In this context I
have been troubled by Rambam’s lengthy and at times impassioned commentary on
Avot 4:4. This short mishnah is taught in the name of Rabbi Levitas Ish Yavneh:
מְאֹד מְאֹד הֱוֵי שְׁפַל רֽוּחַ, שֶׁתִּקְוַת אֱנוֹשׁ רִמָּה
In translation: “Be very, very humble, for the hope of mortal man is the worm”.
The mishnah
itself is troublesome enough. Why is it even a mishnah, when it appears as a
verse that has been cut-and-pasted from Ecclesiasticus—the book of Ben Sira
that was not accorded canonical status by the Great Assembly. And no-one hopes
for worms. Our sages have dealt with these issues, but Rambam’s commentary
requires attention because it contains a most remarkable passage which, it
seems to me, is quite unparalleled by commentaries anywhere else on Pirkei
Avot:
והנה ראיתי בספר
מספרי המדות שנשאל לא' מן החשובים החסידים ונאמר לו איזה יום הוא ששמחת בו יותר
מכל ימיך אמר יום שהייתי הולך בספינה והיה מקומי בפחות שבמקומות הספינה בין חבילות
הבגדים והיו בספינה סוחרים ובעלי ממון ואני הייתי שוכב במקומי ואחד מאנשי הספינה
קם להשתין ואהי נקל בעיניו ונבזה שהייתי שפל בעיניו מאד עד שגלה ערותו והשתין עלי
ותמהתי מהתחזק תכונת העזות בנפשו וחי השם לא כאבה נפשי למעשהו כלל ולא התעורר ממני
כחי ושמחתי שמחה גדולה כשהגעתי לגבול שלא יכאיבני בזוי החסר ההוא ולא הרגישה נפשי
אליו ואין ספק שזאת תכלית שפלות הרוח עד שיתרחק מן הגאוה:
In translation: And look, I
saw in a book from the books on middot [i.e. personal qualities] that
one of the important pious men was asked: "Which day is the one upon which
you rejoiced more than any of your days?" He said: "The day that I
was travelling on a ship and my place was in the lowest places of the ship,
among bundles of clothing. There were also traders and men of means on the ship.
I was lying in my place and one of the men on board the ship got up to urinate.
I was insignificant in his eyes, lowly and of such insignificance in his eyes
that he exposed himself and urinated on me. I was astonished by the sheer
intensity of the brazenness in his soul. But, as God lives, my soul was not at
all pained by his action and I did not bestir myself. I rejoiced with great joy
that I reached the extreme in that the disgrace caused by this deficient person
did not pain me and [that] my soul did not feel [anything] against him." There
is no doubt that this is the very limit of lowliness of spirit, to the point of
being distanced from arrogance.
For one thing,
Rabbi Akiva at Avot 3:18 endorses the principle that mankind is beloved of God
because it is created in His image. Failing to stop this brazen act or at least
to take evasive action is a passive condonation of the desecration of God’s
image, as it were, and the dignity of one’s fellow humans.
Avot 6:6 reminds
us that one of the ways of acquiring Torah is through loving rebuke. This does
not exclusively mean receiving rebukes in good heart but also embraces rebuking
others in a spirit of love and friendship. Where is the rebuke here? Even if
the offending party had refrained from urinating on this pious man, the very act
of exposing himself should itself earn rebuke.
As many earlier
posts on Avot Today have affirmed, the Ethics of the Fathers holds humility to
be an important component of the make-up of a practising Jew. But is the conduct of the pious man in the
Rambam’s story even correctly construed as humility? By his own admission he
held no feelings towards the offending fellow traveller at all. But what has
this to do with humility? It looks as much like an abrogation of any feelings
of care or responsibility towards a fellow human being. Can this form of
humility—if it even be humility—be truly a means by which a person is better
equipped to learn Torah, to serve God and to be a useful contributor to the
society of which he is part?
