Pirkei Avot and the Museum of Cultural Curiosities

I brought a copy of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ The Dignity of Difference back in 2002, the year in which it was published. Finally, having lent it to various interested parties, I have got round to reading it. Even if one accepts the view that Rabbi Sacks only ever actually wrote one book, but just said the same things in different ways, I always find ideas that are fresh when I read them, if only because they are expressed in a variety of formats.

Last week I came across the following passage:

… Morality has had a hard time of it in the past half-century. It has come to represent everything we believe ourselves to have been liberated from: authority, repression, the delay of instinctual gratification, all that went with the religious, puritanical, Victorian culture of our grandparents. Virtues once thought admirable—modesty, humility, discretion, restraint—are now dusty exhibits in a museum of the cultural curiosities. Words like ‘duty’, ‘obligation’, ‘judgement’, ‘wisdom’ either carry a negative charge or no meaning at all…. (at p 78).

If that conclusion was correct 20 years ago, it seems to me that it is even more so now. If modesty, humility, discretion and restraint are now “dusty exhibits in a museum of the cultural curiosities”, how much more so are terms like “wicked”, “sin”, “honour”, “retribution” and “repentance”, for which there are no obvious acceptable modern substitutes.

I suspect that one of the main reasons why Pirkei Avot has fallen out of favour with contemporary youth is that it is packed with precepts that are largely alien to their culture. If a typical average uncommitted and unaffiliated teenager were to read its maxims and axioms, he or she would be puzzled by much if not most of its content. Where do the ideas of not being judgemental and of giving others the benefit of the doubt fit in with cancellation culture and the precepts of political correctness? How can a person relate to the notion of reviewing one’s conduct and measuring it against moral yardsticks when the feeling that no-one is truly responsible for their own actions has become so prevalent?

Even where there is some recognition of the values of Avot, it is sometimes begrudging and slow to materialise. My own experiences suggest that the idea of returning what one has borrowed is still acknowledged—but that one does not offer to return that which has been borrowed until one is asked to return it. Likewise, the principle that one should acknowledge the truth still holds, but once again it is often not volunteered and is only acknowledged when a person is confronted with it.

Taking the Maharal’s explanation of Avot 1:2 as a starting point, we might hold that every human being has to deal with three relationships: with God, with other people and with him/herself. The six chapters Avot between them address each of these three relationships and offer a spread of suggestions and guidelines as to how to get the best out of them. Ultimately all three require commitment, forbearance, patience and practice if they are to yield any sort of meaningful dividend—but no-one is going to make the effort unless the commitment to do so is already there.

It seems to me that there is big challenge ahead for those of us who see a benefit in learning and internalising Avot and who want to spread the word. This is the challenge to find a sale pitch that will appeal (particularly) to young Jews who either feel quite happy inside their own skin or who feel that any disquiet or dissatisfaction they may be experiencing can be addressed by other means than the practice of a morality-driven self-discipline. For this, neither Rabbi Sacks nor any other contemporary Jewish scholars offer a solution, probably for the very good reason that there is none. While the moral malaise is widespread, the reasons for it and the triggers that might stimulate change are unique to each individual. All we can do is to spread the word, to make Avot as relevant and as interesting as we can, and hope that we can persuade others to keep an open mind for long enough to learn it.

 

 

Questions, answers and the call of the caterer

Asking and answering questions is so much a part of our lives that we can easily overlook the deeper significance of this practice. We routinely ask questions in order to supplement our knowledge (“how much does this muffin cost?”), enrich our understanding (“why does this medication make me feel nauseous?”) and to acknowledge our subservience or obligations towards others (“please may I be excused?”). We likewise use questions in order to criticise others (“are you seriously trying to tell me that you’ve tidied your room?”), to underline one’s own importance or rectitude (“do you imagine that I would be so stupid as to believe such a pathetic excuse?”), and even for purely rhetorical effect (“wouldn’t you pay a king’s ransom for an opportunity like that?”).  Sometimes we use questions as a way of framing advice (“are you planning to take your umbrella today?”) or information (“did you know that the price of eggs has just gone up?”); we also ask questions when we know, or are fairly certain of, the answer (“would you like me to move my car which is blocking your drive?”).  We even ask ourselves questions (“where on earth did I put my spectacles?”).

