Avot in retrospect: a summary of last month's blogposts

In case you missed them, here's a list of items posted to the Avot Today Facebook Group in FEBRUARY 2023: 

27 February 2023: Setting an example -- for good or otherwise. We revisit the position of politicians, who are uniquely equipped to influence us. How does their conduct measure up against Avot?

Friday 24 February 2023: It's not all in the mind... We have thoughts, we speak and we do things. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi's mishnah at Avot 2:1 may be referring to God's perception of how we do these things.

Wednesday 22 February 2023: For Heaven's sake! We're just having fun. Is there a place for leisure activities in the serious upper reaches of Jewish commitment? 

Monday 20 February: If not now, when? A time for focus, a time for family. Does Hillel's famous teaching shed light on when young Torah scholars should get married?

Friday 17 February 2023: Learning from the lives of Torah sages: Avot 4:1 speaks of how the person who is wise is one who learns from everyone. But do we need caution when learning from rabbinical biographies?

Tuesday 14 February 2023: So do we praise poverty or not? In The Dignity of Difference Rabbi Lord Sacks writes: "Throughout its history, Judaism resisted any attempt to romanticize, rationalize or anaesthetize the pain of hunger, starvation, or need".  Does this accord with the teachings in Pirkei Avot and beyond?

Sunday 12 February 2023: Coming adrift in a sea of prayer: Praying while under the influence of a powerful pain-killer provides the context for a discussion of Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel's advice not to make one's prayer "fixed". 

Sunday 5 February 2023: Of Rabbis and Realities: two mishnayot in Avot tell us to make a rav, a teacher for ourselves. What do these teachings mean for the teachers we choose?

Friday 3 February 2023: Beshalach, be Grateful: In a Torah reading where God bestows so much kindness upon the enslaved nation that He has just emancipated, it's curious that no-one seems to say "thank you" for His efforts.

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Avot Today blogposts for January 2023
Avot Today blogposts for December 2022
Avot Today blogposts for November 2022
Avot Today blogposts for October 2022
Avot Today blogposts for September 2022
Avot Today blogposts for August 2022