need for privacy at times of crisis (Avot 3:15) and keeping one’s distance from a bad neighbour (Avot 1:7).  

The second category consists of teachings that have no obvious meaning or mode of application to our daily lives. These include maxims such as “one who does not increase will decrease” (Avot 1:13) and “everything is judged in accordance with the majority of the action” (Avot 3:19) and brief statements of biblical or midrashic narrative such as the recitation of the number of miracles wrought for our forefathers or plagues inflicted on the Egyptians (Avot 5:5) and the list of objects created on the eve of the first Shabbat (Avot 5:8). Regarding these teachings, it is up to us to mine them for mussar and middot-related content if we are to validate the Bartenura’s statement and also make them relevant to our own lives.

While this dichotomy can be useful when we want to know how to learn a mishnah or baraita in Avot, it is by no means a cast-iron rule, as the following example shows.

Ben Azzai (Avot 4:3) teaches as follows:

“Do not scorn any man, and do not discount the worth of any thing [or ‘word’], for there is no man who does not have his hour, and no thing [or ‘word’] that does not have its place”.

This is a simple, uncontentious category one mishnah with a plain meaning. Its advice, which is sage and prudent, is supported by texts from the written Torah. From the traditional commentators we learn that humans, things and words—however small or trivial they may appear to us—should always be reckoned as having some significance since they may have the capacity to help or harm us.

But we are in for a surprise. Neither simple nor uncontentious is a remarkable extended essay by the Malbim on the deeper significance of the service of the parah adumah, the red heifer that has the paradoxical effect of conferring taharah (a state of ritual purity) on those who are impure and tumah (a state of ritual impurity) on those who are pure. This essay, which appears in some printed editions of the Malbim at the beginning of parashat Chukkat under the title “Ner Mitzvah”, is impossible to describe in brief. Suffice it to say that it embraces a good deal of aggadic and kabbalistic material concerning the separation of the soul from the body, the nature of Torah as studied in this world and other worlds and the relationship between the generally normative halachic rulings of Bet Hillel and those of Bet Shammai.

In the course of his “Ner Mitzvah”, the Malbim cites the teaching of Ben Azzai that we quote above. He explains it thus:

“If you see that the halachah is not like Bet Shammai and Rabbi Shimon [bar Yochai], do not scorn them, and do not discount any words that are spoken in their names. This is because there is no man who does not have his hour since in future the halachah will be like them—and don’t say that, if this is so, the halachot of the Torah change. On this [Ben Azzai] answers that there is no word that doesn’t have its place, because there is a place] in the Supernal World for these halachot, which are spoken in accordance with a secret ruchaniut [spiritual nature]—and they will be said over in the future just as they are said now in the world of ruchaniut”.

This is a remarkable example of a category one mishnah being treated as a category two type. Plain and easy-to-apply meanings of Ben Azzai’s teaching are not actually rejected, but a further interpretation is found which has no real-world application at all.

What would Ben Azzai have made of the Malbim’s understanding of his teaching in Avot? While we are unlikely to know, Jewish aggadic tradition lists Ben Azzai as one of only four rabbis who entered the Pardes—a conceptual zone of esoteric Torah knowledge that transcended normal human perceptions of reality. The Malbim’s explanation of what Ben Azzai meant may be well removed from the sphere of mussar and middot, but it would not be inappropriate for a man with Ben Azzai’s kabbalistic leanings.

 

Not just what his Rebbe told him

I recently came across a copy of an unusual and idiosyncratic work on Pirkei Avot bearing the curious title Reflections on Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): Not Just What My Rebbe Taught Me. The author of this work is Joseph G. Rosenstein, who impressively styles himself Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Rutgers University.

What's this book all about? According to the author's website, it differs from many other such books by:

     — writing in an informal, easily understood manner
     — comparing and contrasting different teachings that deal with the same topic.
     — relating the historic contexts of the teachings.
     — relating the teachings to contemporary events.
     — often challenging the assumptions of the ancient teachers.
     — pointing out when teachings may be faulty and when commentators misinterpret the teachings.
     — having separate chapters on major themes, such as life after death.

