AVOT TODAY miscellany

Is Pirkei Avot becoming more popular? My survey of online citations of mishnayot and baraitot from Avot over the first quarter of 2023 shows a big leap when compared with figures for 2022. Citations are up a whopping 32.6 per cent, from 46 to 61, with the same two favourites leading the pack: Hillel’s teaching at Avot 1:16 (“If I am not for me, who is for me; and if I am only for me, what am I; and if not now, when?”) and Rabbi Tarfon’s caution at Avot 2:21 (“It’s not for you to finish the task, but nor are you free to desist from it”). Hillel and Rabbi Tarfon scored 5 cites apiece, with the next two most popular mishnayot earning 3 cites each: these are Yehoshua ben Perachyah (Avot 1:6: “Make a teacher for yourself, acquire a friend and judge people meritoriously”) and Ben Zoma (Avot 4:1: “Who is wise/strong/rich/respected?...”). With the summer Avot season just starting up, expect much more from the Ethics of the Fathers in your online reading material. We will report again in July on citations over the first half of the year.

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The Dee Pirkei Avot Project. In the wake of the tragic, horrific murder of Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, the Dee Pirkei Avot Project has been set up, to enable families all over the world to learn Avot le'ilui nishmot the three Dee ladies. If you would like to join the Project and receive each week three mishnayot from Avot together with discussion points, follow this link.

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 Last month’s most popular post: In “Don’t Rush to Answer”, which we posted on 13 March, we revisited Avot 5:9, which lists seven ways in which you can tell whether someone is a chacham, a wise person, or a golem, an uncultivated clod. Why should the way one answers questions be one of the crucial indicators? This Facebook post received 158 views, which made it last month’s readers’ favourite. You can check it out here.  

Curiously, this topic was not so popular with readers of the Avot Today blog, which publishes exactly the same posts at virtually the same time. Blog readers were more inclined to read “Is the Devil Really in the Detail?”, which considered how Pirkei Avot views generalities and specifics. If that is more to your liking, you can find it here.

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Coming soon to a screen near you… If you have the good fortune to live in Jerusalem, this Sunday evening, 16 April 2023, you can watch the world premiere of “Abarbanel: A Man of Many Worlds”. This is the latest release by Rabbi Berel Wein and the Destiny Foundation. The performance commences at 8.00pm at the Pelech Girls’ School, Baka, and if you can’t get there you can watch it on Zoom. I’m embarrassed to say that, when I first saw the promotional material, I read it as “A Man of Many Words”, since the Abarbanel’s commentary on the Torah is extremely long. So is his Nachalot Avot, an excellent if lengthy commentary on Avot which has recently been condensed into a shorter and more easily readable form (see details here). Further details of the movie launch can be found on the illustration that accompanies this post, since at the time of writing there was no information on the Destiny Foundation website.

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