Shavuot and Shabbat miscellany

Are you a goth?  I imagine that few if any of my readers would say they were. But here’s something to think about. It’s a piece on Hey Alma by Sophia Zohar, who writes of Pirkei Avot:

“…Unlike the rest of the Mishnah, it records no arguments, only advice, quips and zingers about how to live a moral life. It was my entry into Jewish study because of its accessible nature… It forces me to think hard about what it means to receive the Torah, a concept I find hard to grasp.

What makes Pirkei Avot “goth” is the vivid, dark imagery and dramatic statements it uses to drive home its messages…

For me, goth is the radical notion that death and decay can be beautiful. That when we hide from these concepts, we also hide from ourselves. That these concepts bring us closer to our emotions and what truly makes us human. That mortality isn’t scary… it’s style. Pirkei Avot also delivers in this area, using the same bold, in-your-face language that the goth aesthetic communicates visually”.

As an example, she cites Avot 2:7 (“[Hillel] saw a skull floating on the face of the water. He said to it: because you drowned others, they drowned you. And in the end, they that drowned you will be drowned”), commenting:

“The “gothness” of this passage is pretty straightforward… there’s a skull in it, an age old symbol of mortality. However, there’s also a deeper significance. The skull’s representation of death communicates a type of permanence in Hillel’s message. The drama of this passage emphasizes how critical our actions are to how we interact with, and are affected by, the universe. Commentary suggests that Hillel may have known the identity of the skull. This contributes to the fact that this skull was a real human whose actions lead to their death”.

She also comments in goth mode on Avot 3:1 (Akavya ben Mahalalel’s advice on avoidance of sin) and Avot 4:29 (Rabbi Elazar HaKappar on the futility of seeking to escape judgment).

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Kadosh kadosh kadosh. The Dee Pirkei Avot Project continues apace. This Shabbat it focuses on the advice of Yehoshua ben Perachyah at Avot 1:6 to judge others favourably, asking: “Is it really possible to “judge every person favourably” in every single situation?”  Along with this project comes a beautiful song by Shimon Craimer, “Kadosh kadosh kadosh”, which you can listen to—and also watch because it is accompanied by a selection of lovely family photos—on YouTube here.

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A teacher for our times. Rabbi Berel Wein is one of the great English language expositors of Pirkei Avot in our generation. Seasoning his deep knowledge of Jewish history and his commitment to the precepts of Lithuanian mussar with sharp comments about Jewish values in contemporary society, he draws large audiences to his weekly shiurim on the tractate. Many readers may already have enjoyed his book on the topic: Pirkei Avos: Teachings for Our Times. Rabbi Wein had major surgery earlier this week and Avot Today wishes him a swift recovery to the best of health. His name, for refuah shelemah purposes:  הרב דוב בן אסתר (Harav Dov ben Esther).

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Learning from everyone. Here’s something to argue about at the dining table over the next few days.  In the most recent in Rabbi Pinchas Winston’s “Perceptions” series, here, he writes the following regarding Ben Zoma’s teaching which opens the fourth perek:

“As the mishnah says, a wise person is one who learns from every person (Avot 4:1). It doesn’t qualify what kind of people are excluded from this. Rabbi Meir even went so far as to continue to learn Torah from Elisha ben Abuya, even after he became Acher, the quintessential heretic (Chagigah 15b).

The Gemora questioned the wisdom of Rabbi Meir’s choice of teacher, but concluded that he had the ability to keep the good and reject the bad. The rest of us don’t, so we should only learn from reputable teachers who have the proper Torah credentials. But it has been said that God talks to the Jewish people through their enemies, so even though they do not make good teachers, their messages often unwittingly contain information God wants us to know”.

Here are a few questions to start with:

If we have already learned from two earlier mishnayot in Avot that a person should make for himself a rabbi, presumably to learn from, what does Ben Zoma’s teaching add if it is limited to learning from “reputable teachers who have the proper Torah credentials”?

What are the “proper Torah credentials” and how can we ascertain whether a person has them or not?

Does the internet or an artificial intelligence app such as ChatGPT constitute a “person” for the purposes of this mishnah?

In this context, which does not specify what is to be learned, is there any difference between learning Torah, learning how to behave properly and learning how to use a computer?

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Say “cheese”.  It is traditional for Jews to eat cheese cake on Shavuot. There is no explicit reference to cheese cake in Pirkei Avot. But can you find any subtle allusions to cheese cake in this tractate? Please post your suggestions below.

Chag same’ach and Shabbat shalom!