I would characterise the book somewhat differently. The author is in effect carrying on a dialogue with the ancient teachers and subsequent commentators which also incidentally describes or explains some of his own life experiences, thoughts and opinions. While it is difficult for anyone writing on Avot to exclude him- or herself from a discussion of its contents, I doubt that I have ever seen a book on the topic in which one encounters the author quite so often and I must admit that I sometimes found this presence quite obtrusive.

The book is certainly easy to read and understand. It addresses the modern educated reader; it also reflects the author's enthusiasm, sense of excitement and scholarship. As his description of the book above indicates, he is confident to challenge the wisdom of bygone ages and he states his case in trenchant terms. Readers will probably guess that he does not believe in the transmission of an oral Torah from God and down through the ages long before he states as much in a footnote on p 96 of this 400+ page work.

One unusual element of this book deserves a mention: the author makes a point of flagging and numbering each Ethical Principle as it appears in Avot. He finds a total of 69. I think this is helpful, since it is possible to read and engage with Pirkei Avot from one end to the other without identifying individual ethical principles and therefore without appreciating how many there are. 

Ask no questions?

A couple of damp and drizzly mornings ago I was returning from my daily morning prayers in Jerusalem’s Yeshurun Synagogue when I spotted a strikingly clear rainbow. In accordance with Jewish law I recited the blessing of זוכר הברית, ונאמן בבריתו, וקיים במאמרו (“…who remembers the covenant, is trustworthy in His covenant and keeps His word”). I was pleased to do so since rainy days, and therefore the opportunity to recite this formula, are not as frequent in Israel as in my native England. As I reached my apartment building a young man emerged. I excitedly told him of the rainbow and reminded him of the opportunity to say the blessing. Thanking me, he casually asked: “Where is it?”

Over the years I’ve seen many rainbows. Some have been faint and pale, others outstanding in their refracted glory. While they possessed differentiating qualities, they shared one common characteristic: they were all to be found in the same place: the sky. All my young friend had to do was to look up and, if he did not espy that rainbow instantly, swivel around a little till it came into his line of vision. If I had been told that there was a rainbow on display, it would not have occurred to me that it might be anywhere else, and I would certainly never have asked anyone else where it was.

This little episode troubled me. The question, for sure, was unnecessary. But was I being unduly harsh? My inquisitor might have been anxious to discover the precise location of the rainbow in order to save valuable seconds that might then be put to more productive use. Alternatively, his question might have been conditioned by the frustrating experience of trying to find a new moon amidst the dense foliage of Rechavia, an area graced with stately trees which by day provide magnificent shade. And do we not encourage our youngsters to ask questions? How else will they learn?

Pirkei Avot has something to say, of course. In general terms, silence is preferred to speech (Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel at Avot 1:17, Rabbi Akiva at Avot 3:17). From this one might infer that if one can resolve a question without speaking to anyone else, this would be good. The tractate goes further. At Avot 5:9 we learn that asking questions that are to the point and answering them correctly are signs of a person who is cultured and educated in the ways of the Torah, and at 6:6 we find asking and answering, devoid of any conditions or qualifications, in the list of 48 qualities a person needs for the acquisition of Torah.

Avot is only a starting point. In the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 31a) we find Hillel warmly welcoming a series of questions which, we learn, are deliberately calculated to anger him so that the person asking them can win a bet. I think that, in general terms, this is probably the best policy for me to adopt in future—though I shall continue to grit my teeth when two of my grand-daughters who refuse to wear watches will persist in asking me what the time is, even when we are sitting together in a room containing no fewer than three clocks.

Pirkei Avot, politics and a job not yet done

Readers of the Jewish Insider for 9 November will have come across a piece by Gabby Deutsch titled “Shapiro, citing Pirkei Avot, sails to victory in PA”. You can access this article here or on the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle for 10 November here.

The operative part of this piece reads as follows:

As anxious Democrats around the country waited for election results to come in on Tuesday night, a jubilant crowd of more than a thousand was in a celebratory mood from the moment they walked into Josh Shapiro’s election night party at a convention center on the far edges of the Philadelphia exurbs.

