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 21st 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.
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.
