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.