While vulnerable Democrats elsewhere in the state struggled in close races that remain undecided, Shapiro was declared the victor by the Associated Press shortly after midnight, leading Doug Mastriano by more than 500,000 votes.

“I spoke a lot about my faith in this campaign. My family and my faith call me to service and they drive me home,” Shapiro told a cheering crowd in a triumphant victory address. “You’ve heard me read Scripture before, that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it, meaning each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game and to do our part. And so I say to you tonight, that while we won this race — and by the way, won it pretty convincingly … the job is not done. The task is not complete”.

While I am always glad to see evidence that Pirkei Avot courses through the veins of any Jew, this report leaves me somewhat uncomfortable. I wonder if I am not alone in my discomfort.

The sentiment of not being required to finish the task but also not being free to refrain from it is a laudable one where the task in question is a meritorious though onerous one. But what is the nature of the duty in the quote before us? Rabbi Tarfon, who teaches this at Avot 2:21, was a Torah sage who sought both to live by the Torah’s precepts and to encourage others to do likewise. As that mishnah’s context shows, it has always been understood within the Jewish tradition of scholarship that Rabbi Tarfon was speaking about the task of learning the Torah and observing its many mitzvot. Once this teaching is detached from that objective, the task is whatever the speaker defines it to be and it is thereby reduced to the level of a simple platitude. If this is so, the words spoken here by the victor equally well be spoken by the vanquished, with reference to the task of persisting with his hitherto less popular policies and making a greater effort to persuade the electorate of their benefit.

The English language is rich in platitudes and cliches about not quitting and carrying on to the bitter end, as well as about it being more important to do the right thing than to secure the desired end. I think I would have greatly preferred it if one of them was used here.

**********

Another point arising from this speech is whether the speaker should have quoted this teaching in Rabbi Tarfon’s name (as mandated in Avot 6:6). While it is customary in Jewish learning circles to do just that, the citation of the name of so eminent a Torah scholar in the case before us might have created the false impression that the victorious candidate’s candidacy or policies were somehow in line with Rabbi Tarfon’s philosophy of life. On balance, therefore, it may be justifiable to omit any mention of Rabbi Tarfon’s name.

 

Dealing with insults

Last night Beit Knesset Hanassi held an event to mark the second yahrzeit of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. In the course of an address in which he sought to place Rabbi Sacks’s within a broad social and communal context, Rabbi Berel Wein contrasted the deep and affectionate respect in which his memory is now held with the vituperative criticism Rabbi Sacks received while he was in office as Chief Rabbi to the United Kingdom’s United Synagogue.

This observation brought back memories for me, since I was responsible for running the Court of the Chief Rabbi in the first years of Rabbi Sacks’s term of office.

One of the things I clearly recall is that many of the people who criticised Rabbi Sacks in public were the same people who visited his office in private, to ask for his help in raising funds or to seek his advice on politically sensitive communal matters. His door was always open to them and he treated them with kindness and respect. Rabbi Sacks was a sensitive man who was not impervious to criticism and abuse, but he let neither his office nor his personal feelings stand in the way of his preparedness to entertain his adversaries and to engage with them where he could.

The first Baraita in the sixth chapter of Avot lists nearly 30 advantages to be derived by studying Torah for its own sake. These include patience and the ability to forgive insults. I believe that Rabbi Sacks displayed both those qualities. For him, public insults and criticisms splashed across the front pages of the Jewish newspapers were not just wrong in themselves: every time a disagreement leads to insult, this marks the end of dialogue—or “conversation”, as Rabbi Sacks would have preferred to call it. His way was characterised by conversation, by exchanging views and seeking to understand the other side’s perspective. He candidly recognised that not all dialogue leads to the peaceful resolution of differences, but he did believe that it was the best available means of doing so.

May his memory be a blessing to us.

Cull, control or cultivate: What should we do about self-esteem?

Many of my most interesting thoughts come to me through the medium of my breakfast reading materials. In the course of this unusually long repast, I usually have six or seven books on the go at the same time. Some, like Sefer Chafetz Chaim, are visited daily. Others are taken down and returned to the shelf every day but may not be opened more than three or four times in any given week. Much depends on a whim, and whether I stumble across something that retains my fancy or not.