Pirkei Avot addresses the Q&A process in several places. In particular, when distinguishing between a wise person and a golem, a person who doesn’t know any better, we are taught that we should not answer in haste (5:9) and that we should ask questions that are relevant and answer them accurately (ibid).  If we don’t know the answer, we should admit that we don’t (ibid) and we should only answer a heretic if we know how to do so (2:19).  Asking and answering questions is one of the 48 techniques by which a person can acquire Torah learning (6:6). We should not answer questions in greater length than is required (1:17). When seeking to establish the truth, we should not ask leading questions that put words into the mouth of the person answering them (1:9). Answers that are meant to be understood should be intelligible on a single hearing (2:5). There are other teachings in Avot that can be applied to Q&A, and anyone reading this tractate will soon spot how many mishnayot employ the Q&A technique themselves.

This review of questions and their many functions takes me back to the 1990s, when I was responsible for the administration of the London Beth Din (LBD). Throughout that decade, and indeed thereafter, the LBD was heavily involved in the grant of licences to food manufacturers, restaurateurs and caterers whom it certified as having satisfied the demanding standards for kashrut that are required by Jewish law. This work was done routinely by the LBD’s Kashrut Department under the supervision of the Dayanim of the LBD. I saw very little of our licensees and had little contact with them except when, once a year, they visited the LBD for an interview upon which the renewal of their licences was contingent.

From time to time it was necessary for a licensee to contact one of the Dayanim in order to ask a question relating to kashrut. These questions typically concerned matters such as the kashrut of manufactured food products bearing unfamiliar foreign certifications, the incidence of insects in quantities of fruit and vegetables, the late arrival or non-arrival of a mashgiach to oversee food preparation and the rectification of problems arising from the inappropriate use of utensils. In this pre-smartphone era, it was not always easy to locate a Dayan during office hours, so I often found myself fielding calls from anxious caterers. I would then either try to find a Dayan within the building or to pinpoint a place where one might be found.

I soon discovered that, of the LBD-licensed caterers, some never contacted us at all. Either they had no problems or they knew all the answers, I assumed. There was however one small catering firm that seemed to call the Dayanim with questions far more frequently than any of the others. Indeed, I sometimes wondered if this caterer’s queries outnumbered those of all the other caterers put together. What’s more, many of the questions seemed fairly easy or bordered on the trivial; I had to work hard to suppress the inclination either to answer them myself or to chide the caterer for this apparent ignorance.

After a couple of years I actually met the caterer in question and I somewhat impertinently asked: “how come you keep bombarding my Dayanim with so many questions?”  The caterer’s answer impressed me greatly. This was its gist. If a caterer serves poor quality food, it will lose existing customers and not gain new ones. Its reputation will be damaged and it will suffer commercially. If however a caterer serves food that turns out not to be kosher, the situation is different. The caterer’s reputation will of course be damaged and it will lose goodwill and custom. More importantly, the reputation of the LBD would also be damaged. That in turn would adversely affect customer confidence in all the other caterers, restaurants and manufacturers that bore the LBD imprimatur. It was therefore better to play safe and, in any question where there existed even the smallest doubt, to ask even the most elementary questions and let the LBD satisfy itself of the position, rather than to gamble the reputation of the LBD and other licensees by guessing an answer that, though quite likely right, might also be wrong.

From this we see how the asking of questions can be an effective means of establishing and maintaining a three-way relationship of trust between the questioner, the respondent and the public.

Turn it over, turn it over!

The second chapter of Avot ends with two oft-cited teachings by Rabbi Tarfon. The second of the two (Avot 2:21), is much loved not just by Torah scholars but also by politicians, industrialists and many people who have no particular commitment to Jewish lifestyles and values. It is often assumed to be “It is not for you to finish the task, but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it”. That however is only the opening salvo. The rest of the mishnah, much less frequently cited, goes on to frame those words within the context of learning Torah. 

The first of Rabbi Tarfon’s teachings does not mention the pursuit of Torah study, but most commentators assume that this is the meat of the metaphor and that the task of learning Torah is an unceasing commitment. The mishnah (Avot 2:20) reads:

“The day is short, the work is in abundance, the workers are lazy, the reward is great, and the Master is pressing”.

That these words apply to Torah study is easy to argue. But how do we know whether they also apply to the fulfilment of other obligations towards God?

In considering this proposition, let us take as our starting point another mishnah, this time from the end of the fifth perek (Avot 5:26):

Ben Bag Bag used to say: “Turn it over, turn it over, since everything is in it; see with it; grow old and grey in it; do not budge from it, for there is nothing better”.

