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.