It is the juxtaposition of books and authors that provides so much food for thought. A classical example earlier this week came from two modern “heavyweights”, Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Within two pieces of toast and marmalade I found Rabbi Twerski (Visions of the Fathers) stressing the importance of self-esteem and the damage suffered by those who lack it, followed by Rabbi Sacks (Morality) pointing to the adverse effects of inflated self-esteem on society as it apparently drifts inexorably from a “We” to an “I” culture.

It is not hard to synthesise these two superficially contradictory views of self-esteem. Taking every individual separately—as Rabbi Twerski did when he treated them as patients—the absence of an adequate degree of self-esteem can lead to a retreat from participation in society at large, leading to loneliness, a crushing feeling of inadequacy and a search to escape reality through the abuse of alcohol or drugs. In contrast, taking society as a whole, the ability of its constituent members to fulfil their potential through cooperation with others is hampered through the assertion of any individual who believes him- or herself to be too important to accept dependency or to contribute to the welfare of others.

Where does Pirkei Avot fit into this scheme? It is hard to decide. The term “self-esteem” does not have an obvious equivalent in Mishnaic Hebrew (the term in Ivrit is הערכה עצמית). Even in English it is not a precise term. It is clearly something more pointed than entry-level concepts of “self-awareness” and “self-consciousness”, jockeying for a place with “self-respect” and perhaps even “egoism”. Oxford Online offers the definition “confidence in one's own worth or abilities; self-respect”, but self-respect and self-esteem are not synonymous: one can possess self-respect while esteeming oneself very little.

The rabbis of Avot do not however leave us without guidance. They expect us to know our positive qualities for what they are, neither hiding them nor vaunting them, and also to respect the same qualities when we see them in others. Thus for example a person who has the ability to teach is expected to do so (Avot 1:13) and we are asked to rise to the occasion and face challenges when no-one else is around to do so (Avot 2:6), even if it means raising our performance level beyond our knowledge base (Avot 3:12, 3:22, 6:5). We should not indulge in self-promotion above our station (also Avot 1:13). We are to earn the esteem of others by the expedient of recognising their value too (Avot 4:1), though we should remain as humble as circumstances permit (Avot 4:4, 4:12).

There is also the catch-all teaching of Hillel at Avot 1:14: “If I am not for me, who am I? And if I am only for me, what am I?...”.  These two parts of the quoted mishnah do appear to correspond neatly with having too little, and then too much, self-esteem. But can we tie this interpretation in with its authorship by Hillel? Arguably, yes.

There is an aggadic passage in the Talmud (Pesachim 66a) that tells how the sons of Beteira, having forgotten whether the laws of Pesach override those of Shabbat, were taught the correct legal position by Hillel, whom they immediately appointed as their head. Hillel then rebuked them for not knowing the law and chided them for not having learned it at the feet of his own teachers Shemayah and Avtalyon. At this point, he was taken down a peg or two by being caused to forget a halachah himself.

We can restate this tale as follows: Hillel arrives in HJerusalem as a humble and unknown traveller from Babylonia, a man who has neither position nor protetzia. He reckons that he is equal to the task of telling the Temple authorities what they might or might not do, and has sufficient self-confidence to recognise himself as being worthy of this task. However, once he has astounded the Benei Beteira with his erudition and been honoured accordingly, his freshly-acquired feeling of importance leads him to rebuke his hosts—and this is a step too far.  With too little self-esteem, Hillel might never have had the confidence and the courage to make a ruling before his seniors; but when ultimately he displays too great a degree self-esteem, he suffers for it.

Psyched for Avot: a new series

I’ve just learned of a forthcoming series of posts on Pirkei Avot that is to be hosted by the Jewish Press. The series is titled “Psyched for Avot” and it is the brainchild of Rabbi Dr Mordechai Schiffman. According to his biographical notes, Rabbi Schiffman is an Assistant Professor at Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School, an instructor at RIETS, and the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. If that’s not enough he also practised as a licensed psychologist in New York.