Taking these words literally, let us turn Rabbi Tarfon’s words on their head and give them quite the opposite meaning. This leaves us with something like:

“The day is long, the work is light, the workers are industrious, the reward is not so great, and the Master is easy-going”.

Does this inversion of Rabbi Tarfon's words have anything to tell us? Arguably it does, in that it can be said to be capable of applying to many if not most of the positive mitzvot in the Torah—but not to the learning of Torah itself.

We know from our own experience that, if we are not continuously occupied, the day is long and time weighs heavily on our hands. In retrospect, time often seems to have passed swiftly, but our real-time experience tells us otherwise. Ask any confirmed cigarette smoker about those last ten minutes before Shabbat goes out. God has given us an amplitude of time, more than we require for our essential needs, which is why we run the constant risk of bitul zeman, killing time that could have been put to productive use if we only valued it properly.

As for the work being in abundance, relatively little time need be spent performing many of the Torah’s biggest mitzvot. Prayer, the recitation of Shema, recalling the redemption from Egypt, taking and shaking the lulav, eating matzah at the Passover seder—these are examples of commands that we can quickly and easily discharge, tick the box and then move on to some other activity.

We workers are industrious too, creating innovative and imaginative ways to fill our time when we are neither working for a living nor doing our Jewish thing. Even rest and leisure have an active dimension to them, so that we can focus on wearing ourselves out by living our lifestyles to the full and going to bed exhausted in mind and body at the end of each day.

As for the reward, we are encouraged to make every effort not even think about it, and certainly not to work in order to receive it (Avot 1:3), so whether the reward is big or small shouldn’t be allowed to enter the equation.

Finally, is the Master so demanding? It can he argued that He is not. Who but an easy-going God would create the notion of the mitzvah kiyumit, the commandment that one can go through one’s entire life without fulfilling? Tzitzit, mezuzah, challah—these are all examples of precepts that depend entirely upon the circumstance of a person possessing a four-cornered garment, a doorway or a large enough piece of dough. Nor do we have to build a house with a flat roof so that we can oblige ourselves to fence that roof safely.

Arguably, every one of the mitzvot in the Torah, with the exception of the study of Torah, can be said to comply with at least one of the five points described in the “upside down” version of the mishnah we have just discussed. In contrast, talmud Torah complies with none of them—and only Torah study matches all five points listed by Rabbi Tarfon in the real mishnah text.

'Some thoughts on exile' revisited

On 12 January I posted a piece, ‘Some thoughts on exile’, in which I discussed some of the mishnayot in Pirkei Avot that deal with exile. In that post I mentioned the idea, raised in an article by Rabbi Pinchas Winston, that exile was not purely a physical phenomenon because it also had a psychological dimension: a person might be “exiled” in their mind, their conscious thoughts and their emotions. He summarized the position thus:

There is no greater exile than not being yourself. It may sound trivial because, how can you be anyone but who you are? But the very fact that psychological depression is a national disease and anti-depressants are such a lucrative prescription drug today answers that question head-on. It is exhausting to watch how hard people have to work just to maintain an image they want to project, but which has little to do with who they really are.

I liked this idea but questioned whether it was truly sustainable.

Since writing my post I have found that Rabbi Winston is not alone in examining exile in terms of its mental element. Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky’s Netivot Shalom commentary on the Torah, on parashat Vaeira, contrasts two species of exile: communal (galut haperat) and personal (galut hayetzer hara). Communal exile can be remedied by taking the Children of Israel out of Egypt, while personal exile demands that each individual is detached from his negative traits and vested with a fresh set of positive values. Without this process, a person cannot switch his commitment from servitude to Egypt to service of God. In popular parlance, we might say that it’s not enough to take the Children of Israel out of Egypt: we must also take Egypt out of the Children of Israel.

The Netivot Shalom does not claim to be the originator of this idea. He cites the Toledot Yaakov Yosef of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonne on parashat Vayishlach, which in turn cites the Ba’al Shem Tov in support of the proposition that personal redemption should precede the communal. He also describes the same concept in his partial but eloquent commentary on Pirkei Avot, at the end of Avot 5:11, but without citing his predecessors. To my embarrassment I must have read this many years ago without it ever sinking in.

