The second most frequently cited teaching online over the first half of 2023 comes from Hillel, who says (Avot 1:12):
הֱוֵי מִתַּלְמִידָיו
שֶׁל אַהֲרֹן, אוֹהֵב שָׁלוֹם וְרוֹדֵף שָׁלוֹם, אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת,
וּמְקָרְבָן לַתּוֹרָה
“Be among the disciples of Aharon—love peace, pursue
peace, love people and draw them close to the Torah”.
Like every other Tanna, Hillel is careful with his choice
of words, using only enough of them to convey his meaning. This can be
frustrating at times. For example, when Hillel asks (at Avot 1:14) “If not now,
when?”, Torah scholars have offered many quite different explanations. Careful
selection of words however offers a chance for us to ask questions that offer
the prospect of discovering a fuller, richer meaning.
Why, we can ask, does Hillel tell us both to be among
the disciples of Aharon, a man whose people-friendly commitment to peace and Torah
is legendary, and to pursue the same ends as he did? If he had only said, “Be
among the disciples of Aharon”, it would be difficult to think of any other
ways we could all learn from him, given the stellar peacemaking profile that
midrash paints of him. And if Hillel had only said, “love peace, pursue peace, love
people and draw them close to the Torah”, what in addition might the Aharon
name-check add to our understanding of how we should comply?
One possibility is that Hillel, by mentioning the name
of Aharon, is inviting us to make a discreet comparison between him and his
elder brother Moshe. Both were at the helm of the nascent Jewish nation in the
long march from slavery to the borders of the Promised Land; both were also
masters of the newly-given Torah, Moshe being pre-eminent. Their aims and
objectives were identical. However, their record in peace-making was not.
If Hillel’s citation of Aharon in this mishnah invites
us to draw comparison with Moshe, it can also be said to do so with regard to
his grandson, Pinchas. It is with Pinchas that God establishes His covenant of
peace (Bemidbar 25:12) after he restored order and halted a plague through his
decisive action (Bemidbar 25:6-8). However, while the name of Pinchas is
eternally bound in with peace, this is a form of peace-making that, we are
taught, is not for us to emulate. So, taking their track records into account,
it would hardly have been appropriate for Hillel to urge us to be talmidim
of either Moshe or Pinchas if peace was our objective.
The Divrei Yoel of Satmar Rebbe R’ Yoel
Teitelbaum offers a further perspective. Loving peace and pursuing it are not
absolutes, he explains: they are means to a greater end because they must
themselves be compatible with the Torah. Where a dispute is between righteous, God-fearing
people, there is an imperative to make peace that is lacking where the
disputants are not. No example is given but it is easy to think of one: a fight
between thieves over the allocation of their spoil. Not only may one not love
such nefarious people; one may even be required to hate them (the mitzvah of
hating the wicked is complex and nuanced: for a useful and accessible source-based
discussion of this topic see R’ Dovid Rosenfeld, “Should We Hate the Wicked?”, here).
According to the Divrei Yoel, Aharon had the ability
to discern whom he should draw close and from whom he should keep his distance—and
this is no easy matter. This is because the yetzer hara, human
inclination, tempts us to misidentify disputants and their motives. In short, we
should emulate Aharon and learn, from his experiences, to pick the right disputes
to settle and the right battles to fight.
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