Rabbi Schiffman sets out his stall by contrasting the various approaches to Avot taken by Rabbi Moshe Almosnino and the Abarbanel. He concludes:

This new series, Psyched for Avot, will combine the two approaches outlined in Abarbanel. We will explore themes within Pirkei Avot, analyzing them both through a traditional lens rooted in Torah commentaries and through the empirical investigations from the field of modern psychology. Our WHY of Psyched for Avot is to converge the traditional wisdom of Pirkei Avot with the best practices of modern psychology to help us flourish in this world and the next. The analysis presented from each Mishna will help we will explore topics that will aim to increase our self-awareness, help us manage our emotions and behaviors, understand and relate better to others, learn more effectively, increase our productivity, and develop a better connection to God.

The interface between psychology and Pirkei Avot is a field that has already been explored by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski in his Visions of the Fathers (first published 1999) and, in very different ways, by Rabbi Reuben P. Bulka in his Chapters of the Fathers: a Psychological Commentary on Pirkey Avoth (first published as As a Tree by the Waters back in 1980) and the Krupnick-Mandel production Torah Dynamics: Pirkei Avot Looks at Life (1991), co-authored by an educationalist and a family therapist. Many other commentators have felt confident to offer their own insights too. However, from what I as a layman can ascertain, the extent and significance of the various facets of this interface is a vast topic that shifts along with social, economic, religious and cultural trends and will therefore never be exhausted.

Readers of the Avot Today Facebook Group and weblog are invited to sample Psyched for Torah for themselves. In any event, I shall be keeping an eye on it and will be pleased to draw my readers’ attention to any item that I find particularly comment-worthy.

You can check out Rabbi Schiffman’s Pysched for Torah website here. It covers topics other than Avot too, but you can go straight to the Avot link here.

Can we all be winners?

A theme to which Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks returns on many occasions in his writings is that of the contrast between situations in which we all benefit from complying with behavioural norms and those in which one person’s benefit is at another’s expense. Judaism, he frequently observes, requires us to consider the position of others and not just ourselves. This is why its standards tend to lead us towards choosing “win-win” situations rather than those whose outcome is “winner-take-all”. To put it another way, when we cooperate with others, we can achieve much together that we are incapable of achieving alone—but when we compete with one another, we may find that we are playing a “zero-sum game” in which one person’s victory is always at the expense of another.

I was reminded of this when I spotted a comment by Rabbi Ya’akov Ze’ev Yadler in his Tiferet Tzion on the first mishnah of the fourth perek where Ben Zoma teaches:

Who is wise? One who learns from every man, as it states: "From all my teachers I have grown wise, for Your testimonials are my meditation” (Psalms 119:9).

Who is strong? One who overpowers his inclinations, as it states: "Better one who is slow to anger than a strong man, and one who rules his spirit [is better] than one who captures a city” (Proverbs 16:32).

Who is rich? One who is happy with his lot, as it states: "If you eat from the effort of your own hands, fortunate are you, and it is good for you" (Psalms 128:2); "fortunate are you" in this world, "and it is good for you" in the World to Come.

Who is honoured? One who honours his fellows, as it states: "For to those who honour me, I accord honour; those who scorn me shall be demeaned” (I Shmuel 2:30).

Rabbi Yadler comments that, when it comes to a person’s physical strength, this is only a relative asset. To put his point in colloquial terms, you can be the strongest kid on the block—but only till someone else comes along who is bigger and stronger. However, the reign of that new king of the block will only last until he is deposed in his turn by another who is even stronger. Every time this happens, the value of an individual’s strength continues to diminish as one’s physical prowess wanes. Either you are the top dog or you are not: you go from hero to zero. Self-discipline does not suffer from this defect. No-one else can take your self-discipline and will-power away from you; it does not diminish in its value if anyone else has greater personal self-control because one’s will-power is unaffected by the presence of the same quality in others. And if everyone possesses the ability to master their baser instincts, we are all the winners.