Dealing with anger

No-one who follows the narrative of the Torah at this time of year can miss the theme of anger. Pharaoh is angry with the Children of Israel, then rebukes his midwives; both God and the Children of Israel become angry with Moses; the taskmasters are angry with the slaves; the slaves are angry with one other; Jethro tells his daughters off for not inviting Moses home, and so on. It is not a happy time.

Much the same can be said of Israel today, where the politics of anger is reflected in outbursts of abuse, name-calling and demonisation of real and imagined opponents to the extent that extreme views on both sides of the current debates are regarded as normative and prospects for cooperation, compromise and consensus continue to fade.

Pirkei Avot teaches us about anger. It is assumed that we cannot suppress our anger entirely and maybe do not need to do so, but we should at least be slow to anger. Avot 5:2 and 5:3 illustrate how God, as a sort of divine role model, is extremely slow to anger, waiting up to ten generations before making a final decision as to what to do. Avot 5:14 also praises the person who is slow to anger but swift to regain composure while stigmatising as wicked the person who is quick to anger but slow to calm down. Rambam (Hilchot De’ot) recognises the need to keep anger under control rather than attempt to eliminate it completely—the position that Ramban appears to adopt in his much-published letter to his son, the reason being that only by distancing oneself from anger can one internalise the virtue of humility.

Frustratingly, Avot does not offer any simple solutions. Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar (Avot 4:23) warns us not to make things worse by trying to calm someone down when they are in mid-rage. Then, at Avot 4:1, Ben Zoma teaches that the person who is truly strong is one who curbs his yetzer, the evil inclination. Even if one assumes that expressions of anger are the consequence of yielding to one’s yetzer, there can be no catch-all technique for resisting it since every individual feels things differently and responds in his or her own unique manner to the sort of provocations that lead to rage. However, a few thoughts spring to mind.

1. Does your anger correspond to someone else’s happiness? It is common for people to lose their temper on losing a game, an argument or an election. This is potentially a sort of zero-sum rage since, if the outcome was the other way round, the loser might be just as angry in turn. In any situation in which there must be a winner and a loser, anger of this nature is predictable and unproductive.

2. Can your anger only be expressed in one way? Screaming, flailing our limbs and having a tantrum are the first ways we humans demonstrate our anger but, as we grow older and develop a wider range of emotional responses and social skills, we do have options. It is not always possible to do so but, where it is, we should seek to ask ourselves which outlet for our anger is the most effective, constructive or capable of giving the greatest relief or personal satisfaction.

3. Have we identified the object of our anger? In crude terms, anger can be said to be directed at one of three targets: (i) oneself; (ii) other humans and social institutions; and (iii) God. Once we know the target of our anger, we can consider how best to handle it. Anger that is directed against oneself—particularly when we are forced to take responsibility for our own mistakes—can be counterproductive but can also be addressed by looking at the cause of our self-anger and considering how we can avoid repeating it. Millennia of experience indicate that we have no reliable means of measuring how God responds to our anger, but that prayer might sometimes provide a more comforting and constructive substitute for railing against Him. That leaves anger which is directed against fellow humans, and this is the zone which is principally governed by Avot. No, Avot does not offer perfect solutions for all instances of other-directed anger, but it does encourage us to keep a lid on it to stop it boiling over—something that we can aim to achieve by practising the difficult task of self-control.

In raising this topic, I hope to stimulate thought and generate constructive suggestions about anger. Please share them if you have them.

Most-read Avot Today posts of 2022

I’ve been taking a look at the Avot Today Facebook Group’s generated figures for the most frequently accessed posts on Pirkei Avot over the previous calendar year. Around 130 substantive items were featured during the year, plus a small number of routine updates.

This is what readers most often dipped into (nb the hyperlinks all lead to this blog, which is easier to search and access than the Facebook Group pages -- at least on my laptop!):

Seniors and Juniors (2 September, on attitudes towards learning and the treatment of both senior and junior colleagues) 178

Are you voting for a golem? (31 October, on the necessary qualities of electoral candidates) 168

Do good, feel bad? (19 September, on one’s feelings about making charitable donations) 167

Focusing on prayer: a curious irony (28 December, on how much, if at all, one needs to concentrate on prayer) 156

Ask no questions? (20 November, on the importance of responding to questions, even if they may appear unfounded or unnecessary) 149

Don’t just sit and learn! For God’s sake get a job… (28 September, on a new slant given to an age-old argument) 148

The voice within (23 December, on how threats to faith can be generated from inside ourselves and not just by others) 138

A vanishing hatred (18 September, on how one of the earliest explanations of a mishnah in Avot seems to have lost its appeal) 134

Out of sight (29 November, on the significance of sight in the human learning process) 133

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? (7 October, on the pluses and minuses attached to sticking to the truth) 128

All of these features were posted during the final four months of 2022. Their popularity relative to the earlier posts probably reflects the fact that this Group gained many members during that period. It is unclear whether the posts listed here were visited because readers were more interested in them or whether I simply posted them at times when more readers had the leisure to read them.

