Finding that elusive right path

At Avot 2:13, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai gives five of his illustrious talmidim a task: “go out and take a look at the good path to which a person should adhere”.

All five give good answers. In brief, Rabbi Eliezer suggests a “good eye” (i.e. generosity), Rabbi Yehoshua “being a good friend”, Rabbi Yose HaKohen “being a good neighbour”, Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel offers “ability to see what’s coming” and Rabbi Elazar ben Arach proposes “a good heart” (i.e. a spirit of magnanimity). Rabbi Elazar ben Arach’s answer is preferred to the other four on the basis that it is broad enough to embrace them too.

In his Melitz Yosher al Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Reuven Melamed observes that this selection of answers is surprising. Each of these five talmidim is a giant of Torah, a man of immense learning. Yet not one of them gives the answer that probably most contemporary rabbis would be likely to give: “learning Torah”.

This omission, Rabbi Melamed suggests, is highly significant. Even at the highest level of Torah scholarship one is not a complete person until a further level is added. That is the level at which a person strives to perfect his relationship both with fellow humans and with God. Each of Rabban Yochanan’s five disciples was offering a pathway to achieve this end: for four of them that path was more narrowly defined. The fifth suggested not so much a pathway as a general attitude.