The same applies with the three other qualities Ben Zoma mentions: gaining wisdom from others, being content with one’s lot and according due respect to others. If I share my thoughts and ideas with another, we both benefit from them rather than just myself. My contentment and gratitude with my portion is not spoiled by other people’s contentment with theirs, and there is no finite quantity of respect in the world—we can all honour one another and raise the aggregate of respect that exists in our communities and beyond.

After the event -- what next?

Now that the Israeli Election is pretty much done and dusted, let’s turn again briefly to Pirkei Avot for guidance as to how we—winners and losers alike—should respond as Jews.

First, the mishnah expects a degree of magnanimity on the part of those who form the next government. Directly citing a pair of verses from Proverbs (Mishlei 24:17-18), Shmuel HaKatan teaches:

“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and don’t let your heart be gleeful when he stumbles, in case God is watching and what he sees is bad in His eyes so He will avert his anger from [your enemy]” (Avot 4:24).

From our own experience we can testify that the history of representational democracy is the history of ever-changing loyalties and alliances. My enemy today is my friend tomorrow if he joins my coalition and offers me support, even though I must pay for this by conceding some benefit to him in return. For the victor to treat the vanquished with respect is not just a convenient way of avoiding God’s wrath: it also paves the way for better human relationships with those who share our ambitions but not our views.

For the losers there is a reminder that we all prospectively suffer when a government struggles and benefit from its success, even though we may approve of neither its objectives nor its means of achieving them. Rabbi Chanina Segan HaKohanim (Avot 3:2) urges us all to pray for the welfare of the State since, were it not for the machinery of government, people would swallow one another live. Anarchy produces few winners, and those who emerge on top generally do so on account of their superior strength and not their merit. Many sages have commented that even a bad government is better than no government at all—and the new government has yet to show itself good or bad since it has not yet taken office [For a more detailed discussion of the need to pray for even a government of which one approves, see “Praying for Putin?” on the Avot Today weblog here].

For all of us—winners, losers and voters—Avot points to the objective of any government. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel (Avot 1:18) lists the three things that keep the world going: truth, justice and peace. These are values that transcend political affiliations and, while we may not always recognise them when we see them, we certainly feel their absence when they are absence. Any government that respects the truth, delivers justice and establishes peace is entitled to our respect for doing to, whatever feelings we may harbour, rightly or wrongly, with regard to the policies and personalities that drive it forward.

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 OCTOBER 2022: 

Monday 31 October 2022: Are you voting for a golem? The day before the Israeli elections, Avot Today asks searching questions about the characters for whom we are invited to vote.

Friday 28 October 2022: Noah and the limits of patience. The righteous captain of the Ark is name-checked twice in Avot. Are these references purely historical or can we learn from them?

Wednesday 26 October 2022: Relevance in retrospect. Here's a commentary on Pirkei Avot that was published way back in 2007. Called Relevance, is it still relevant today?

Monday 24 October 2022: The Bad Neighbour problem: Nittai HaArbeli (Avot 1:7) warns us to keep far away from a bad neighbour. Is this practical in today's world -- and how, if at all, does it apply to the social media?

Friday 21 October 2022: Gratitude versus Jealousy: keeping it in the family. A curious piece of advice from Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky appears to place different provisions of Pirkei Avot in conflict with one another.

Thursday 20 October 2022: Quarterly Report: Avot in the Online Media. We take a look at the extent to which the provisions of Pirkei Avot are quoted on the internet. Which teachings are hot -- and which are not?

Tuesday 18 October 2022: Crowds: it'll take a miracle ... A mishnah in the fifth perek of Avot states that non-one complained of overcrowding in Jerusalem in Temple times. Two thousand years later, how do we match up to our forebears?

Friday 7 October 2022: The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth? We take a look at the central role of truth in Jewish ethics.

Tuesday 4 October 2022: Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we repent. On the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, we remember that Avot has something constructive to say on the topic.

Monday 3  October 2022: Do it deliberately! We all act on autopilot sometimes, but the advice of the Men of the Great Assembly is that we should stop and think before taking decisions,

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Avot Today blogposts for September 2022
Avot Today blogposts for August 2022
Avot Today blogposts for July 2022 
Avot Today blogposts for June 2022 
Avot Today blogposts for May 2022
Avot Today blogposts for April 2022