The perils of teaching and the danger of words

I keep an eye on Rabbi Dr Mordechai Schiffman’s Psyched for Avot posts, which offer a regular supply of psychological perspectives on Pirkei Avot. This week’s post discusses the first of only a small number of mishnayot in Avot to be based on a narrative rather than a quotable quote or succinct soundbite. Its author is Avtalyon, who used to say:

Wise men, be careful with your words, lest you incur the penalty of exile and be carried off to a place of evil waters. The disciples who follow you there will drink and die, and thus the name of heaven will be desecrated (Avot 1:11).

Rabbi Dr Schiffman offers explanations provided by sages from the era of the Meiri to the present day, which, in providing this mishnah with different meanings, show how many startlingly different situations it governs.

I have spent most of my professional life as a teacher and have a small personal perspective of my own to add.

Admonitions such as “be careful with your words” and warnings as to the potentially dire consequences of failing to do so are of course justifiable, but in many factual situations they may be of little or no use. They are principally of value where the teacher is aware of (i) which words may be misunderstood or misapplied and (ii) it is practicable, through taking care, to avoid the risk of such an outcome. If this is not so, a wise admonition may cause only annoyance and frustration. Think of a scenario in which a parent sees a child off to school in the morning with a well-meaning “do take care, darling”. In the course of the day the child suffers a mishap of one sort or another and is greeted on returning home with the words “but I toldyou to take care”. In instances such as this, the parent’s well-meant caution is in practice a sort of disclaimer: if anyone blames the parent for what happened to the child, the parent is basically saying “it’s not my fault”. Yet the child’s attention had not been specifically directed to any specific thing for which particular care was required and was likely unaware of the risk of the mishap. The same issue arises with warnings to be careful with one’s words.

Teachers, both of Torah and of secular subjects, can easily mislead or confuse students through their choice of words and presentational techniques, however good their intentions. It has been said that Pirkei Avot furnishes the classical example of this in Antigonus Ish Socho’s teaching (Avot 1:3) that a person should serve God as if he were not doing so on condition of receiving a reward, which his two talmidim Boethus and Tzadok misapplied for their own purposes. It is not however clear that this is so: the fault of Antigonus—if indeed there is one—may not have been founded in his choice of words but in the misfunction of the traditional technique for quality control in Jewish learning, that of getting a talmid to recite his lesson back to his teacher and explain it, so that any errors and misunderstandings can be rooted out an the early stage.

An example of a helpful and positive caution may be seen in the tongue-in-cheek warning of Rabbi Eliezer Papo, author of the Pele Yoetz,that if anyone writes a book of halachah, he should be sure to spell out all the stringencies attached to a rule and none of its leniencies. This is because its readers, in accordance with human nature, will inevitably assume that anything that is not specifically said to be prohibited must be permitted. There is no need to list any leniencies since readers are perfectly capable of inventing their own.

Finally I’d like to mention a truly sensitive area: that of teaching midrashim as though they were part of the narrative of the Torah or statements of scientific or historical fact. When teaching Torah to small children, it is often impossible and counter-productive to say: “this story is not part of the Torah but it may or may not be factually true”. But there comes a time when a careful framing of the context and significance of a midrash may be vital.

I can think of two examples where a relevant and important midrash was learned over in a manner that was clearly sub-optimal. In the first, an eminent rabbi’s statement, in the course of a fund-raising event, that the gestation period of a snake was seven years may have cost his institution a generous donation from a member of the audience who missed the important point made by this midrash because the speaker assumed that the audience would understand it without further guidance. In the second, a maggid shiur doggedly insisted that birds can fly with just one wing because the aggadah of the Gemara said so. This was treated with scorn by a secularly educated audience who would almost certainly have warmly received a deeper and more appropriate explanation of the story.

Some thoughts on exile

Jacob and his growing family did not return to their God-given homeland once the famine that drove them out had ended. Facing both a prophecy that their sojourn in Egypt would be long and arduous and a marked reluctance on the part of their Egyptian hosts to let them leave, they had to accept their lot and await the miraculous events that led to their return more than two centuries later.

Pirkei Avot does not ignore the phenomenon of exile. Rabbi Nehorai (Avot 4:18) urges us to be exiled to a place of Torah. Our sages may debate what this means (for example, do we actually have to exile ourselves in order to go to a place of Torah, or finding a place of Torah only the right way to proceed in the unfortunate event that we are exiled?) There is no doubt however that we should not let ourselves be in a place where there is no Torah. The Egyptian exile took place before the Torah was given, but midrash teaches how Jacob sent his son Yehudah ahead of him (Genesis 46:28) in order to establish a place of Torah learning (Bereshit Rabbah 95:3).

Exile is also listed as one of the seven punishments of the Jewish people that are attributable to a specific cause: at Avot 5:11 it results from the three cardinal sins (idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed) and also from working the land of Israel during the sabbatical Shemittah year.

Today I came across another slant on exile, one that had not occurred to me before. I quote Rabbi Pinchas Winston, in an article called “Inner Redemption”, posted yesterday on Torah.org. It reads, in relevant part:

When it comes to personal fulfillment and inner happiness, the basic rule of thumb is that the more inner happiness a person has—personal redemption—the less outer happiness a person “needs.” As the Mishnah teaches, “Who is a happy person? One who is satisfied with their portion” (Pirkei Avos 4:1). Large or small, because for an innerly happy person a large portion could just as well be a small one, and a small one is a large one as far as they are concerned. As Ya’akov told Eisav, “I always have what I need.”

 

After thousands of years, mankind as a whole has come to realize that money does not buy happiness. It can “buy” pleasures and a whole lot of fun, but it cannot buy happiness. It can “buy” people and countless distractions, but it cannot buy happiness. Rich or poor, the only way to “buy” happiness is to do the work and stick with the program of personal development, of being a Tzelem Elokim. The world is so gashmi—materialistic—because so few people truly know what inner happiness really entails.

That is the real exile.

 

There is no greater exile than not being yourself. It may sound trivial because, how can you be anyone but who you are? But the very fact that psychological depression is a national disease and anti-depressants are such a lucrative prescription drug today answers that question head-on. It is exhausting to watch how hard people have to work just to maintain an image they want to project, but which has little to do with who they really are.

 

We can call that “Exile of the Personality,” and after many years of living like that it can become too hard to be redeemed from it. Just like the Jewish people in Egypt, a kind of “slave” mentality settles in over time, until the person sees their mistaken persona as the real one. When enough people act like this then it eventually takes an actual physical exile to bring people back to themselves. God didn’t make the world, especially one as elaborate as ours, for a bunch of phonies. Pun intended.

I like this idea very much, but I’m not sure it works. Is a person ever really exiled from his or her real self? It can be argued that, where a person is wedded to undesirable or damaging values—or even to good values that are harmful when taken to extremes, a person is only exiled from an ideal self that may never have existed and which that person may be unwilling to find. We probably all know people who are ambitious, competitive, confrontational, driven by the mere existence of a challenge rather than by the need to avoid it. I can say for certain that I should not wish to live such a life and that I would find it infinitely less congenial than an existence in which I am truly content with my lot, whatever it may be. But I cannot say that the same applies for other people and I would hesitate to say that, because I have found my place, I would judge them to be exiled from theirs.

As newborn infants our real self is driven by hunger, anger, fear, greed, impatience and other factors which, as we grow up, we learn to suppress or disguise. By ceasing to be slaves to our base mentality, maybe we are not ending the exile of our personality but seeking to create a new personality entirely—a task that is far more onerous if far more rewarding.

Thoughts, anyone?

Mishnayot in the Media: which bits of Pirkei Avot get the most cites?

Throughout the calendar year 2022 I have tracked, with the aid of Google Alerts, as many references as I can find to Pirkei Avot that are posted on the internet, in newspapers and newsletters, on blogs and other websites. Admitttedly this exercise has been confined to English-language citations, so for 2023 I’m trying to locate citations in Hebrew too.

Using this methodology I found that Pirkei Avot received a total of 175 online plugs during 2022.  

Which of the illustrious Tannaim of Avot gets the most citations? Hillel comes out top with 28 name-checks, though he does have an advantage in that he has no fewer than seven mishnayot to his name and most of them have at least three teachings in them. Yehoshua ben Perachyah is next with 21: though he has only one mishnah to his name, 1:6, it is a very popular one. Third comes Ben Zoma (17) whose highly quotable four-part mishnah at 4:1 is much loved by controversialists who use it to stir up debate.

Not all the big-name Tannaim are heavily cited. Rabbi Akiva’s mishnayot scrape together just four mentions. Rabbi Meir gets just one and those stalwarts of the Mishnah Rabbis Eliezer and Yehoshua get none at all.

The most frequently-cited teaching in Avot is Hillel’s at 1:14 (“If I am not for me, who am I? And if I am only for me, what am I? And if not now, when?”), which was quoted 17 times. Curiously, it appears to have been popular with lay writers rather than rabbis, and is rarely quoted in a particularly Jewish context. Next most cited teaching is that of Rabbi Tarfon at 2:21 (“It’s not for you to finish the task, but nor are you free to desist from it”), which too was popular with non-rabbinical writers such as politicians. Third in popularity is Yehoshua ben Perachyah’s at 1:6 (“Judge all people meritoriously/favourably”).

By far the most popular perek was the first one, with 67. Trailing far behind were perakim 4 (39), 2 (33) and 3 (19).  Perek 5 and the baraitot that form perek 6 rarely make it online. The content of perek 6 is relatively short of neat, snappy quotes, but perek 5 has much good material that writers may have overlooked.

Predictably, there were more citations of Avot during the “season”, i.e. between the end of Pesach and Rosh Hashanah when Avot is still recited or studied in some synagogues, than there were in the winter. September and December were the quietest months for citations of Avot, while May and July were the busiest.

It is impossible to draw deep and meaningful conclusions from a survey of this type. We cannot ascertain, for example, why it is that some mishnayot are repeatedly cited, sometimes when their relevance is only tangential, while other mishnayot are not cited at all. Nor do we know whether the mere fact that some teachings are popular online means that they are read and therefore recycled by others without ever actually being learned. But those of us who care about Avot and worry about its neglect may want to ask whether we are able to do more to promote some of the lesser-known content of this important body of teaching and to ensure that Avot is seen as something more than a handy receptacle for media soundbites.

The trouble with tongs

According to an anonymous mishnah at Avot 5:8,

Ten things were created at twilight, just before Shabbat. These are (i) the mouth of the Earth [that swallowed Korach]; (ii) the mouth of [Miriam's] well; (iii) the mouth of [Balaam's] donkey; (iv) the rainbow; (v) the manna; (vi) [Moses'] staff; (vii) the shamir worm; (viii) writing, (ix) the inscription and (x) the tablets [of the Ten Commandments]. Some say also the burial place of Moses and the ram of our father Abraham. And some say also the mazikimas well as tongs made with tongs.

The last-minute creation of tongs that were made with tongs (Avot 5:8) has fascinated both the earlier sages and later commentators. For some this act of creation smacks of the divine: if you need tongs to hold hot metal while you beat it into the shape of tongs, where else but through God’s creativity could that first pair of tongs have originated? Others dismiss this view and remind us that all you need in order to make a metal object of any specific shape is a mould into which molten metal can be poured; for them, if there is any significance in this last-minute flurry of divine creativity, it must lie elsewhere.

For one rabbi at least, the tongs created just before the first Shabbat point to a famous argument in the Talmud (Berachot 35b) between Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Yishmael:

Our Rabbis taught: “And you shall gather in your corn” (Deut. 11:14). What is to be learnt from these words? Since it says: “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth” (Joshua 1:8), I might have thought that this instruction is to be taken literally, so it says: “And you shall gather in your corn”, which implies that you should combine the study of them [i.e. the words of the Torah] with a worldly occupation. This is the view of Rabbi Yishmael.

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says: “Is that possible? If a man ploughs in the ploughing season, sows in the sowing season, reaps in the reaping season, threshes in the threshing season, and winnows in the windy season, what will become of the Torah? No! But when Israel perform the will of the Omnipresent, their work is performed by others, as it says: ‘And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks…’ (Isaiah 61:5). and when Israel do not perform the will of the Omnipresent their work is carried out by themselves, as it says: ‘And you will gather in your corn’. Not only that, but the work of others will also be done by them, as it says: ‘And you will serve your enemy…’ (Deut. 28:48). Said Abaye: “Many have followed the advice of Yishmael, and it has worked well; others have followed Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai and it has not been successful”.

What does this argument have to do with tongs? In essence, the point of tongs is that they are used for making things that are needed for the purposes of work. Was mankind initially created in order to live a life of contemplation in the Garden of Eden, where all human needs would be met without the need to work at all? If so, they should not therefore have had any need for tongs. Supporters of Rabbi Yishmael’s view might argue that the creation of tongs during the Six Days of Creation is proof that man was initially supposed to work as well as to learn. Supporters of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s view could counter this by arguing that it was only just before Shabbat—after Adam and Eve had sinned and had failed to recognise the possibility of repentance—that the tongs were made. Initially, therefore, man’s task in the newly-created world involved no labour at all.

Based on a comment by Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Yadler, Tiferet Tzion.

You're telling me that this is a blessing?

This week’s Torah reading, parashat Vayechi, is one of the most difficult to comprehend. Much of it is taken up by Yaakov’s last words to his twelve sons. These words are traditionally described as blessings, though on a literal interpretation several of them read more like rebukes or even curses. Some are couched in terms that are shrouded in metaphor that cries out for explanation. Our commentators have risen to the occasion, offering many cogent and powerful insights into what Yaakov meant.

The problems posed by this sequence of mysterious messages trouble not only Torah commentators but some readers of Pirkei Avot. Recalling that an important part of man’s mission on Earth is imitatio dei—the close study of God’s qualities and characteristics so that we may emulate His behaviour in our own imperfect mortal manner—we might regard it as quite acceptable to express ourselves in terms that are obscure, ambiguous or apparently unintelligible. Yet Hillel teaches in the second perek of Avot (at 2:5) that one should not say anything that cannot initially be understood if one’s intention is that it should ultimately be understood [nb there are other explanations of this Mishnah which are not discussed here]. So is there any inherent contradiction between what God does and what His oral law directs us to do?

Arguably there is no contradiction. In the first place, the words of parashat Vayechi are not so much God’s words to us as Yaakov’s words to his sons. However perplexing it may be to us that Yaakov tells Yehudah that he will wash his garments in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes, or that Issachar is a strong-boned donkey, it has never been suggested that his twelve sons did not understand his allusions—and it is they, not us, who are their immediate addressees. Secondly, we are in no position to judge God’s wisdom in including Yaakov’s blessings in His holy Torah. While we strive to understand them, we are bound to concede that our failure to extract the fullest meaning from them may lie with our own lack of insight or be a consequence of the loss of learning that occurred through the passage of time and the disruptions resulting from two millennia of exile.

More importantly, we must appreciate that the main thrust of Pirkei Avot is that we as human beings should deal with our fellow humans in the best possible manner. If God in His wisdom chooses to be allusive or oracular in His communications with His people, that is His privilege. But Avot speaks of how we should best communicate with one another, and this is an entirely different matter. We should not just mean what we say but should say what we mean. If we do not, when we are misunderstood the fault lies with us alone.

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 DECEMBER 2022: 

Wednesday 28 December 2022: Focusing on prayer: a curious irony. How much thought has to go into one's prayers -- and what does Pirkei Avot have to say on the subject?

Friday 23 December 2022: The voice within. Rabbi Elazar ben Arach teaches the importance of knowing how to respond to a heretic -- but is the real threat the voice of one's own thoughts?

Monday 19 December 2022: A seasonal reading suggestion. Don't let your copy of Pirkei Avot hibernate: it's just as relevant in the winter as it is during the summer season.

Friday 16 December 2022: Doing something wrong? Then go with the flow. Can one make a valid distinction between normative and non-normative sin?

Monday 12 December 2022: Keeping the kernel, discarding the peel. Rabbi Meir was allowed to learn Torah from an apostate. Is this a precedent for us all or is a one-off?

Tuesday 6 December 2022: Good eye, good heart. The Hebrew terms ayin tovah and lev tov in Avot 2:13 demand explanation as much as translation. What are they about?

Monday 5 December 2022: Finding that right elusive path. At Avot 2:13, five distinguished Torah scholars answer the question "what is the good path for a person to follow?" Each gives a different answer -- but none suggests the path of learning Torah. Why?

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Avot Today blogposts for November 2022
Avot Today blogposts for October 2022
Avot Today blogposts for September 2022
Avot Today blogposts for August 2022
Avot Today blogposts for July 2022 
Avot Today blogposts for June 2022